Statements from Doctors and Medical Organizations

Articles with Statements from Doctors

Executions Halted as Doctors Balk

Pauline Vu, Stateline​.org (March 21, 2007)

Until recent­ly, the extent of physi­cian par­tic­i­pa­tion had been unclear to the pub­lic. According to a 2005 arti­cle in The Journal of Legal Medicine, 17 states require physi­cian par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions. The extent of par­tic­i­pa­tion, how­ev­er, is unclear. While Colorado and Georgia state that physi­cians must par­tic­i­pate ​“to the extent nec­es­sary,” most of the states call for doc­tors to declare death or sim­ply be present — with oth­er poten­tial duties unmen­tioned.

An addi­tion­al 18 states allow for the par­tic­i­pa­tion of doc­tors, some­times by not explic­it­ly pro­hibit­ing them, accord­ing to the arti­cle. Missouri’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols, for exam­ple, don’t men­tion med­ical per­son­nel, but the recent court case revealed that a doc­tor had been fill­ing syringes with anes­thet­ic.

Only two states Illinois and Kentucky — for­bid doc­tors from par­tic­i­pat­ing in or attend­ing exe­cu­tions.

States are con­fronting the physi­cian dilem­ma in a vari­ety of ways. Georgia and Oklahoma recent­ly enact­ed laws that for­bid state med­ical boards from pun­ish­ing med­ical work­ers who par­tic­i­pate in executions.

American Society of Anesthesiologists Statement on Sodium Thiopental’s Removal from the Market (Jan. 2011)

The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) and its mem­bers are extreme­ly trou­bled to learn that the anes­thet­ic drug, sodi­um thiopen­tal (Pentothal®), will no longer be avail­able to patients in the U.S. or any oth­er coun­try due to the unfor­tu­nate cir­cum­stances in Italy that led the sole man­u­fac­tur­er, Hospira, to cease pro­duc­tion of the drug.

Sodium thiopen­tal is an impor­tant and med­ical­ly nec­es­sary anes­thet­ic agent that has been used for years to induce anes­the­sia in patients under­go­ing sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dures. Although its use has decreased in recent years due to the intro­duc­tion of new­er med­ica­tions, such as propo­fol, sodi­um thiopen­tal is still con­sid­ered a first-line anes­thet­ic in many cas­es includ­ing those involv­ing geri­atric, neu­ro­log­ic, car­dio­vas­cu­lar and obstet­ric patients, for whom the side effects of oth­er med­ica­tions could lead to serious complications.

The ASA cer­tain­ly does not con­done the use of sodi­um thiopen­tal for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, but we also do not con­done using the issue as the basis to place undue bur­dens on the dis­tri­b­u­tion of this crit­i­cal drug to the United States. It is an unfor­tu­nate irony that many more lives will be lost or put in jeop­ardy as a result of not hav­ing the drug avail­able for its legit­i­mate medical use.

ASA has been work­ing dili­gent­ly in recent years to address the increas­ing prob­lem of drug short­ages that jeop­ar­dize patient safe­ty. In November, ASA co-spon­sored a Drug Shortage Summit with our coali­tion part­ners in an attempt to devel­op solu­tions to address these ongo­ing issues. Today’s announce­ment under­scores the need to devel­op those solu­tions, such as redun­dan­cies with­in the man­u­fac­tur­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem, to ensure that our patients have the nec­es­sary drugs avail­able when they are need­ed. ASA will con­tin­ue its efforts to work with the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and its coali­tion part­ners to address this impor­tant patient safety issue.

THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF ANESTHESIOLOGISTS

Anesthesiologists: Physicians pro­vid­ing the life­line of mod­ern med­i­cine. Founded in 1905, the American Society of Anesthesiologists is an edu­ca­tion­al, research and sci­en­tif­ic asso­ci­a­tion with 44,000 mem­bers orga­nized to raise and main­tain the stan­dards of the med­ical prac­tice of anes­the­si­ol­o­gy and improve the care of the patient.

For more infor­ma­tion on the field of anes­the­si­ol­o­gy, vis­it the American Society of Anesthesiologists Web site at www​.asahq​.org

(source: American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA))