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Volume 354:1221-1229 March 23, 2006 Number 12 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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On February 14, 2006, a U.S. District Court issued an unprecedented ruling concerning the California execution by lethal injection of murderer Michael Morales. The ruling ordered that the state have a physician, specifically an anesthesiologist, personally supervise the execution, or else drastically change the standard protocol for lethal injections.¹ Under the protocol, the anesthetic sodium thiopental is given at massive doses that are expected to stop breathing and extinguish consciousness within one minute after administration; then the paralytic agent pancuronium is given, followed by a fatal dose of potassium chloride.

The judge found, however, that evidence from execution logs showed . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Source Information

Dr. Gawande is a general and endocrine surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston.

An interview with Dr. Carlo Musso can be heard at www.nejm.org.

Related Letters:

Why Physicians Participate in Executions
Bonchek L. I., Ellerin B. E., Kramers C., Deinum J., Yaes R. J., Spencer S. S., Gawande A.
Extract | Full Text | PDF  
N Engl J Med 2006; 355:99-100, Jul 6, 2006. Correspondence

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Annas, G. J. (2008). Toxic Tinkering -- Lethal-Injection Execution and the Constitution. NEJM 359: 1512-1518 [Full Text]  
• Black, L., Sade, R. M. (2007). Lethal Injection and Physicians: State Law vs Medical Ethics. JAMA 298: 2779-2781 [Full Text]  
• Bonchek, L. I., Ellerin, B. E., Kramers, C., Deinum, J., Yaes, R. J., Spencer, S. S., Gawande, A. (2006). Why physicians participate in executions.. NEJM 355: 99-100 [Full Text]  
• Steinbrook, R. (2006). New technology, old dilemma--monitoring EEG activity during executions.. NEJM 354: 2525-2527 [Full Text]