Thread by @WesElyMD

1/🧵 Should Doctors be involved in Lethal Injection?

📍We take an oath to heal
📍Yet Prisons hire Docs to end life
📍I wrote this Op-Ed to challenge the system
📍I’d love your thoughts

(next tweet has a screenshot to bypass paywall)

@GovBillLee

bit.ly/3eZdX1Q

2/ There is a pervasive myth that #lethalinjection is a medical procedure, but this couldn’t be more wrong.

This was a falsehood created by someone with no scientific training.

Suffocation…imagine you’re suffocating…feeling like you’re being buried alive…

@SteveCooperEsq

3/ The force you’d exert to breathe would suck water into air sacks of your lungs.

This is what’s seen at autopsy in the lungs of 77% of prisoners after execution by lethal injection.

Pulmonary Edema. Drowning in water.

bit.ly/3SA2BPj

4/ Lethal injection was touted in 1977 as involving “no pain, no spasms, no smells or sound – just sleep then death”.

This was a falsehood created by someone with no scientific training.

The state of Tennessee halted executions this year to investigate.

bit.ly/3TLsixy

5/ Impersonation

Regardless of what any of us feel about the death penalty, we should all oppose use of medicines in executions—a practice that impersonates a complicated medical procedure in a poorly monitored setting.

6/ This too often results in botched executions (~8%) and simultaneously imposes psychological harm for the healthcare professionals and others involved.

bit.ly/3TyKKK4

7/ The drugs listed in different state’s lethal injection protocols, and the quantities used in an execution, are based upon experimentation and speculation—not the art and practice of medicine.

bit.ly/3FdWZY6

8/ A string of horrific scenes in execution chambers, in Tennessee, Alabama, and other states, have made clear that condemned prisoners often experience agonizing deaths.

bit.ly/3StA6Dc

9/ Medical communities and pharmaceutical companies have never wanted a role in lethal injection.

Over 30 healthcare associations including the AMA have uniformly stated that it fundamentally violates our core commitment to preserve life.

bit.ly/3FaezMM

10/ The burden placed on those involved in performing executions is immense.

Correctional staff are charged with carrying out an execution by lethal injection for which they are medically ill-equipped.

11/ Just last month, Joe James Jr was repeatedly cut with a scalpel as Alabama Department of Corrections staff tried to establish an IV line for three hours—the longest lethal injection execution in American history.

bit.ly/3MXocQJ

12/ In Arizona and in Oklahoma, struggling staff when things went awry froze, uncertain whether to resuscitate him or find some other way to kill him.

bit.ly/3sqxQSC

13/ When I graduated from medical school, I took an oath of primum non nocere (first, do no harm), and I would be breaking my oath to you or anyone else if I ever intentionally used medications to harm someone.

bit.ly/3TteW9m

14/ Poll - Medical personnel in this role…
 
🔸Do you think your doctor should be involved in the act of lethal injection?

15/fin
My Thoughts:
📌 Regardless of one’s opinion about capital punishment, lethal injection is a flawed construct
📌 More tinkering will not fix it
📌 It is wrong for those in the medical profession to be involved
📌 It’s forced impersonation
📌 We must be left out of it

It’s about intent. Intent to heal vs intent to harm. @eji_org see thread and thanks for your advocacy