This Dr X is lying and since he touted to be a qualified doctor, his lying is perjury before a legal commission.

"There's nothing medical about it nor to equate to it. An execution has absolutely nothing even remotely connected to medicine," said the doctor, whose voice was disguised to protect his identity."--Dr X\

1) The executioners use medical equipment:
a. a medical gurney,or operating table (Ca, Ill, Fed);
b. medical quality drugs -- er poisons;
c. a medical needle and intercath; no other use
d. a medical delivery system; no other use
e. a medical procedure to get into a vein; no other use;
f a medical monitoring system; it is for witnesses
only;
1) An EKG used only to detect asystole, not pain;
2) A casual EEG cannot show pain (I don't believe)
3) The only function is to "make the execution
more "medical".
g The original procedure was designed by a physician
and like other methods of state killing looked good
on paper , but the more complicated it gets, it does
not look so good.
h Why was a doctor consulted if the procedure was
not medical?
No, there is nothing "medical" about an execution, and Florida is on our Northern border with Canada.

This Dr X is lying and since he touted to be a qualified doctor, his lying is perjury before a legal commission. Otherwise, he is stupid, and actually believes what he says, which means that his competency as a doctor is questionable. This is not a casual testimony on his part,
but suggests a deeper corruption in the Florida DOC, maybe opening up a can of worms....

Dr Joseph Guillotin suggested a machine to execute criminals, and a man named Schmidt designed the head cutting off device that was eventually called the guillotine.

The good doctor was sorry he ever suggested a head cutting off machine to replace the more civilized means of execution like breaking on a wheel, tearing apart by four horse teams, boiling in oil, and the French method of hanging--long forgotten. A doctor was not needed. Noble could be beheaded with a sword, and although the headsman was usually proficient, but not with a peasant.

Oklahoma was faced with a problem; although the legislature voted to replace the broken down electric chair with a gas chamber, and let out bids, the cost for a state of the art gas chamber was $200,000, far too much for them. The electric chair, not used since 1966, required $30,000 to fix it, so the legislature looked for another way to murder, and came up with injection. They sought medical advice, and the state medical examiner obliged.

With this background, Dr X sold his soul to the devil when he stated that executions have nothing to do with medicine. And the state loses more credibility by maintaining such a stance. Once more, shame on the Florida DOC!

G M Larkin MD
Charlotte NC-USA