Virginia Paper Retracts Erroneous Lethal Injection Information
On September 28, the Danville Register & Bee ( Danville, Virginia) ran an article on a lethal injection case. The article incorrectly indicated that the American Society of Anesthesiologists was “hoping to weigh in on the case and persuade the court justices that the inmates are right.”
ASA made the paper’s executive editor aware of the erroneous reporting and asked for a retraction.
Here is the correction as it appeared in the paper’s October 4 edition.
In the story, “Emmett execution could be delayed,” which appeared on page A1 of the Sept. 28 edition, it was incorrectly reported that the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) is hoping to persuade the Supreme Court that two Kentucky death row inmates are right in claiming that the procedure of lethal injection used in executions can inflict pain and suffering on the inmate and is therefore unconstitutional. It is the position of the ASA that capital punishment in any form is not the practice of medicine and legal execution should not necessitate participation by an anesthesiologist or any other physician.