WASHINGTON - Lethal injections used to execute death sentences do not guarantee that the condemned will die without suffering, a new study found.
The three-drug method, used in most US death penalty executions, includes one drug to induce sleep, another to stop breathing and a third to stop the heart.
A dozen states suspended their executions amid debate over a study published in 2005 in the Lancet showing that those being executed had not been properly anesthetized.
The study released this week by PLoS Medicine, based on detailed information on 41 executions in North Carolina and California, found that those being put to death did not always react as expected to different substances used.
In some cases, the condemned continued to breathe many minutes after receiving the drug meant to stop their breathing or to paralyze them.
In others, hearts continued beating as long as nine minutes after receiving the last substance, potassium chloride, meant to kill them immediately.
The data also showed anesthesia was still not working reliably, and that subjects could be conscious when hit with the second drug.
Doctors underscored that the US constitution bans cruel and unusual punishment.
"Execution by lethal injection, even if it uses tools of intensive care such as intravenous tubing and beeping heart monitors, has the same relationship to medicine that an executioners ax has to surgery," said an editorial in PLoS Medicine, which opposes capital punishment.
04/24/2007 16:54 GMT