X-Message-Number: 6097
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 09:19:27 -0700
From: David Brandt-Erichsen <>
Subject: more on Australian machine

The Telegraph (UK) published the following article describing Dr Nitschke's
euthanasia machine.  The machine is not actually necessary under the new
Australian law because the law allows the physician to administer the lethal
medication.  A machine like this might be useful under the 9th Circuit
ruling, although it might be testing the legal waters a bit at this stage
and hence not be too good for cryonics just yet.

The Man And His Machine

The idea behind the "death machine", as it has been dubbed by its creators,
Dr Philip Nitschke and a computer technician, Des Carne, is to put patients
completely in control of their own deaths, write Robert Uhlig, and Geoffrey
Lee Martin in Sydney

Its computer program, called Deliverance, checks that a patient realises
what he or she is doing before administering a lethal dose of barbiturate.
It uses an adaptation of Microsoft Access, a database program that runs on
Windows Pcs. Yesterday Dr Nitschke said that he planned to make the program
available on the Internet. He has already sent a free copy on a computer
disk to interested people in Germany.

Dr Nitschke, a member of a group of doctors in Darwin who see euthanasia as
"a progressive and civilising way to go", added: "We don't want to be seen
to profiteering from it."  The computer asks the patient three questions.
"They're all basically restatements of the same question: do you know what
you're doing?" he said. The procedure can be cancelled at any stage - except
after the third question has been answered with a YES.

Dr Nitschke said: "If you answer yes to all three questions the fourth
screen spells it right out."

Once the third question is answered affirmatively, a signal goes from the
computer's parallel port - normally used to connect a printer - via a relay
switch to an air compressor that pushes the plunger of a syringe. The
syringe contains a mixture of two chemicals. One is sodium pentabarbitone, a
strong anaesthetic commonly used by veterinarians. The other drug is a
muscle relaxant - a derivative of curare called vecuronium.

[Note:  These are pharmaceuticals included in the DRAFT pharmaceutical
guidelines prepared by the Government working party. The guidelines are not
yet final so are subject to change.]

"It delivers the lethal mixture as fast as possible," he said. "The patient
will be asleep within seconds and dead within five to 10 minutes." The
mixture acts so quickly, doctors say, that a patient who injected the drugs
on his own would fall asleep before a lethal dose could be given.  Dr
Nitschke said: "When I've talked about the issue of a patient pressing their
own button I get a bit concerned if the patient says to me 'I want you to do
this'. I wonder if they're accepting the responsibility.

"This machine is simply a way of making the responsibility very clear and
enabling the doctor to move a little bit out of the physical space, rather
than standing along side them with a syringe in one hand, waiting for them
to say 'Go'."  Dr Nitschke said he would lend the syringe driver to patients
within the Northern Territory wanting to perform euthanasia.

 <David Brandt-Erichsen>


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