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> Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=6097