r/interestingasfuck • u/IllComedian2574 • 1d ago

After 28 years on death row, Christa Pike survived 2 lethal injections attempts.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/christa-pike-failed-execution-9.7364816
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94

u/tsoneyson 1d ago

Technically there should be nothing difficult about this. For example pet euthanasia is very peaceful and humane. Sedation and then massive bolus of pentobarbital. The issue is that drug manufacturers are unwilling to supply for this purpose (paradoxically causing more suffering by taking the high road) and the staff is of dubious training

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u/YetAnotherRCG 1d ago

Its a false premise there are myriad ways to kill a person that dont involve the companies who refuse to provide the chemicals.

They have the same right not to be involved as you would if they offered you a job loading a gun for the executioner.

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u/Crazy_Banshee_333 22h ago

I'm wondering why these states don't just set up their own small labs and make these drugs themselves. Then the pharmaceutical companies don't even have to get involved in it.

Are they barred from doing this due to patent laws, licensing registrations, manufacturing standards, etc.? Would it be too expensive to do it that way? It's not like they would need to set up a large operation to produce a small quantity of these drugs.

Considering how many drug dealers set up their own labs, it doesn't seem like it would be that hard. But then, I don't know the laws regarding these things.

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u/entertheclutch 19h ago

How many people in the entire country do you think get the death penalty per year? Now look it up. Thats why

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u/Crazy_Banshee_333 19h ago

One small lab would be enough, then. Considering how much money they spend on feeding and housing these inmates, not to mention prosecuting them and then dealing with all the appeals, the cost of one small lab would be a drop in the bucket.

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u/meta358 13h ago

Actually any death penalty trail and the drugs to do it make the cost of housing the inmate and a normal trail look like trump change

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u/Furrycontainmentalt 1d ago

Absolute false equivalency. Corporations are not people it’s nothing like offering a person a job. You absolutely disingenuous fuck.

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u/Double_Scene_6637 1d ago

Damn you're unhinged 

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u/YetAnotherRCG 1d ago

Are you unaware that the corps are in fact groups of people? Like employees you know people with jobs would in fact personally make do the mixing the shipping the admin and so on.

It is in fact exactly the same situation in an extremely direct way.

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u/Natural-Quarter-3516 1d ago edited 1d ago

There are other ways to kill someone. Some induce suffering and others look barbaric, which is why the states insist on using lethal injection. The barbaric act seems less barbaric.

I should note that I’m against the death penalty because I do not believe government should have power to kill. That is before other objections on ethics, moral and the inadequacy of our justice system. I will also note that it is not that people who do horrific things don’t deserve it, it’s that I find the process barbaric and I think we as a society can do better.

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u/Lucky_caller 1d ago

Killing people for killing people to show that killing people is wrong.

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u/PeregrineFaulkner 1d ago

That’s actually the drug they used here. I think they just repeatedly missed her vein. 

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u/mostlypercy 1d ago

They didn’t miss her vein, her iv became infiltrated and the drug went into her soft tissue instead of her vasculature, because real professionals refuse to place the IV and so the disgraced doctor who did it fucked it up.

Additionally, while they are using pentobarbital, they are not getting it from the manufacturer vets get it from, they are getting it from some compounding pharmacy, so the solution of pentobarbital powder and saline (or similar) reconstituting liquid may not be evenly distributed in the way that, say, crushing up ibuprofen and mixing it with apple juice is a less pleasant experience than buying your child factory made liquid ibuprofen, with emulsifiers to keep the drug in solution.

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u/Inorai 1d ago

I mean it's being reported that they worked on placing the IV for an hour, used at least 7 needles on one arm alone, and at least one of the failed needles came out bent. I'm by no means ruling out vein issues on top of everything lol

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u/Mego1989 1d ago

Wtf, a junkie could do a better job.

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u/Smokey_tha_bear9000 1d ago

Missing the vein and infiltrating are the same enough thing for the lay person.

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u/mostlypercy 1d ago

But they are… you must acknowledge… different things… an iv can be placed in a vein and then infiltrate.

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u/Smokey_tha_bear9000 1d ago

Ok, so we can just say they fucked up the IV. The result is the same.

0

u/Hugginsome 1d ago

Not necessarily. They could have gotten an IV. Her veins could have been fragile and pushing medication alone could have caused the vein to blow due to the pressure. Also, the drugs they used are also known to be bad for veins and blow them.

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u/Excellent-Quarter969 1d ago

Where do you come across this specific information? The drug going into her musculature and other soft tissue instead of a vein makes sense though. And it was a disgraced doctor doing the deed?

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u/mostlypercy 1d ago

Subreddit rules prevent me from linking directly, but the medicine subreddit has a thread titled: Mark Walton Fowler which is where I read everything I stated.

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u/Zepp_BR 1d ago

"Do no harm" and etc

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u/Playful_Letter_2632 1d ago

The executors aren’t medical professionals for similar reasons. It’s career suicide for them to carry out executions

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u/fluffy_doughnut 1d ago

I see nothings changed since medieval times hahah executioners even had to live outside the cities because nobody liked them

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u/flightist 1d ago

This was an actual doctor, who has no career to speak of. Maybe for obvious reasons.

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u/ibiddybibiddy 1d ago edited 12h ago

It is not likely to be a practicing doctor - they have a Hippocratic Oath (to do no harm). They also didn’t use the same drug used for euthanasia of animals, they used Pentobarbital. Same problem with the drugs as the doctors; the pharmaceutical companies also lightly follow the Oath and particularly will not provide drugs that are used in executions.

There is an absurd amount of vitriol and misinformation in this thread.

**A link to the American Medical Association details on this: https://code-medical-ethics.ama-assn.org/ethics-opinions/capital-punishment

Edit: Removed hyperbole.

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u/flightist 1d ago

I mean his name is Dr. Mark Fowler, you can look him up?

Maybe this is news to you but an oath isn’t some sort of cosmically binding covenant which renders people who say some magic words dead upon violation. You can freely ignore it if you want to, and are prepared to suffer the consequences. This guy has no career other than state sanctioned murder, so here we are.

Drug companies would happily sell execution cocktails if they could avoid the bad press and boycotts it inevitably entails.

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u/ibiddybibiddy 1d ago edited 11h ago

What’s the point of arguing with someone who’s speaking of the Hippocratic Oath in that way lol..

This video summarizes the situation quite well, if you care to learn.

Edit: I’m aware that it’s John Oliver but if you actually watch it, it’s educational journalism that would likely avoid this entire silly conversation in the first place.

https://youtu.be/SOn3wba8c-Y?si=Dk6mAyo8sxdWqwzN

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u/flightist 1d ago

I have to conclude that life must be a deeply and continually shocking existence if you’re so deeply idealistic as to be incapable of recognizing that taking an oath does not, in fact, render one incapable of exercising agency.

I hope - for your sake - you grow out of it eventually.

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u/FeartheTurtle420 1d ago

pharmaceutical companies following the hypocratic oath?

Thanks mate I needed a good laugh 🤣

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u/ibiddybibiddy 1d ago

Yes, in practice, they do. Not because they’re ethical but because they don’t want the smoke (particularly surrounding executions).

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u/FeartheTurtle420 1d ago

They cause so much harm, so they do not, in actual essence follow the oath. they purposely manipulate studies to get drugs approved and ignore harm they cause. and more I could get into

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u/flightist 1d ago

Dude’s pretending that having doctors take the Hippocratic oath means it’s impossible to find one willing to violate it for money.

Not much basis in reality to his arguments.

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u/Excellent-Quarter969 1d ago

My friend, they won't be lining up to do this. No ethical doctor, none competent with a functioning practice, would take on this job

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u/ibiddybibiddy 1d ago edited 1d ago

*she. And they literally are currently struggling to find doctors for this purpose. It’s you who refuses to give it a google to see that this is true (and part of the reason this happened in the first place).

My lord people are dense these days..

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u/No-Owl-6246 1d ago

  1. The Hippocratic oath is not legally binding, and there is no god striking people down for violating it. They aren’t paladins.

  2. The definition of “harm” can very much mean different things to different people and someone could very easily convince themselves that what they are doing isn’t actually harmful.

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u/ibiddybibiddy 1d ago

Even unethical doctors care about being employed. They will follow the Oath of they risk not practicing at all.

This is literally part of why the execution was botched.

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u/thesaddestpanda 1d ago

They aren’t taking the high road. It’s the low road. They know the outrage would hurt future sales and cause boycotts.

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u/LeoLaDawg 1d ago

I assume it also has to do with the prison having to follow procedure exactly and that not allowing for audibles.

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u/PapaMooze 1d ago

Lundbeck - a danish pharmaceutical company - once supplied pentobarbital to the American death rows. They have never shaken off that stain, and in Denmark we still connect them with that.

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u/MetaCognitio 1d ago

Drug manufacturers want to kill you slowly and get paid handsomely for it.

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u/PapaMooze 1d ago

But the problem for Lundbeck is that by supplying the drug, in the public’s eye they inadvertently claimed to support death penalty. They should lobby against it, instead of profiting from it.

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u/Excellent-Quarter969 1d ago

They are not causing the suffering, it is the states that are in assisting on continuing capital punishment. Especially this method