(Press-News.org) The healthcare community has an important role in opposing the death penalty, argues an expert in The BMJ today.
Bharat Malkani, reader in law at Cardiff University, says doctors must refuse to participate in the execution process and speak out against a practice that is antithetical to their commitment to promote health and wellbeing.
Amnesty International reports that although the number of countries carrying out executions is decreasing, the number of executions in countries where it is legal has increased in recent years, he explains.
At least 1518 executions took place globally in 2024, rising from 1153 recorded in 2023, making it the fourth consecutive year that the annual total has gone up. The 2024 total was the highest recorded by Amnesty International since 2015, when 1634 executions were recorded.
Most of the recorded executions in 2024 took place in just three countries: Iran (at least 972); Saudi Arabia (at least 345), and Iraq (at least 63), while Saudi Arabia has already executed at least 241 people in 2025 and could reach a record number for the year.
Amnesty International notes that there are also believed to be thousands of executions in China each year, but official numbers are a state secret.
Some people are being sentenced to the ultimate punishment for relatively minor crimes, and for criticising governments, notes Malkani.
For example, in Saudi Arabia, Turki al-Jasser, a journalist who exposed corruption within the Saudi royal family, was executed in June. “His execution, and that of other political prisoners globally, should be a cause of concern for anyone who cares about justice and freedom of speech,” he says.
There are also reports of people with mental illness and intellectual disability being subject to capital punishment, despite international law prohibiting their execution.
Another concerning aspect of capital punishment that needs more attention from medical communities is the use of medical professionals in execution processes, adds Malkani.
In its code of medical ethics, the American Medical Association takes the position that doctors must not participate in a legally authorised execution, but such guidelines have not prevented some doctors from taking part in executions.
Elsewhere, physicians who refuse to take part in the execution process can be compelled by law to administer lethal injections. The World Medical Association has therefore issued a resolution calling for an end to physician involvement in executions.
Given the worldwide trend towards authoritarianism and “tougher” approaches to law and order, it is unlikely that executions will stop anytime soon, says Malkani. It is therefore incumbent on campaigning groups to keep highlighting the injustice and immorality of state sanctioned executions.
“Healthcare professionals have powerful voices and are well respected. They can thus have a vital role in abolitionist efforts by refraining from being complicit in executions and by emphasising that the punishment is both inhumane from the point of view of medical ethics and a violation of the right to life,” he concludes.
END
Medical opposition to capital punishment is needed as executions surge
Doctors must refuse to participate and speak out against the practice, says expert
2025-10-01
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
India could bear biggest impact from chikungunya, new maps suggest
2025-10-01
The most comprehensive mapping to date of the global risk of chikungunya suggests India could experience the greatest long-term impact from the mosquito-borne virus.
Based on existing evidence of chikungunya transmission, the infectious disease model predicts 14.4 million people could be at risk of infections globally each year, with 5.1 million people at risk in India. It’s likely that chikungunya cases could also spread to regions not currently recording infections or considered at-risk, the analysis found, potentially increasing the number ...
Improved fertility diagnostics could boost bird conservation breeding programmes, say scientists
2025-10-01
A new analytical method is revealing how conservationists can further boost breeding programmes dedicated to saving some of the world’s most threatened species, according to new research led by the University of Sheffield and ZSL.
Conservation zoos, and the global breeding programmes they facilitate, are vital to maintaining or restoring populations and boosting genetic diversity of threatened birds. But not every egg produced in ...
Rice physicists’ new lab focused on emergent magnetic materials, funded by Department of Energy
2025-10-01
Four physicists from Rice University have received a $4.4 million grant over three years from the U.S. Department of Energy to establish the Rice Laboratory for Emergent Magnetic Materials (RLEMM). This new research center will investigate the fundamental interactions of magnetism and its role in next-generation technologies.
The award will support collaborative research led by principal investigator Pengcheng Dai along with co-investigators Ming Yi, Emilia Morosan and Qimiao Si. Their focus is on emergent phases of matter such as unconventional superconductivity, quantum ...
Oncotarget Editor-in-Chief Wafik S. El-Deiry chairs 2025 WIN Symposium in collaboration with APM in Philadelphia
2025-10-01
The WIN Symposium featured as the Oncology Track at the APM Annual Conference 2025 unites global leaders in oncology, translational science, and precision medicine.
BUFFALO, NY – October 1, 2025 – Oncotarget is proud to announce that its Editor-in-Chief, Wafik S. El-Deiry, MD, PhD, FACP, will chair the WIN Symposium as the Oncology Track of the Advancing Precision Medicine (APM) Annual Conference held October 3–4, 2025, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.
The WIN Consortium annual symposium featured as the Oncology ...
Can AI persuade you to go vegan—or harm yourself?
2025-10-01
Large language models are more persuasive than humans, according to recent UBC research.
Their vocabulary, perceived empathy and ability to provide tangible resources in seconds add to their persuasiveness, which has led to growing concerns and ongoing lawsuits about the potential for AI chatbots to cause harm to users.
In this Q&A, Dr. Vered Shwartz, UBC assistant professor of computer science and author of the book Lost in Automatic Translation, discusses her findings as well as potential safeguards for the future of AI.
Why does the persuasiveness of AI matter?
VS: Large ...
Outdoor air exposure to chemical may raise risk of Parkinson’s disease
2025-10-01
EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4:00 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2025
Highlights:
Long-term exposure to a common industrial chemical may be linked to a higher risk of Parkinson’s disease.
Trichloroethylene (TCE) is a chemical used in metal degreasing and dry cleaning. Even though it has been banned for some uses, it remains in use today as an industrial solvent and lingers in air, soil and water across the U.S.
Researchers estimated long-term TCE exposure for more than 1.1 million older adults by using ZIP+4 codes and air pollution data.
Older adults living in areas with the highest TCE levels in outdoor air had a 10% higher ...
Why exercise could actually save your heartbeats - not waste them
2025-10-01
Forget the myth that exercise uses up your heartbeats. New Australian research shows fitter people use far fewer total heartbeats per day - potentially adding years to their lives.
Athletes had an average heart rate of 68 beats per minute (bpm), while non-athletes had 76bpm. That translates to a total of 97,920 beats per day for athletes and 109,440 beats per day for non-athletes – around 10 percent less.
“That’s an incredible saving of about 11,500 beats a day,” says Professor La Gerche, head of ...
Invasive mosquito vector species detected in surveillance traps in United Kingdom
2025-10-01
Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes are vectors of multiple diseases including dengue, chikungunya and Zika, posing a public health risk to populations within their native range. A study published in PLOS Global Public Health by Colin Johnston at Centre for Climate and Health Security, UK Health Security Agency, Porton Down, Salisbury, United Kingdom and colleagues describes the detection of invasive mosquito eggs in the United Kingdom in 2023 and 2024, suggesting an increasing incidence of importation of these species.
Historically, ...
Could bacteria help fix the smoky taste of wildfire-tainted wine?
2025-10-01
New laboratory experiments show that a bacterium that lives on grape plants can break down guaiacol—an unpleasant-tasting substance which ruins wines made from grapes exposed to wildfire smoke. Claudia Castro of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on October 1, 2025.
Wildfires are occurring increasingly often in wine-producing regions of the U.S. West Coast. Wine grapes can absorb substances from wildfire smoke that ultimately make ...
People with self-diagnosed ADHD report more negative self-image and more internalized stigma than clinically diagnosed individuals, and are more likely to seek social validation, per analysis of 450,0
2025-10-01
People with self-diagnosed ADHD report more negative self-image and more internalized stigma than clinically diagnosed individuals, and are more likely to seek social validation, per analysis of 450,000 ADHD sub-reddit posts
Article URL: http://plos.io/4plEDJz
Article title: Seeking validation in the digital age: The impact of validation seeking on self-image and internalized stigma among self- vs. clinically diagnosed individuals on r/ADHD
Author countries: U.S., China
Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. END ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
Whooping cough can be fatal in young infants, experts warn
Knee-d for excellence: New regional training hub keeps surgeons sharp for ageing population
The Lancet: Billions lack access to healthy diets as food systems drive climate and health crises, but sustainable, equitable solutions are within reach, says new EAT-Lancet report
Countries with highest reported levels of hearing loss have lowest use of hearing aids
Early medical abortion at home up to 12 weeks is safe, effective, and comparable to hospital care
New approach to gravitational wave detection opens the Milli-Hz Frontier
Rice membrane extracts lithium from brines with greater speed, less waste
Exercise lowers disease risk. This researcher wants to understand how
Hurricane evacuation patterns differ based on where the storm hits
Stem Cell Reports welcomes new members to its Editorial Board
Researchers develop molecular qubits that communicate at telecom frequencies
Mayo Clinic awarded up to $40 million by ARPA-H for pioneering air safety research
People with Down syndrome have early neuroinflammation
CNIO researchers create the “human repairome”, a catalogue of DNA “scars” that will help define personalized cancer treatments
Strengthening biosecurity screening for genes that encode proteins of concern
Global wildfire disasters are growing in frequency and cost
Wildfire management: Reactive response and recovery, or proactive mitigation and prevention
Phosphine detected in the atmosphere of a low-temperature brown dwarf
Scientists develop rapid and scalable platform for in planta directed evolution
New tiny prehistoric fish species unlocks origins of catfish and carp
Plant microbiota: War and peace under the surface
Fossilized ear bones rewrite the history of freshwater fish
Detection of phosphine in a brown dwarf atmosphere raises more questions
USF study: Ancient plankton hint at steadier future for ocean life
MIT researchers find a simple formula could guide the design of faster-charging, longer-lasting batteries
Towards efficient room-temperature fluorine recovery from fluoropolymers
Mapping RNA-protein 'chats' could uncover new treatments for cancer and brain disease
The hidden burden of solitude: How social withdrawal influences the adolescent brain
Kidney disease study reveals unexpected marker
AI wrote nearly a quarter of corporate press releases in 2024
[Press-News.org] Medical opposition to capital punishment is needed as executions surgeDoctors must refuse to participate and speak out against the practice, says expert