Following up on their work that determined that some inmates put to death by lethal injection likely suffered excruciating pain, Miller School of Medicine researchers have now concluded that some states modifying lethal injection protocols and “testing” them on inmates is tantamount to performing human subjects research without consent or ethical safeguards.

Teresa A. Zimmers, Ph.D., research assistant professor of surgery, and Leonidas Koniaris, M.D., associate professor of surgery, along with colleagues, published an essay in the June issue of PLoS Medicine nearly six weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of lethal injection in Kentucky in a case that challenged how the protocol is administered and the combination of chemicals used to kill condemned inmates.

While the team’s previous research looked at the history, science, and methodology behind the lethal injections (they concluded that some inmates feel pain while being executed—possibly cruel and unusual punishment violating the Eighth Amendment), the new essay argues that in making changes to the lethal injection protocol, at least ten states may be essentially experimenting on unwilling subjects.

“The collective practice of lethal injection has employed invasive testing of different drug protocols and devices, data collection and monitoring, and systematic review with outcome data being used to revise practice,” said Zimmers.

The methods and modifications employed, the researchers say, resemble human subjects research and therefore must also comply with the accepted governance of such research. Although condemned inmates are stripped of the rights to freedom and life, they retain the right to bodily integrity.