In the editorial accompanying the report from Van den Block and colleagues, Byock points out that only 22 cases of euthanasia or physician assisted suicide occurred (1.3% of all 1690 non-sudden deaths).1 2 But if the 26 cases of "life ending without a patient request" are included (unfortunately translated as "involuntary euthanasia" in early Dutch reports of studies using this questionnaire3) the proportion of cases of assisted dying rises to 2.8%. All of these end of life decisions entail doctors saying yes when asked, "Was death caused by the use of a drug prescribed, supplied, or administered by you or a colleague with the explicit intention of hastening the end of life (or of enabling the patient to end his or her own life?)"

In the United Kingdom, use of the same questions with a nationally representative sample of doctors reporting on 2869 deaths (including sudden deaths) has produced figures . . . [Full text of this article]

1 Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 2AT