The New England Journal of Medicine today (NEJM 361;11, September 10,2009) published a letter to the Editor in which a follow-up study on medical end-of-life practices in 2007, conducted at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The survey concluded that the enactment of the Belgian euthanasia law was followed by an increase in all types of end-of-life practices, with the exception of the use of lethal drugs without the patient’s explicit request. Otherwise no shift was observed in the characteristics of the different groups. The only concern is the substantial increase in the freqency of deep sedation.
You can see the whole letter in PDF by clicking here