Lewis Nelson, chair of the department of Emergency Medicine and a medical toxicologist at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, is available to discuss the medical aspects of fentanyl in regard to the murder trial of Ohio doctor William Husel who was accused of overprescribing fentanyl to his critically ill patients and hastening their deaths. Husel was found not guilty of 14 counts of murder on Wednesday.
“The doses of fentanyl provided were far in excess of those needed to provide palliative or comfort care to patients who were very sick or nearing the end of life,” Nelson says. “The jury seemed to be messaging that death with dignity may be a component of their verdict, although that is currently not allowed nor is it a physician’s unilateral decision. We need to better understand what the jury considered.”