Suicide Pods Now Legal In Switzerland, Providing Users With a Painless Death

Switzerland is giving the green light to so-called “suicide capsules” — 3-D printed pods that allow people to choose the place where they want to die an assisted death. Global News reports: The country’s medical review board announced the legalization of the Sarco Suicide Pods this week. They can be operated by the user from the inside. Dr. Philip Nitschke, the developer of the pods and founder of Exit International, a pro-euthanasia group, told SwissInfo.ch the machines can be “towed anywhere for the death” and one of the most positive features of the capsules is that they can be transported to an “idyllic outdoor setting.”

Currently, assisted suicide in Switzerland means swallowing a capsule filled with a cocktail of controlled substances that puts the person into a deep coma before they die. But Sarco pods — short for sarcophagus — allow a person to control their death inside the pod by quickly reducing internal oxygen levels. The person intending to end their life is required to answer a set of pre-recorded questions, then press a button that floods the interior with nitrogen. The oxygen level inside is quickly reduced from 21 per cent to one per cent. After death, the pod can be used as a coffin. […]

Nitschke said his method of death is painless, and the person will feel a little bit disoriented and/or euphoric before they lose consciousness. He said there are only two capsule prototypes in existence, but a third machine is being printed now, and he expects this method to become available to the Swiss public next year.

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Booster Shots Create a 23X Increase in Protective Antibody Levels, Study Suggests

The Los Angeles Times summarizes the results of a new medical study conducted by Northwestern University researchers on antibody levels protecting against Covid-19 in 974 people. “Those who were immunized against COVID-19 with two doses of an mRNA vaccine and received a booster shot about eight months later saw their levels of neutralizing antibodies skyrocket.

“Among this group of 33 fully vaccinated and boosted people, the median level of these antibodies was 23 times higher one week after the booster shot than it had been just before the tune-up dose.”

What’s more, their median post-booster antibody level was three times higher than was typical for another group of people whose antibodies were measured a few weeks after getting their second dose of vaccine, when they’re close to their peak.

And it was 53 times higher than that of a group of 76 unvaccinated people who had recovered from COVID-19 just two to six weeks earlier. Even compared to a group of 73 people who had weathered a bout with COVID-19 and went on to get two doses of an mRNA vaccine, the boosted group’s median antibody level was 68% higher.

Study leader Alexis Demonbreun, a cell biologist at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, said the data demonstrate that no matter how well protected a vaccinated person may think she is, getting a booster shot is likely to increase her neutralizing antibodies — and with it, her immunity — considerably. And because scientists expect large antibody responses to create more durable immunity, the protection afforded by the booster should last longer than the initial two-shot regimen did…

Among their other findings: After receiving two doses of vaccine, people who’d already had an asymptomatic infection were typically no better protected than vaccinated people who had never been infected.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.