Rumours that “Obamacare” is to make beheading a type of legal execution in the United States is spreading across the Internet.
These rumours often link back to an article on a website known as Freedom Outpost by Lorri Anderson and has since appeared on many websites known for publishing stories of dubious nature as well as conspiracy theories.
In the article, Anderson claims one of her readers sent her a code that would make any “American’s hair stand up on the back of their neck.” The code sent to her was ICD 9 E978, which, according to CentralX, lists a number of “legal executions” according to the International Classification of Diseases.
Whilst the code ICD 9 E978 does indeed list this information, it appeared Anderson has made various baseless assumptions that have led her to the belief that beheading will become a legal form of execution in the United States, despite there being literally no evidence or even suggestion that this is so.
The ICD codes (International Classification of Diseases) was developed by the WHO (World Health Organisation) and is – hardly surprising – international. Thus just because a particular country uses these codes, this does not mean that every code will apply to any one country, nor even that any one country has any obligation whatsoever to ensure that all codes apply to them.
These codes can be used on documents such as death certificates and possibly through insurance literature. The reason “beheading” [and others] are listed under “Legal Execution” is because in some Middle Eastern countries, beheading is still a legal form of execution. The ICD 9 codes, of which legal execution is listed, isn’t actually new, it’s been around since 1979, so obviously nothing to do with ObamaCare.
The author, Anderson, seems to assume that because the United States uses these sets of codes, they somehow must ALL apply to the United States, when obviously this is not true, and this story seems to have started as the US is adopting new ICD codes (ICD 10 codes) in 2014.
The ICD 10 codes essentially list any ailment or fatal incident that could potentially befall a human being, of which legal execution is merely the tip of a very morbid iceberg. For example, as many online users have pointed out [with a degree of humour] things such as code ICD 10 V9733XD means a subsequent encounter with a jet engine… whatever that means. There is even a code for an explosion involving a hand glider – code ICD 10 15XA.
So there you have it. It’s just an international list of codes used for various literatures, and nothing to do with legislature whatsoever. Beheading is illegal in all 50 states, and illegal through both state and federal law. It is also illegal in most countries, many of which also use the ICD coding system. The UK, for example, at the time of writing, will soon adopt the new ICD-10 codes.