Mark Dowd (Letters, 12 September) points out that our articles (“Go gently into that good night” by Kathryn Mannix and “Life or death: the doctor’s dilemma” by Phil McCarthy, both 5 September) do not answer key questions about the assisted dying debate. Two brief articles cannot attempt that. However we disagree with his other points. Palliative care cannot completely relieve all suffering, but in many years of clinical practice neither of us has witnessed anything resembling the protracted and agonising death Dowd describes. Unfortunately such accounts lead to a misplaced fear of dying.Dowd asserts that McCarthy’s case of the elderly man wrongly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer is “bogus”. However, were the Assisted Dying Bill to have