  Under certain assumptions it is shown that the decay of level 2 of a
three-level system onto level 1 is slowed down because of the further decay of
level 1 onto level 0. It is argued that this phenomenon may be interpreted as a
consequence of the quantum Zeno effect. The reason why this may be possible is
that the second decay (or accompanying photon radiation) may be considered as a
sign of the transition 2 -> 1 so that during the first transition the system is
under continuous observation.
