Drug shortage throws US executions into disarray

In the midst of a drug shortage that has already forced postponement of lethal injection executions across the United States, some states say they now have the drug in hand but are refusing to disclose its origin.

The unprecedented situation has been compounded by an inmate scheduled to die Tuesday but who is suing to stop his own execution, arguing that the drug which the state of Arizona intends to use may be counterfeit or unsafe.

Only one pharmaceutical company in the United States, Hospira, currently manufactures the drug, the anesthetic sodium thiopental.

But it is out of stock and will not be able to resume production until the first quarter of 2011, and Hospira's most recent batch is nearing its 2011 expiration date.

Some states like Texas and Ohio have enough thiopental to carry on with their execution schedules, but others like Kentucky have been forced to put capital punishment on hold.

"In this country we are so used to having executions, it makes legislators nervous" when they are halted, Deborah Denno, a criminal law professor at Fordham University in New York, told AFP.

"The more you delay, the more people realize that the death penalty doesn't serve the purpose it's supposed to serve."

The drug delay has caused some hiccups in the US capital punishment system.

The central state of Oklahoma has borrowed doses of the drug from its neighbor Arkansas.

More surprisingly, California and Arizona announced early this month they have procured thiopental and intend to carry out lethal injections, according to court documents. But prison authorities of both states refused to say where they had purchased the product.

For the lawyers for Arizona death-row inmate Jeffrey Landrigan, a convicted murderer scheduled to die next Tuesday, that raised enough questions about the safety and efficiency of the drug to bring the matter to court.

"Landrigan faces a significant risk that Arizona Department of Corrections unknowingly has obtained counterfeit or non-viable drug," they argued in a petition before the Arizona Supreme Court.

"If the 2nd or 3rd drugs in the state's protocol, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride, were to be injected into a prisoner who was not properly anesthetized, the result would be excruciating pain in violation of the (US Constitution's) eighth amendment" which bars cruel and unusual punishment, they said.

"Accordingly, Landrigan needs information from the state to insure that sodium thiopental used in his execution is chemically stable and has not expired."

The lawyers noted that since Hospira is the only US manufacturer approved by the Food and Drug Administration, any new thiopental could only come from a foreign country.

Lawyers have put forward similar arguments in California.

Arizona has rejected the argument, but a federal judge has ordered the state to disclose the origins of the drug.

Professor Denno said the states may have acquired drugs of inferior quality.

"If it's coming for example from China, which has used lethal injection... we don't know who is making the thiopental in China or where that's coming from," she said. "Their system is completely secretive."

She described the drug shortage and resulting disarray as "troubling."

The Arizona district attorney's office argued that details about the transport and delivery of the drug must remain strictly confidential for security reasons.

At a recent hearing, an Arizona judge sounded puzzled about the need for FDA approval for the drug.

"What difference does that make?" judge Andrew Hurwitz asked.

"It strikes me as strange that the FDA law was meant to regulate executions... These are drugs that are going to be used to kill somebody."

An FDA spokeswoman, Karen Riley, told AFP that the agency was "not aware of any importations of this drug." FDA approval is required for all imports of medicines that are out of stock in the United States.

Thiopental is used as part of a 3-drug cocktail for lethal injections. It is the 1st drug to enter a victim's body, rendering him or her unconscious. A 2nd drug paralyzes the muscles, and a third stops the heart.

Source: Agence France-Presse, October 24, 2010

Urge Drug-Maker Hospira To Stop Supplying Lethal Injections

Executions are on hold in several states as supplies of key drug used in lethal injections have dried up, and the maker of the drug has a chance to stand up against what it sees as a twisted use of its product.

Hospira, the manufacturer of lethal-injection drug sodium thiopental, has said it does not support the drug's use in lethal injections.

Send a letter to Hospira CEO Christopher Begley urging him to use this opportunity to announce that his company will no longer supply the drug to state corrections departments for use in lethal injections.

PetitionText:

Dear Mr. Begley

I have read about your company’s Pentothal shortage and its impact on delaying executions in several states across the U.S. I’m writing to urge you to permanently stop supplying the drug to state corrections departments for the use in ending human lives.

Your company wrote in a letter in March that you “do not support the use of any of our products in capital punishment procedures.” If this is true, please take steps to end your practice of supplying this drug for use in lethal injections. You have an opportunity to make this shortage of the drug permanent, and I urge you to seize it.

The American Medical Association and other medical organizations have long said that the ethical obligation of medical professionals strictly prohibit a role in ending human lives. Your company should follow these ethical guidelines and refuse to participate in what U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun once called “the machinery of death.”

Hospira’s driving philosophy calls for “active citizenship” in your communities and describes the company as one that acts on its values. You stated your values in the March 31 letter: you aim to “save or improve lives.” Sodium thiopental is being used to end lives, and you have the power to stop it.

Please make the pledge to stop providing this drug for use in lethal injections.

Thank you,

Click here to add your name to this online petition.