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Thread: Anesthesia Shortage

  1. #21
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    Email reveals gallows humour on death row

    Newly released documents show that top prison officials in California went begging to Arizona for a vital drug that is used in executing inmates on death row after its own supply ran out and then found an inappropriate form of words to express their gratitude when they got what they needed.

    "You guys in AZ are life-savers," Scott Kernan, California's undersecretary for Corrections and Rehabilitation said in an email to his Arizona counterpart Charles Flanagan after taking delivery from him of a small amount of the knock-out drug sodium thiopental. "Buy you a beer next time I get that way."

    The exchange, which suggests a remarkable blitheness about the business at hand, was contained in documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and made public yesterday.

    An interruption in the supply of sodium thiopental has created difficulties for death chambers in several US states. Arizona and California have turned to a British drug-maker for new supplies after their traditional supplier in Illinois suffered production problems.

    The batch of sodium thiopental donated by Arizona was meant to speed the execution of a man convicted of raping and murdering a teenage girl.

    He is still on death row, pending a new legal challenge to the constitutionality of the use of lethal injections in California.

    The new documents also show California prison officials chastising Texas for having plenty of sodium thiopental on hand but refusing to share. "It is unfortunate that Texas would not share some of its 'well-stocked' supply to help sister states, but down the road they may need help in some other way and this position does not help their image," one officials said in a 29 September email to Mr Kernan.

    (source: The Independent)

  2. #22
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    Italy - Pentothal: producers advocate its use for medical purposes only

    The UN will approve the third resolution on the death penalty moratorium tomorrow, and at the same time the Italian Lower House will launch a debate on a motion presented by the Hon. Zamparutti on the possible exportation to the US by the Italian branch of the American multinational Hospira, of Pentothal, an anesthetic useable also in the protocol for capital execution by lethal injection.

    Italy has been in the forefront in the battle against the death penalty since its inception and has contributed significantly to the consensus forming within the United Nations in favour of a moratorium. Therefore, with regard to the use of Pentothal, Minister for Foreign Affairs Franco Frattini, who met in recent days with Secretary General of the “Nessuno Tocchi Caino” association Sergio D’Elia, Hon. Zamparutti and spokesperson for the Community of Sant’Egidio Marazziti, promptly involved the Ministries of Health and of Economic Development in an effort to convince the firm that produces the drug to intervene and reach a solution in line with the motion’s request and with Italy’s long-standing sensitivity on the theme of the death penalty.

    A meeting in this regard was held today at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome whose participants included the executives of the Italian branch of Hospira and officials of the technical ministries concerned.

    The firm expressed its willingness to collaborate with the Italian authorities, accepting the stipulation that the production and sale of Pentothal be authorized for medical purposes only, undertaking to prevent its sale to penitentiary institutions and to insert into distribution contracts a clause specifying that the product cannot be sold for use in lethal injections, subject to dissolution of the same contract.

    http://www.isria.com/pages/21_December_2010_125.php

  3. #23
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    FDA Takes Stance on the Importation of Lethal-Injection Drugs

    The nationwide shortage of a thiopental sodium, a key anesthetic used in lethal injections, continues to bedevil state prisons.

    Hospira, the sole U.S. maker of the drug, has not produced a fresh supply of thiopental for over a year, forcing some states to import the drug from Europe.

    Many death-penalty advocates have questioned whether the importation of thiopental violates Food and Drug Administration regulations, given that the FDA has publicly indicated that there are no FDA-approved foreign makers of thiopental.

    Today, the agency issued a statement, at the request of The Wall Street Journal, clarifying its position on thiopental imports.

    Basically, the agency is taking a hands-off position, stating that it will defer to law enforcement and permit the importation of thiopental sodium going forward.

    The FDA “is charged by Congress with protecting the public health,” the agency said in a statement. “Reviewing substances imported or used for the purpose of state-authorized lethal injection clearly falls outside of FDA’s explicit public health role.”

    But the agency did have one thing to say that could provide grist for attorneys representing death-row inmates; some advocates have claimed that it is unconstitutional to import thiopental, because of the possibility that foreign-made thiopental will not be sufficiently potent and effective, creating a risk that inmates will suffer a severely painful death.

    In its statement, the FDA noted that while it will permit thiopental imports it also does not review the “safety, effectiveness, purity, or any other characteristics” of thiopental shipments.

    So far, the decision hasn’t been fully embraced by death-penalty opponents.

    http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/01/04/...jection-drugs/

  4. #24
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    California scoured U.S. for death-penalty drug, documents show

    Desperately seeking a drug that would allow them to execute a Death Row inmate last fall, California corrections officials scoured the nation for a dose of it, calling dozens of hospitals and local surgery centers, asking the federal government, Veteran's Administration officials and numerous other states for help, newly released documents show.

    The documents, released late Tuesday as the result of a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, reveal new details of how California sought unsuccessfully to cajole the governor of Texas to lend the state a supply of sodium thiopental, and how they reached out to officials nationwide seeking the drug. At one point, previously released documents state, they considered buying a batch from a supplier in Pakistan.

    Finally, they turned to Arizona officials as part of what they described as a "secret and important mission" to pick up the drug from an Arizona prison south of Phoenix, then drive it to San Quentin.

    The planned execution of Albert Greenwood Brown, which set off the search, never took place. California finally was able to find a British supplier of the drug for $36, 415, but details of that transaction remain secret.

    The Food and Drug Administration issued a statement today saying the agency, "Does not review or approve products for the purpose of lethal injects."

    But the FDA said it was releasing the shipment to California without reviewing the drug "to determine their identity, safety, effectiveness, surety or any other characteristics."

    No executions are currently scheduled in California, but officials say delivery of the British supply of the drug has been approved by the FDA and should be arriving in California shortly.

    "We're comfortable that it will be arriving in the coming days," corrections spokesman Oscar Hidalgo said today.

    The ACLU disputes whether that drug can legally be used in future executions and believes it is an issue that will be addressed in court, said Natasha Minsker, death penalty policy director for the ACLU's Northern California branch, which filed the suit.

    The nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental, a fast-acting barbiturate that is the first of three drugs administered in lethal injection executions, has bedeviled corrections officials nationwide as they seek to put condemned inmates to death.

    The U.S. maker of the drug has said it will not be able to manufacture new batches of it until early this year, and has made it clear to states that it opposes the use of the anesthetic in executions. That set off international searches for supplies of it by states seeking to put inmates to death.

    But details of California's efforts last fall to put Brown to death remained sketchy until the ACLU prevailed in court to force release of public records that describe the dramatic efforts to obtain the drug.

    So far, the ACLU has received nearly 1,200 pages of e-mails, correspondence and other documents from its lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and it says CDCR has promised that more are on the way.

    The portrait the documents paint is one of officials calling everyone imaginable in search of the drug, which they first learned was in short supply last June.

    "We have contacted 80-90 hospitals over the past few days and none of them have a drop of Pentothal," one e-mail written Sept. 16, two weeks before Brown's scheduled execution, states. "Most have been out for quite some time. I still have folks in the industry keeping an eye out and I will let you know if I hear of any leads."

    That e-mail, like many in the documents released, had the identities of the sender and recipients redacted. But it is clear from the documents that extraordinary efforts were made to locate a supply of the drug.

    "I called approximately 100 Hospitals and local general surgery centers," John McAuliffe, a contract worker for the corrections department, wrote to CDCR Undersecretary Scott Kernan on Sept. 29, the day before Brown was scheduled to die.

    "Still have not heard from AZ," Kernan then wrote to department Secretary Matt Cate. "Trying not to press to (sic) hard."

    Cate replied with an e-mail asking if military hospitals had been called and noting that he had called an official with Veterans Affairs.

    Officials in other states were in similar positions. One e-mail that appears to have originated from the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office was sent to officials in dozens of states, as well as the Virgin Islands and American Samoa. In it, an official whose name is redacted asks, "(I)f anyone has any information on how to obtain this drug or any other ultra short-acting barbiturate, that would be extremely helpful."

    Another e-mail indicates that officials in "Washington called every community hospital in the state and found one that had some they could borrow."

    That sparked interest by California officials, with one writing that Cate, the CDCR secretary, "thought we should contact community hospitals (probably excluding the bay area) in the state to see if we can find any in stock."

    Finally, California received guidance from Arizona corrections officials on how to obtain the drug from a London supplier. With officials in most states unable or unwilling to share their doses of sodium thiopental, a foreign supplier was the only avenue that officials believed viable.

    "As we discussed on the phone today, we have followed the lead of Arkansas and purchased the drugs we need from a company in London," Charles Flanagan, deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, wrote to a California corrections official Sept. 28. "Frankly, there was no possibility of getting the Thiopental Sodium/Sodium Pentothal from any source in the U.S., to include from any of the departments of corrections in other states that use the same 3-drug protocol as us."


    Read more: http://blogs.sacbee.com/crime/archiv...#ixzz1AC5U8nYu

  5. #25
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    States With Trouble Finding Execution Drug

    Records show several states that use sodium thiopental for lethal injections have scrambled to find enough of the drug because of manufacturing issues. Among them:

    — ALABAMA: Says it has enough unexpired sodium thiopental to carry out Wednesday's execution of Leroy White, sentenced to die for the Oct. 17, 1988, shotgun slaying in Huntsville of his 35-year-old estranged wife, Ruby.


    — CALIFORNIA: California tried to recruit private doctors to procure the drug and went from state to state looking for supplies, including Arizona, Indiana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia, records show. The state also contacted dozens of hospitals and general surgery centers, VA hospitals and the federal Bureau of Prisons, and even looked into obtaining a supply from Pakistan.

    — MISSOURI: Officials told The Associated Press in fall 2010 that its supply would expire this year. Documents released by the ACLU said the state has enough for five executions but it's unclear when that stock expires. Without explanation, Gov. Jay Nixon spared a Missouri inmate scheduled to die Wednesday; the state's next scheduled execution is Feb. 9.

    — TENNESSEE: Tennessee in early 2010 gave Georgia and Arkansas some of its sodium thiopental. But by summer, with a fall execution pending, they scrambled to find their own supply. On Sept. 9, the prison where Tennessee executions are held ordered sodium thiopental, apparently from a British company. It was delivered by Oct. 26, just days before a scheduled execution.

    — TEXAS: Has enough of the drug to carry out 39 executions, but the supply expires in March, according to records obtained by the AP through a public records request. The state is waiting to see if the drug's sole U.S. manufacturer will have supplies to buy soon, Texas prisons spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said. Texas was scheduled Tuesday to put to death Cleve Foster, condemned to die for the abduction, rape and shooting death of Nyaneur "Mary" Pal on Valentine's Day 2002.

    - VIRGINIA: Virginia, which executed a woman in late September, had an expired batch in early August that it tried unsuccessfully to get the FDA to approve, according to e-mails obtained by the ACLU from the California prison system. Virginia executed a woman about six weeks later and said it was in the same position as other states when it came to its supply. Virginia's prison department did not immediately return phone and e-mail messages.

    - WASHINGTON STATE: Officials checked with the state's hospitals until they found one willing to provide the drug last year, according to an internal California prisons department e-mail released by the ACLU. It's common practice when the prison system is looking for drug supplies to contact local pharmacies, many of which are at community hospitals, said Washington prisons spokeswoman Maria Peterson.


    http://www.oscn.net/applications/osc...e=NEWDECISIONS

  6. #26
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    FDA helps states get execution drug

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration helped Arizona and California obtain a quick overseas source of a hard-to-find execution drug even as the agency declared it would not regulate or block imports, records show.

    The shortage of the drug, sodium thiopental, has disrupted executions around the country. Newly released documents show the FDA helped Arizona import a supply of the drug from an English company last fall as it prepared to execute a condemned killer.

    California prison officials also say the agency last week released a batch of the drug the state bought, also from England. The FDA would not comment on its role in helping either state.

    Three states - Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas - plan executions this week. Alabama and Texas use sodium thiopental, an anesthetic in short supply in the U.S. because of manufacturing issues, and have enough of the drug for now. Record obtained by The Associated Press show, though, that Texas may soon run out. Oklahoma uses a different drug.

    Missouri and Texas have executions next month, as does Ohio, which has hinted it could be run short after Feb. 17. "Beyond that, we will not be commenting on our supply," said Ohio prisons spokeswoman JoEllen Smith. Missouri may also be running out.

    In response to state queries, the FDA has announced it will not stop overseas shipments to the U.S. of the drug sodium thiopental, because the agency does not regulate products used in lethal injection. A pending federal lawsuit in Arizona challenges the use of overseas drugs, saying they may be substandard and could lead to botched executions if they don't render an inmate properly unconscious.

    http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/...e_8249911.html

  7. #27
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    Tenn. Receives Execution Drug Shipment----Drug In Short Supply Across Nation

    It appears Tennessee has received an overseas shipment of the death penalty drug that's in short supply across the nation.

    The Associated Press reported the state received at least one shipment of sodium thiopental, apparently from a British pharmaceutical company.

    Several states are running low on the drug, and the Food and Drug Administration ruled last week it would not block imports of the execution drug.

    All of Tennessee's scheduled executions are on hold until hearings move forward on whether the state's new lethal injection procedures are constitutional.

    (source: WSMV News)

  8. #28
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    Companies Won't Sell Ky. Lethal Injection Drug

    Amid a nationwide shortage of a lethal injection drug, documents obtained under a freedom of information request show two pharmaceutical companies declined to sell Kentucky a supply of the sedative.

    The state e-mails obtained by The Associated Press show one firm, KRS Global Biotechnology of Boca Raton, Fla., explained its refusal by saying there was no doctor involved in the purchase of sodium thiopental, even though Kentucky law bars physicians from being involved in administering executions.

    No reason was given in the e-mail traffic between state officials and pharmacists for a canceled order from the other company, Spectrum Chemical and Laboratory Products of Gardenia, Calif. A Spectrum official told the AP the ordered was scrapped when it sold that part of its business last year.

    At least seven other states that use sodium thiopental for lethal injections have had trouble in recent months finding enough of the drug, whose main U.S. manufacturer has cited supply problems. The shortage has not delayed any executions in Kentucky because they have been on hold since a judge's order in September over an unrelated issue.

    The Kentucky e-mails are the first public record of companies declining to sell the drug to states for executions.

    They show a massive search for any stock of unexpired sodium thiopental. Kentucky prison officials contacted more than two dozen states, more than a half-dozen chemical companies and even the federal Bureau of Prisons. Kentucky also couldn't find any states willing to share their limited supplies, even after giving Ohio 3 of the 6 grams it needed for an execution in June.

    "I am beginning to think drug companies and suppliers are not real happy to have to supply us for this use," Phil Parker, warden of the Kentucky State Penitentiary that houses the state's death chamber, wrote in a July e-mail.

    Kentucky started searching for sodium thiopental in January 2010, about six weeks after the state Attorney General's office asked the governor to set execution dates in three cases.

    By June, it had focused on Spectrum Chemical as the only company with the drug in stock. The state placed an order with Spectrum on June 14 for 50 grams of the fast-acting sedative, enough to conduct eight executions. But in July, Spectrum called off the deal.

    State officials wrote in e-mails that the cancellation came after Spectrum found out the customer was the Kentucky Department of Corrections, not a hospital or clinic, as listed on the department's federal license allowing the drug purchase.

    A pharmacist at Fredonia Pharmacy Corner, an outlet 15 miles from the prison that the state used to buy other drugs, offered to order the sodium thiopental for Kentucky as long as he could tack on a 15 percent markup. Spectrum rejected the order, saying they don't sell to pharmacies. The state penitentiary's Parker speculated that Spectrum figured out why the department wanted the drug.

    "Bottom line is, they are not going to sell to anyone or any entity associated with us," Parker wrote on July 19 to Kentucky Corrections Commissioner LaDonna Thompson.

    Brad Ashby, a former pharmacist at Fredonia Pharmacy Corner, told Parker in an e-mail that Spectrum initially had no issues with selling the drug to him.

    "I made it clear to Spectrum on Friday that we were a pharmacy and they did not say that they couldn't sell to us," Ashby wrote on July 19. "In fact, 'pharmacy' is a choice on their application."

    Ashby declined to comment last week for this story.

    Julie Berryman, president of Spectrum's West Coast division and general counsel, told the AP the company takes no stand on the drug being used for executions. Berryman said the contract with the Kentucky prisons was part of the company whose business was sold to another firm last year and that sale meant the order had to be canceled.

    "We're a business," Berryman told The Associated Press. "We would never decline a sale for political reasons."

    Kentucky then negotiated a $16,000 order with KRS-GBT in September to cover enough of the drug for six executions, but the deal fell through because the company insisted that a doctor take part in the acquisition, said Jennifer Brislin, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Justice Cabinet.

    Having a doctor participate in buying the drug could have violated state law, which forbids physicians from having a role in an execution.

    "The Department of Corrections couldn't comply with that request," Brislin said.

    KRS-GBT did not return messages from the AP seeking comment.

    The two companies' refusal to sell sodium thiopental to Kentucky set off a scramble by the Department of Corrections to get some of the dwindling national supply of the drug before the state's remaining stock went bad in October.

    As the search wore on, Parker became less and less optimistic that Kentucky would be able to find the drug, calling Spectrum "our last, best hope" and that he was "at wits end" because no one could say when the chemical would be produced again.

    To distance the purchaser of the drugs from the state, Parker suggested hiring a pharmacist not previously associated with the state to call and order the drug. Prison officials also looked into having the Kentucky State Reformatory, which serves as the prison system's medical center, order the chemicals.

    Attempts by the pharmacist at the Kentucky State Reformatory to purchase the drug were unsuccessful and the plan to hire a pharmacist on contract never came to fruition.

    The primary producer of sodium thiopental, Hospira, Inc., of Lake Forest, Ill., has blamed a national shortage on a lack of raw materials. Hospira and the Food and Drug Administration have said the product should be available early this year.

    Sodium thiopental has been used as an anesthetic in surgery, but many hospitals have switched to propofol to render patients unconscious, leaving very few medical uses for sodium thiopental.

    Officials with Hospira have written to at least two states — Ohio and Mississippi — saying the drug is produced with medical uses, not executions, in mind.

    "As such, we do not support the use of any of our products in capital punishment procedures," Dr. Kees Gioenhout, vice president of clinical research and development, wrote to Ohio prison officials in March.

    While Kentucky law prohibits doctors from taking an active role in executions, there's no similar ban on pharmacists. The American Pharmacist Association, based in Washington, D.C., is opposed to any law or regulation mandating or prohibiting pharmacists from taking part in the lethal injection process.

    Kentucky returned to the Fredonia pharmacy to obtain another lethal injection ingredient, potassium chloride. The state got a third part of the lethal brew, pancuronium bromide, from Henry Schein, a Melville, N.Y., company that sells pharmaceuticals and medical products.

    State records obtained by the AP show Kentucky has 500 mg of pancuronium bromide, which causes paralysis, that expires in November and another 150 mg that expires in March 2012.

    Kentucky also has 720 milliequivalents of potassium chloride, which causes cardiac arrest, that expires in February and another 2,250 that expires in February 2012.

    Kentucky's stock of 6 grams of sodium thiopental expired before the state could carry out an execution. A Sept. 16 date for condemned inmate Gregory L. Wilson, convicted in 1988 of kidnapping, raping and killing a woman in northern Kentucky, passed when a judge halted all executions in the state over concerns about how Kentucky evaluated an inmate's mental health before execution.

    http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=12639484&page=4

  9. #29
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    Texas Reveals Source Of Execution Drugs

    COLUMBUS, Ohio (January 21, 2011)—In spite of a national shortage of a key execution drug, Texas has found a supplier and after fighting to shield the source, has revealed where it’s getting the three drugs used in the lethal injection.

    The state fought to shield the information, saying the revelation could be "an embarrassing fact" and prompt the supplier to stop shipping the drugs.

    The state said releasing the information could also put the company's employees in danger from death penalty opponents.

    The Associated Press, however, obtained the name of the company through an open records request and identified the supplier Friday as Besse Medical of suburban Cincinnati, a large pharmaceutical distributor that says it has no way to determine what its customers, including the Texas criminal justice department, does with its products.

    http://www.kwtx.com/news/headlines/T...4.html?ref=924

  10. #30
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    US drug maker discontinues key death penalty drug

    COLUMBUS, Ohio — The only U.S. manufacturer of a key lethal injection drug is discontinuing the drug's production because Italian authorities wanted a guarantee that it wouldn't be used to put inmates to death — a decision that could disrupt executions in states already struggling with a shortage of the drug.

    Hospira Inc., of Lake Forest, Ill., said Friday that it had decided to switch manufacture of the anesthetic from its North Carolina plant to a Hospira plant in Liscate, outside of Milan, in Italy. But Italian authorities insisted the company control the product's distribution all the way to the end user to guarantee it wouldn't be used in executions.

    After discussions with Italian authorities, with Hospira wholesalers and within the corporation, Hospira decided it couldn't make that promise.

    "Based on this understanding, we cannot take the risk that we will be held liable by the Italian authorities if the product is diverted for use in capital punishment," company spokesman Dan Rosenberg said. "Exposing our employees or facilities to liability is not a risk we are prepared to take."

    Sodium thiopental is already in short supply, and any batches Hospira had manufactured were set to expire in March. That means the decision to halt production could in turn disrupt or delay executions across the U.S.

    The company has long deplored the drug's use in executions, but said it regretted having to stop production. Hospira continues to make two other drugs that, in addition to medical uses, are also used by states for executions — pancuronium bromide, which paralyze inmates, and potassium chloride, which stop inmates' hearts.

    The company's Italian plant was the only viable facility where Hospira could manufacture sodium thiopental, Rosenberg said.

    The current shortage of the drug had disrupted executions in Arizona, California, Kentucky, Ohio — which nearly ran out last spring — and Oklahoma.

    In the fall, states including Arizona, Arkansas, California and Tennessee turned to a British manufactured source of sodium thiopental. But that supply dried up after the British government in November banned its export for use in executions.

    Oklahoma went a different route, switching to pentobarbital, an anesthetic commonly used to put cats and dogs to sleep. The state has conducted two executions with the new drug.

    In addition, Texas, the country's busiest death penalty state, is identifying for the first time the name of the company that supplies all three of its lethal injection drugs. Texas previously fought to shield the information, saying the revelation could be "an embarrassing fact" and prompt the supplier to stop shipping the drugs — jeopardizing the state's ability to carry out executions.

    The state said releasing the information also could put the company's employees in danger from death penalty opponents.

    The supplier, Besse Medical of suburban Cincinnati, is a large pharmaceutical distributor that says it has no way to determine what its customers, including the Texas corrections department, does with its products.

    The Associated Press obtained the company's name through an open records request following a Texas judge's order that the state had to produce the information.

    http://www.macon.com/2011/01/21/1419...nd-denies.html

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