Drug shortage delays executions

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Some executions in the U.S. have been put on hold because of a shortage of one of the drugs used in lethal injections from coast to coast.

Several of the 35 states that rely on lethal injection are either scrambling to find sodium thiopental — an anesthetic that renders the condemned inmate unconscious — or considering using another drug. But both routes are strewn with legal or ethical roadblocks.

The shortage delayed an Oklahoma execution last month and led Kentucky’s governor to postpone the signing of death warrants for two inmates. Arizona is trying to get its hands on the drug in time for its next execution, in late October. California, with an inmate set to die Thursday, said the shortage will force it to stop executions after that day.

The sole U.S. manufacturer, Hospira Inc. of Lake Forest, Ill., has blamed the shortage on unspecified problems with its raw- material suppliers and said new batches of sodium thiopental will not be available until January at the earliest.

Nine states have a total of 17 executions scheduled between now and the end of January, including Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.

But at least one death- penalty expert was skeptical of Hospira’s explanation, noting that the company has made it clear it objects to using its drugs for executions. Hospira also makes the two other chemicals used in lethal injections.

Sodium thiopental is a barbiturate, used primarily to anesthetize surgical patients and induce medical comas. It also is used to help terminally ill people commit suicide and sometimes to euthanize animals.

Thirty-three of the states that have lethal injection employ the three-drug combination that was created in the 1970s: First, sodium thiopental is given by syringe to put the inmate to sleep. Then two other drugs are administered: pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes muscles, and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.

Ohio and Washington state use just one drug to carry out executions: a single, extra-large dose of sodium thiopental.

Hospira has blamed the shortage on “raw-material supplier issues” since last spring, first promising availability in July, then October, then early 2011. The company has refused to elaborate on the problem. But according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press from the Kentucky governor’s office, Hospira told state officials that it lost its sole supplier of the drug’s active ingredient and was trying to find a new one.

As for the possibility of obtaining the drug elsewhere, the Food and Drug Administration said there are no FDA-approved manufacturers of sodium thiopental overseas.

Switching to another anesthetic would be difficult for some states. Some, such as California, Missouri and Kentucky, adopted their execution procedures after lengthy court proceedings, and changing drugs could take time and invite lawsuits.

Obtaining sodium thiopental from hospitals does not appear to be an option, either. Sodium thiopental has been largely supplanted by other anesthetics in the U.S., and hospitals do not stock much of it.

Also, drug purchasing and use rules — and ethical guidelines that bar the medical profession from getting involved in executions — could prevent hospitals from supplying prisons with the drug, according to industry experts.

“Many of these cases, the victims have waited for 20 years, some of them longer than that. If we’re out of that drug, we need to have an alternative,” said Tennessee state Sen. Jim Tracy. Tennessee said it has enough of the drug for a November execution and expects to be able to carry out another in December.

Last spring, Hospira, a publicly traded company, sent a letter to all states outlining its discomfort with the use of its drugs for executions, as it has done periodically.

“Hospira provides these products because they improve or save lives and markets them solely for use as indicated on the product labeling,” Kees Groenhout, clinical research and development vice president, said in a March 31 letter to Ohio, obtained by the AP. “As such, we do not support the use of any of our products in capital-punishment procedures.”

Jonathan Groner, an Ohio State University surgeon and death- penalty opponent who researches the issue, speculated the real reason for the unavailability of sodium thiopental is that its medical uses “have shrunk to the point that the company doesn’t want to make a drug that has no use but to kill people.”

However, Rosenberg, the company spokesman, said the shortage has nothing to do with that.

Last month, an Oklahoma judge delayed the execution of Jeffrey Matthews when the state tried to switch anesthetics after running out of its regular supply in August. Matthews was convicted of killing his 77-year-old great-uncle during a 1994 robbery. Oklahoma finally found enough sodium thiopental from another state, but the court-ordered delay continues.

Ohio, which spends about $350 for the drug for each execution, ran out of the amount state procedures call for just three days before a May 13 execution. The state obtained enough in time but won’t say where.

Prisons officials in Texas, the nation’s busiest death-penalty state, refused to discuss how much sodium thiopental they have on hand, saying the information could inflame protesters outside the death house, and “people could get seriously hurt or killed.”