Ohio drug distributor supplies Texas' lethal drugs

COLUMBUS (AP) — Amid a national shortage of a key execution drug, the country’s busiest death penalty state is identifying for the first time its supplier for 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.

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

The supplier is Besse Medical of suburban Cincinnati. It 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.