JUSTIN
LANE/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY/FILE 2006
Pfizer says it’s blocking use of drugs for lethal injections
By Andrew Welsh-Huggins ASSOCIATED
PRESS MAY 14, 2016
Pharmaceutical company Pfizer said Friday it was blocking use of
its drugs in lethal injections, which means all federally-approved drugmakers
whose medications could be used for executions have now put them off limits.
‘‘Pfizer makes its products to enhance and save the lives of the
patients we serve. Consistent with these values, Pfizer strongly objects to the
use of its products as lethal injections for capital punishment,’’ the company
said in the statement made public on its website Friday.
The company’s announcement has limited immediate impact. Its
action is an enhancement of a previous policy that follows Pfizer’s $15.23
billion purchase of Lake Forest, Illinois-based Hospira Inc. last year. Hospira
had previously prohibited the use of its drugs in capital punishment, as have
several other drugmakers.
Pfizer shares closed even Friday at $33.19.
The development means the approximately 25 FDA-approved companies
worldwide able to manufacture drugs used in executions have now blocked the use
of the drugs, according to Reprieve, a New York-based human rights organization
opposed to the death penalty.
‘‘Pfizer’s actions cement the pharmaceutical industry’s opposition
to the misuse of medicines,’’ Maya Foia, Reprieve director, said in a
statement.
Pfizer’s announcement was unlikely to have much effect on
executions, which have slowed in recent years as drugmakers’ prohibition on the
drugs took effect.
However, as recently as last year, records showed that labels of
Arkansas execution drugs appeared to indicate that the state’s potassium
chloride, which stops the heart, was made by Hospira. Pfizer spokeswoman Rachel
Hooper said the company couldn’t speculate on the impact of its decision.
Ohio, which last executed an inmate in January 2014, has
repeatedly pushed back executions while it looks for drugs. It now has more
than two dozen inmates with firm execution dates, but no drugs to put prisoners
to death with.
Some remaining death penalty states have been using compounded
versions of drugs that fall outside of FDA approval.
Texas, with the country’s busiest death chamber, obtains its
pentobarbital for lethal injections from a supplier the state identifies only
as a licensed compounding pharmacy. A law that took effect last year keeps the
identity of the drug provider confidential. The state has carried out six
executions so far in 2016. At least eight are scheduled for the coming months,
including two in June.
Texas is fighting a lawsuit trying to force it to identify
drugmakers from April 2014, when attorneys unsuccessfully filed appeals to stop
two executions by seeking the identity of the drug providers, and September
2015, when the state’s secrecy law took effect.
Similar lawsuits about whether states must identify their
providers have been argued in states including Georgia, Arkansas and Missouri.
There have been 14 executions in the U.S. so far in 2016 in five
states: six in Texas, five in Georgia and one each in Alabama, Florida and
Missouri. Last year, there were 28 in six states.
Some states have passed laws allowing older methods of execution
if needed. Last year, Utah approved the use of firing squads for executions if
drugs aren’t available, while Oklahoma became the first state to approve
nitrogen gas for executions if lethal injection drugs become unavailable or are
deemed unconstitutional.
In 2014, Tennessee passed a law allowing the use of the electric
chair if lethal drugs can’t be found. Virginia is debating a similar bill.
The seven drugs affected by Pfizer’s policy: pancuronium bromide,
potassium chloride, propofol, midazolam, hydromorphone, rocuronium bromide and
vecuronium bromide.
Associated Press writers Mike
Graczyk in Houston and Mark Sherman in Washington, D.C., contributed to this
report.
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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