SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A Lake Forest-based company that is the sole U.S. manufacturer of an anesthetic used in lethal injections says it won’t make the drug anymore because it couldn’t guarantee Italian authorities that it wouldn’t be used in executions.
Hospira Inc. officials said Friday that the company’s plant in Italy was the only viable place where the company could produce sodium thiopental.
Hospira spokesman Dan Rosenberg said Italian authorities insisted the company prove the drug would never end up with states using it to put condemned inmates to death. Rosenberg said the company determined after discussions with Italy and Hospira wholesalers that it could not make such a guarantee.
“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,” 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.
A shortage of sodium thiopental has disrupted executions around the country since last spring when Ohio nearly postponed an execution when it almost ran out.
Thiopental sodium used by injection, a so-called knockout drug known by the brand name of Pentothal, ended production in August 2009 for reasons Hospira did not disclose, though officials insisted the drug was still safe and effective.
In December, Rosenberg had said a new supplier of one of its ingredients was being sought.
The company does not support the drug’s use in executions, Rosenberg said, pointing out that it is used in hospitals to save lives.
Hospira had sent letters to state authorities nationwide last spring to notify them that capital punishment is not an approved use of this product and that the company doesn’t support its use in that procedure, Rosenberg said.
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.
Pentothal was first made in the 1930s by Abbott Laboratories, which later spun off Hospira to continue producing that drug and others. Hospira sold Pentothal to about 3,400 hospitals before it stopped production. Any remaining drug that is on hospital shelves likely will expire this year, Rosenberg said.
The shortage of the drug came to light in September when some state correctional facilities needed it as part of planned executions. Arizona officials gave a California prison 24 vials of sodium thiopental for use at San Quentin Prison in a planned Sept. 30 execution of Albert Greenwood Brown. But the state called off the execution because of a court ruling connected to the Oct. 1 expiration date of the thiopental sodium on hand.
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.
Copyright 2011 Paddock Publications, Inc.