UPDATE: Execution stayed by fed­er­al court on Nov. 8 to allow time for appeal. Pennsylvania is plan­ning to use drugs in an upcom­ing exe­cu­tion that are not reg­u­lat­ed by the fed­er­al Food and Drug Administration but rather are made to order by a com­pound­ing phar­ma­cy. A com­pound­ing phar­ma­cy has been impli­cat­ed in the dead­ly menin­gi­tis out­break in the U.S. caused by con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed drugs. In Missouri, the Pharmacy Board test­ed claimed drug dosages from com­pound­ing phar­ma­cies from 2006 to 2009 and found that the phar­ma­cies failed 1 out 5 times, with dosages rang­ing from zero to many times of what was pre­scribed. Compounding phar­ma­cies in Texas failed to deliv­er drugs of the prop­er dosage in one-third of tests done there. This is cru­cial because an improp­er dosage could sub­ject the inmate to excru­ci­at­ing pain. The state fought hard to keep the source of its drugs out of court, snub­bing two fed­er­al court orders to divulge the infor­ma­tion, final­ly com­ply­ing at the last minute after the threat of sanc­tions. A fed­er­al class action suit has been filed chal­leng­ing Pennsylvania’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. The suit could affect the exe­cu­tion of Hubert Michael, Jr., sched­uled for November 8. 

(D. Gilliland, ​“Pennsylvania gets its exe­cu­tion drugs from same type of phar­ma­cy as the one respon­si­ble for bac­te­r­i­al menin­gi­tis out­break,” Patriot-News, Nov. 6, 2012). See Lethal Injection.

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