NEW VOICES: Head of National Pharmacist’s Group Opposes Lethal Injection Secrecy

Leonard Edloe (pic­tured), President of the American Pharmacists Association Foundation has urged Virginia law­mak­ers to reject Governor Terry McAuliffe’s pro­pos­al to con­ceal the iden­ti­ty of the state’s exe­cu­tion drug sup­pli­ers, say­ing that the plan ​“under­mines every­thing our pro­fes­sion stands for, and is actu­al­ly against the law.” In an op-ed in The Virginian-Pilot on the eve of a veto ses­sion in which the Virginia state leg­is­la­ture will con­sid­er the secre­cy pro­pos­al, Edloe wrote: ​“Medicines are made to save lives, not end them. They’re not designed, or test­ed, to kill peo­ple.” Edloe says “[k]eeping phar­ma­cies out of the exe­cu­tion process is not just a point of prin­ci­ple. Federal law says drugs must be pre­scribed to a spe­cif­ic patient for a med­i­c­i­nal pur­pose. An exe­cu­tion clear­ly does not qual­i­fy.” He describes the risks of com­pound­ing, point­ing to the 2012 out­break of fun­gal menin­gi­tis caused by bad­ly com­pound­ed drugs, which killed 64 peo­ple. ​“In response, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment passed laws and reg­u­la­tions to increase the scruti­ny of com­pound­ing phar­ma­cies to pro­tect the pub­lic,” he said. ​“McAuliffe pro­pos­es the oppo­site approach — to give irre­spon­si­ble com­pounders insu­la­tion from reg­u­la­tion — pre­vent­ing the state tak­ing action if a com­pounder sup­plied bad drugs that led to a botched exe­cu­tion.” In 2015 the American Pharmacists Association issued a dec­la­ra­tion oppos­ing phar­ma­cist involve­ment in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, and Edloe called such involve­ment ​“fun­da­men­tal­ly con­trary to the role of phar­ma­cists as providers of health­care.” The cur­rent debate over secre­cy, he says, ​“helps dri­ve home the point that pro­fes­sion­al phar­ma­cists have no place in the process.” UPDATE: The Virginia leg­is­la­ture approved Gov. McAuliffe’s amend­ments on April 20. 

(L. Edloe, ​“Leonard Edloe: Don’t ask Va. phar­ma­cists to break the law,” The Virginian-Pilot, April 19, 2016.) See New Voices and Lethal Injection.