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.