By Associated Press

September 27, 2012

COLUMBIA, Mo. — A man­u­fac­tur­er of the anes­thet­ic blamed for Michael Jackson’s death said Thursday it won’t sell propo­fol for use in U.S. exe­cu­tions, a set­back for Missouri and oth­er states look­ing for an alter­na­tive after oth­er drug mak­ers also object­ed to their prod­ucts’ use in lethal injections.

Drug mak­er Fresenius Kabi USA, a German com­pa­ny with U.S. offices based in Schaumburg, Ill., is one of only two domes­tic sup­pli­ers of propo­fol, and is the only one cur­rent­ly dis­trib­ut­ing in the U.S. Earlier this year, Missouri adopt­ed a new sin­gle-drug exe­cu­tion method that would make it the first state to use propo­fol on death-row inmates. Other states also have con­sid­ered incor­po­rat­ing the drug into their lethal injections.

Fresenius Kabi spokesman Matt Kuhn con­firmed to The Associated Press that the com­pa­ny told its dis­trib­u­tors in late August that such usage is ​“incon­sis­tent” with the company’s mis­sion. It’s also for­bid­den under European Union laws to export drugs that could be used in executions.

“Fresenius Kabi objects to the use of its prod­ucts in any man­ner that is not in full accor­dance with the med­ical indi­ca­tions for which they have been approved by health author­i­ties,” a com­pa­ny state­ment reads. ​“Consequently, the com­pa­ny does not accept orders for propo­fol from any depart­ments of cor­rec­tion in the United States. Nor will it do so.”

Most of the 33 states with the death penal­ty had long used sodi­um thiopen­tal as the first of a three-drug com­bi­na­tion admin­is­tered dur­ing lethal injec­tions. But that drug also became unavail­able when its European sup­pli­er acknowl­edged pres­sure from death penal­ty oppo­nents and stopped sell­ing it for executions.

Supplies most­ly ran out or expired, forc­ing states to con­sid­er alter­na­tives. Most states have retained the three-drug method but turned to pen­to­bar­bi­tal, a bar­bi­tu­rate used to treat anx­i­ety and con­vul­sive dis­or­ders such as epilep­sy, as a replace­ment for sodi­um thiopen­tal. Pentobarbital sup­plies also have shrunk after its man­u­fac­tur­er said it would try to pre­vent its use in executions.

A spokes­woman for the Missouri Attorney General’s office declined com­ment Thursday, and Department of Corrections offi­cials didn’t respond to sev­er­al requests seek­ing com­ment about Fresenius Kabi’s deci­sion. In August, the state Supreme Court declined Attorney General Chris Koster’s request to set exe­cu­tion dates for six death-row inmates, call­ing it ​“pre­ma­ture” pend­ing the uncer­tain­ty over propofol’s availability.

Richard Dieter, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center, called the drug maker’s deci­sion the lat­est obsta­cle to a cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment pro­ce­dure that until sev­er­al years ago had been vir­tu­al­ly unchanged for more than three decades.

“States have cho­sen a med­ical mod­el. And in gen­er­al, the med­ical pro­fes­sion is not involved in things oth­er than life-pre­serv­ing acts,” he said. ​“It’s going to be an ongo­ing prob­lem. States might have to keep chang­ing (drug pro­to­cols), or come up with a whole new (exe­cu­tion) method.”

In an Aug. 28 let­ter to health care providers, a Fresenius Kabi USA exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent said the com­pa­ny will now ​“more tight­ly con­trol access” by whole­salers and dis­trib­u­tors to propo­fol, which is mar­ket­ed by sub­sidiary APP under the brand name Diprivan. The drug will not be sold to retail phar­ma­cies or third-par­ty dis­trib­u­tors ​“to reduce the pos­si­bil­i­ty that propo­fol reach­es cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ties,” wrote Scott Meacham, also the company’s chief commercial officer.

Hospira, the only oth­er com­pa­ny that dis­trib­utes propo­fol in the U.S., has exhaust­ed its sup­ply and doesn’t expect to release the drug for fur­ther sale until at least October or November. The Lake Forest, Ill.-based com­pa­ny also has come out with strong oppo­si­tion to the use of its prod­ucts for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, which spokesman Dan Rosenberg reit­er­at­ed Thursday. Rosenberg declined to com­ment about whether Hospira also would block the sale of the drug to cor­rec­tions depart­ments when the new sup­ply is released.

The rate of exe­cu­tions in Missouri and the rest of the coun­try has slowed con­sid­er­ably as the sup­ply of lethal injec­tion drugs dried up. The U.S. had 98 exe­cu­tions in 1999 but few­er than half that amount last year. Missouri exe­cut­ed 66 con­vict­ed killers between 1989 — the year exe­cu­tions resumed in the state — and 2005, but only two inmates have been put to death since.

Missouri’s pro­posed use of propo­fol also has come under scruti­ny because the state’s writ­ten exe­cu­tion pro­to­col does not require a physi­cian to be part of the exe­cu­tion team. Propofol typ­i­cal­ly is admin­is­tered by an anes­the­si­ol­o­gist or a nurse anes­thetist under direct physician supervision.