In January, attor­neys gen­er­al from 13 states wrote a let­ter to Attorney General Eric Holder ask­ing for assis­tance from the U.S. Department of Justice relat­ed to the recent short­age of sodi­um thiopen­tal for lethal injec­tions in the U.S. The state offi­cials, includ­ing those in Alabama, Florida, and Tennessee, asked for help in ​“iden­ti­fy­ing an appro­pri­ate source for sodi­um thiopen­tal or mak­ing sup­plies held by the Federal Government avail­able to the States.” Earlier this year, the sole U.S. man­u­fac­tur­er announced that it would no longer pro­duce sodi­um thiopen­tal because of objec­tions from Italy where the drug was pro­duced. Great Britain has also tak­en action to pre­vent fur­ther expor­ta­tion of this drug from sup­pli­ers (see pic­ture) there to U.S. states for use in lethal injec­tions. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration had pre­vi­ous­ly allowed (with­out test­ing) ship­ments of the drug from over­seas to be for­ward­ed to states such as Arizona and California.

Click to enlarge
(Picture of Dream Pharma in London, for­eign source for recent lethal injec­tions per­formed in U.S.)

More recent­ly, a suit has been filed by six cap­i­tal defen­dants against the FDA, assert­ing that it should super­vise the qual­i­ty of any exe­cu­tion drugs from other countries.

(Letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, January 25, 2011). See Lethal Injection. See also Response from attor­neys who filed suit against the FDA to the let­ter from the state AGs.

Citation Guide