U.S.: Thiopental sodium: Key lethal injection drug headed off the market?
- This will be a challenge for [medical] customers and we regret that. But we don’t want to put our Italian facility at risk that the product will be misused.
- Hospira spokeswoman Tareta Adams • Discussing the company’s decision to pull a key drug used in lethal executions off the market. The drug, thiopental sodium, is widely used by prisons all over the country, but in the wake of manufacturing issues in 2009, they had to stop producing the product. They were about to restart production at an italian factory, but an order by that country’s parliament forced Hospira to agree not to allow the Italian-produced drugs to be used in lethal injections in the U.S. So now, American prisons will be screwed or forced to use other medications to do the same thing. In Oklahoma, the drug pentobarbital, usually used to put animals down, was used in an execution there after a court decision. source