Posted on 09/04/2010 12:22:10 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Lacking enough of the anesthetic essential to the cocktail of lethal drugs administered during executions, several US states are being forced to postpone the procedure until early next year.
At the heart of the drug supply problem is Hospira, the only pharmaceutical company that produces the anesthetic sodium thiopental.
"We are working to get it back on the market and we anticipate we will by 2011," Hospira spokesman told AFP.
The US Food and Drug Administration does not approve the drug's use in lethal injections and Hospira does not sell it for that purpose, though prison officials make significant use of sodium thiopental in executions.
"This is an anesthetic agent that is used by hospital and it is not indicated for capital punishment," Rosenberg added. "We do not make it for that, we don't support its use in that procedure."
He noted that Hospira does not disclose sales of the drug because it is not a big seller for the company.
Death row inmates are injected intravenously with three drugs once strapped in the death chamber: first they are put to sleep with sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide then paralyzes their muscles and stops their breathing, and finally, potassium chloride stops their heart.
Two states -- Ohio in the Midwest and Washington in the Northwest -- have opted to carry out executions by injecting only sodium thiopental, but at very high and deadly doses.
The supply dry-up nationwide has prompted Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear to announce he would only sign one of the three execution orders pending on his desk.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
String ‘em up! Or better yet, since the media is in love with Islam, we can follow their lead and behead people.
The "death chamber" at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Huntsville Unit in Huntsville, Texas. Lacking enough of the anesthetic essential to the cocktail of lethal drugs administered during executions, several US states are being forced to postpone the procedure until early next year. (AFP/File/Paul Buck)
Fer cryin’ out loud.Short on anesthetic? Use a claw hammer and start at the toes.
Or let the Muslims do it. They enjoy that sort of stuff.
I've always believe that the route of lethal injection for administering the death penalty was just another monkey wrench that the anti-justice crowd was throwing into the death penalty. We've already seen justice denied because of medical professionals' objections to administering these drugs.
There’s no Versed? Sodium Pentathol?
First ZOT you are unconscious—next ZOTS and you are dead.
Most merciful execution invented—though it LOOKS ugly.
Here in Newberry County we ZOT turkeys by the thousand before bleeding—never heard a gobble of a complaint.
Thanks for posting the article.
Shows us how crazy this nation is. How Political Correctness and Big Government Intrusion foul up something that should be very, very simple.
If we still used HANGING as the method, they would complain the ROPE wasn’t made of the proper texture of sisal, and that the hood didn’t pass government certification.
“Got Lead? uhh Hemp? “
No kidding! This sounds like another excuse to become more like Mexico...NO DEATH PENALTY....they don’t kill their criminals, they send them here and allow them to slaughter innocents.
It seems today, any excuse will do to NOT ENFORCE THE LAW!
I would prefer to see a modern guillotine.
Quick, humane and doesn’t poison organs that could be used as transplants.
This will work until they find more drugs.
Take em up in an air plane and let them go from 10K feet...if they live, they are free. If not, well: thank you for flying Luftanza.
Heck, if they don't have any Hospira, then just use the hypo to pump their veins full of air.
It will kill them, and air is a lot cheaper than any of the three of those drugs.
Even cheaper than lead, and a lot less messy.
The last few days it looks like we might start executions in California finally,, but I see a judge or too is still mucking with the go ahead.. and now this ‘shortage’.
not sure why they can’t just put ‘em out on a arctic ice floe with a knife a fish hook and some string..
Interesting. I had dinner the other night with my brother-in-law who is the head of an anesthesia group, and he was saying the he has recently been experiencing unexplained shortages of drugs his practice needs. He said lawsuits can't explain it, and he's baffled as to why this is suddenly happening these days. It's becoming a real problem.
You’d think there would be enough Heroin in
evidence rooms across the country, use it.
How about a bubble helmet, with the air supply abruptly switched to pure nitrogen?
Instant lights out with death promptly following.
No pain, no needles, no poisons.
Headline: Drug shortage to kill drug traffickers.
This problem WILL be fixed stat!
Unless one does not believe in the entity that has kept humanity from grace called EVIL.
Yet EVIL is often a tool of the Left though some of the good liberals regret the use of this socialist necessity. They get over it.
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