New York: Hospira said it will no longer produce sodium thiopental, a drug used in death penalty cases, potentially delaying executions in the US.
The Lake Forest, Illinois company said in a statement it would discontinue manufacturing the anaesthetic after Italian government authorities asked for a guarantee that the drug, slated to be produced for the first time at a plant in Italy this year, wouldn't be used in executions.
Hospira said it can't control the ultimate end use of the medicine, marketed as Pentothal.
Hospira is the lone US producer of the drug used worldwide to sedate patients undergoing medical procedures, said Dan Rosenberg, a Hospira spokesman. It is included as part of a cocktail of drugs used by correctional institutions in the US as a fast-acting sedative in lethal-injection executions.
"This drug is intended for medical use and we would never condone the use of the drug for lethal injections," Rosenberg said Friday. "Even if we and our suppliers didn't sell to departments of corrections, there was no way we could guarantee that the drug might not be diverted for that use."
The disruption in production of sodium thiopental may delay the states' ability to carry out death sentences because the use of Hospira's drug in some states is specified in legislation.
