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PFIZER, THE LARGEST pharmaceutical company in the US, has said it is blocking use of its drugs in lethal injections, which means all federally-approved drugmakers whose medications could be used for executions have now put them off limits.
“Pfizer makes its products to enhance and save the lives of the patients we serve. Consistent with these values, Pfizer strongly objects to the use of its products as lethal injections for capital punishment,” the company said in the statement made public on its website yesterday.
The company’s announcement has limited immediate impact. Its action is an enhancement of a previous policy that follows Pfizer’s $15.23 billion (€13.5bn) purchase of Lake Forest, Illinois-based Hospira Inc last year. Hospira had previously prohibited the use of its drugs in capital punishment, as have several other drugmakers.
The development means the approximately 25 FDA-approved companies worldwide able to manufacture drugs used in executions have now blocked the use of the drugs, according to Reprieve, a New York-based human rights organisation opposed to the death penalty.
“Pfizer’s actions cement the pharmaceutical industry’s opposition to the misuse of medicines,” Maya Foia, Reprieve director, said in a statement.
Pfizer’s announcement is unlikely to have much effect on executions, which have slowed in recent years as drugmakers’ prohibition on the drugs took effect.
However, as recently as last year, records showed that labels of Arkansas execution drugs appeared to indicate that the state’s potassium chloride, which stops the heart, was made by Hospira. Pfizer spokeswoman Rachel Hooper said the company couldn’t speculate on the impact of its decision.
Ohio, which last executed an inmate in January 2014, has repeatedly pushed back executions while it looks for drugs. It now has more than two dozen inmates with firm execution dates, but no drugs to put prisoners to death with.
Texas
Some remaining death penalty states have been using compounded versions of drugs that fall outside of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval.
Texas, with the country’s busiest death chamber, obtains its pentobarbital for lethal injections from a supplier the state identifies only as a licenced compounding pharmacy. A law that took effect last year keeps the identity of the drug provider confidential. The state has carried out six executions so far in 2016. At least eight are scheduled for the coming months, including two in June.
Texas is fighting a lawsuit trying to force it to identify drugmakers from April 2014, when attorneys unsuccessfully filed appeals to stop two executions by seeking the identity of the drug providers, and September 2015, when the state’s secrecy law took effect.
Similar lawsuits about whether states must identify their providers have been argued in states including Georgia, Arkansas and Missouri.
There have been 14 executions in the US so far in 2016 in five states: six in Texas, five in Georgia and one each in Alabama, Florida and Missouri. Last year, there were 28 in six states.
Some states have passed laws allowing older methods of execution if needed. Last year, Utah approved the use of firing squads for executions if drugs aren’t available, while Oklahoma became the first state to approve nitrogen gas for executions if lethal injection drugs become unavailable or are deemed unconstitutional.
In 2014, Tennessee passed a law allowing the use of the electric chair if lethal drugs can’t be found. Virginia is debating a similar bill.
Seven drugs affected by Pfizer’s policy: pancuronium bromide, potassium chloride, propofol, midazolam, hydromorphone, rocuronium bromide and vecuronium bromide.
The US needs to observe its bedfellows, Iran, Saudi, China … appalling human rights abusers, and ask itself if it wants to belong to the civilised side of humanity or not.
Oh no Martin you see us republicans believe in our gracious Lord who gave us this land gave us the divine right to kill, mostly black people. Those commies and towlies elsewhere are terrorists
I bet you are wearing shoes made in China …. or mobile ….all that oil from Saudi ,its time to boycott ….. like Israel
Martin and No2 adroitly slipping in the race card and Iran.
Which ADL office are ye posting from? :)
Medicines to kill, humans are some invention
Idea, can they ban use of their products for killing innocent babies thru abortion? Wonder what the reaction to that would be.
Define baby will you just for the purposes of the discussion
If someone raped or harmed a child. Death penalty should be there. Some people just be rehabilitated
*cant
That aul narrative, why then is the offence you highlight not considered the most heinous or punishable crime, murder is
I agree, but isn’t the guillotine more humane?
Some people can’t be rehabilitated, right. But humans tend to assume the worse the initial crime the more unrehabilitable accused is, the just like what you said. If someone is convicted of one murder they may well be truly remorseful and never likely to reoffend. While we see cases before the courts everyday of petty crimes like theft, where the accused has over 100 convictions already. Humans can’t be trusted to be logical and unemotional about which criminals truly are of no plausible future utility to society
It may be good PR and good image building by Pfizer but it is the morally right thing to do. Killing human beings, even when State authorised, is barbaric, inhumane, reduces the vale of human life and does much harm to all of those who participate in the process of execution. Society is coarsened and the dignity of all is undermined by such conduct.
I disagree when it’s a case of serial killers who kill again. And some crimes are so inhuman that I’d be all in favour of execution. Besides, lifetime imprisonment is inhumane. They aren’t allowed to kill themselves once imprisoned, after all.
Fiona deFreyne what people forget nowadays is jail is actually for keeping dangers to society out of society the death penalty should be used even here for people who can’t never be changed and are too big a risk to society if they were to escape
The three drugs used are thiopental to render the person unconscious (somethings not enough is given deliberately) in many more unreported cases other than Clayton Lockett that made the media,then,pancuronium to cause the muscles and heart to relax then lastly potassium chloride to stop the heart.
This comes too late for the oldest man executed John Nixon at 75 years old. How the hell is this ok ? It’s outdated and barbaric.
Killing is killing whether done for duty ,profit or fun. A Richard ramerez quote that couldn’t be more true.
Lock the person up for the rest of their natural life. They are removed from society.
I firmly believe people don’t think properly about the death penalty and randomly say kill them because of our own legal system when a killer can be out after four or five years.
This doesn’t happen in America.
Places like Iran etc,no one will change them.
America is a civilised country. They put people to death with IQs of below 50. This isn’t ok.
Just incarcerate them for life.
You ask how the hell is it ok to execute 75 year old John Nixon? As if he was some innocent gentle old man. When in fact, in 1985 he murdered a woman by shooting her behind the ear with a pistol after he attempted to shoot her husband! Why did he do this? Because he got paid to do so.
Yes so lock him up for life. Why kill him? It’s state murder or do you think it’s not murder just because a Supreme Court judge ordered it?
Yes, I think its not murder. Because he definitely carried out the crime for which he was convicted, and a judge ordered it. The woman he murdered didnt get a second chance at life, why should he even in prison? Locking him up for life is not a punishment befitting the crime he committed. Murder is by definition the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another. Execution is by definition carrying out a lawful sentence of death as a legal penalty. This idea of casting convicted murderers as victims, and treating the real unfortunate victims of their crimes as the causation factor in their tragic downfall, is frankly political correctness taken to the extreme.
Well done Pfizer
In other news… Guns of all shapes and sizes still available on every street corner.
Seems convicted murderers and rapists have more rights to their lives than schoolchildren gunned down on the playgrounds and in classrooms.
Funny cause they are good at making men stiff.
Funny?
dont upset the lefties, it too early for them and they have not had the skinny latte yet.
Don’t be such a stiffy Kevin.
Oh how noble of them, if they were making any meaningful money from the supply of these chemicals for execution they would happily continue. Costs them nothing to stand against and it gives them some advertising to help clean up their image.
Exactly it’s a small market, not like someone with a 20 year prescription!!
I’m not a fan of Pfizer either but will you for Christ sake be happy for some positive news.
Why not just use firing squads or the chair instead of drugs?
Bolt gun to the head? Beheading? Hanging? Crucifixion? Stretch them on the rack? Comes a point when it goes beyond “justice” to violent retribution.
Fug it bring on the dogs!!!
Feed them to the lions ? Stone them? A lot of these guys killed people savagely and a lot less humanely than they get killed themselves , who cares how they die?
If you’re happy to be wrongly convicted and sentenced to death just to support this system of ” justice” then I respect your opinion. If not, then stop talking about stuff you know nothing about.
How is this legal? How can a company dictate to a govt what its allowed do once the purchase has been made.
Easy it’s called an agreement
Like any company can they just say.. We don’t stock that product anymore! I’m sure they can source it elsewhere
They will have threatened legal action and been able to prove tangible damages to their reputation and sales due to the mis-use of their product, the US would be be legally liable to compensate them.
Capitalism.
If only we had actual real capitalism tempered by law. Sadly nowadays this hardly exists.
Aw no drugs for a nice long sleep? Bullet to the head so!
I agree there should be a quicker way to kill wrongfully convicted and mentally disabled. Get them out of the way.
so what? lots of bullets out there
Fair play to Pfizer if this is a genuine move. It’s unusual to see a blue chip company do anything human.
These drugs didn’t kill the person, it just made them unable to move or show expression as they lay fully conscious and fully away as their heart was slowly stopped on them in full pain and not able to move a muscle… A bullet would have been kinder…
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