"British death drug 'failed to work'," is the UK Press Association report, via Google News.
A third American prisoner died in agony after an anaesthetic supplied by a British company failed to work properly, it has been claimed.
Dream Pharma, a small company run from the back of the Elgone Driving Agency in Horn Lane, Acton, west London, is understood to have supplied the anaesthetic sodium thiopental used in the US executions of Emmanuel Hammond, Brandon Rhode and Jeffrey Landrigan.
A claim has now emerged that Landrigan, a convicted murderer, kept his eyes open after receiving a lethal injection - an apparent sign that the anaesthetic had not worked.
Dale Baich, a lawyer who witnessed the execution in Arizona last October, made the disclosure in a sworn statement for legal action charity Reprieve's pending High Court action.
Reprieve claims the other two prisoners also kept their eyes open and has written a letter to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) asking them to recall all of Dream Pharma's sodium thiopental.
The charity said that if the MHRA does not respond by the end of Monday, they will file action against them in the High Court the following day.
Reprieve investigator Maya Foa said: "Why does a regulator exist if not to prevent British drugs failing or, worse, causing pain to patients?
"It is difficult to see how much more evidence the MHRA needs in order to recall a faulty drug. If Dream Pharma's sodium thiopental is not taken out of circulation, more prisoners are likely to die in agony and the MHRA will bear responsibility for their ordeal."
New Europe reports, "Mother urges EU to ban export of drugs used in executions." It's written by Andy Carling.
When Brandon Rhode was executed in Jackson State Prison in Georgia, US, he was killed by drugs manufactured in Austria and sold by a British company. Experts say that the drug, an anaesthetic called sodium thiopental, may not have been stored properly, leaving him conscious, causing an “agonising” death, that took 14 minutes. The drugs were sold by a small company, Dream Pharma, operating above a driving school in London. Their website says they supply discontinued and hard to find products to anywhere in the world. So far, their drugs have been used in three executions and US prisons are believed to have bought enough for 82 more executions.
Brandon’s mother, Patches Rhode and his brother, Josh Ladner, visited London and Brussels, asking the EU to live up to it’s principles and halt sales. They spoke to New Europe.You say that the drugs used in the execution may not have been handled properly?
Patches: We don’t know the reason they were not effective, just that they weren’t effective, that’s what medical experts tell us.
Josh: We’ve also got medical experts saying, after a toxicology report, that says the dose was large enough to make him sleep, but he wasn’t asleep, so it may have been the storage, or whatever, that rendered them useless.
Earlier coverage of the imported drugs from Dream Pharma begins at the link. Related posts are in the lethal injection index.
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