"S.D. buys death penalty drug," is the title of the Argus Leader report written by Jon Walker.
South Dakota has bought a new supply of the drug that the state uses in executions because of reports of a national shortage.
Officials spent $5,000 to acquire enough sodium thiopental for the lethal injections of convicted killers Donald E. Moeller and Charles Russell Rhines. The drug is under storage at the state penitentiary in Sioux Falls, said Sara Rabern, public information officer for the attorney general's office.
Moeller and Rhines have appeals pending. Neither has an execution date, but the state is preparing because of reports supply of the drug would run low."This is a proactive response to a national shortfall," Attorney General Marty Jackley said Wednesday. "We're not in a situation where we need to use it. But the main goal is to obtain the drug ... and to keep legal custody of it."
And:
The state's last execution was in 2007, when Elijah Page died by injection for torturing and killing Chester Allan Poage in 2000 in Lawrence County. That was South Dakota's first execution since George Sitts died in 1947 in the electric chair. A judge also sentenced Briley Piper to death for his role in killing Poage, but the Supreme Court in 2009 sent his case back to circuit court for a jury to decide Piper's sentence.
From Nebraska, the Lincoln Journal Star reports, "Company says it no longer will sell drug for lethal injection." It's written by Kevin O'Hanlon.
The Indian company that recently sold Nebraska one of three drugs it needs for its lethal injection protocol says it will quit supplying the drug for that purpose.
"In view of the sensitivity involved with sale of our thiopental sodium to various jails/prisons in USA and as alleged to be used for the purpose of lethal injection, we voluntary declare that we as Indian Pharma Dealer who cherish the Ethos of Hinduism (A believer even in non-livings as the creation of God) refrain ourselves in selling this drug where the purpose is purely for Lethal Injection and its misuse," Kayem Pharmaceutical Pvt. Ltd. said in a news release.
The state said it recently paid $2,056 to Kayem for sodium thiopental, which has been in short supply since last year. The only U.S. manufacturer of the drug, Hospira Inc., is ending production because of death-penalty opposition overseas.
Kayem is now following suit.
A lawyer for Nebraska death-row inmate Carey Dean Moore is challenging the legality of the state's purchase of the drug and questioning whether it even bought the right drug.
Jerry Soucie, an attorney with the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy, has filed a motion with the Nebraska Supreme Court challenging the purchase.
Kayem completed a federal Certificate of Origin dated Dec. 8 stating that the drug shipped to the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services was "thiopentone ... thiosol sodium" manufactured by Neon Laboratories Ltd. of Mumbai, India.
But the state's lethal injection protocol calls for using "sodium thiopental."
It appears, Soucie said, the state might have bought a generic version of the drug.
He said federal law requires that before a new drug is used in the United States, the manufacturer must file an application with the Food and Drug Administration outlining the drug's safety, composition and manufacturing process, among other things.
To market a generic drug in the United States, a manufacturer must file an application showing the Food and Drug Administration has approved the active ingredients of its generic product, among other things.
Soucie said he could find no evidence Kayem or Neon Laboratories did either.
In addition, Soucie said he can find no evidence either company is registered with the Drug Enforcement Administration and authorized to deliver controlled substances to the United States.
He said the DEA registration held by the Corrections Department does not authorize it to directly import drugs from a foreign supplier.
The DEA recently seized Georgia's entire supply of sodium thiopental, which defense attorneys say came from a questionable British supplier. The DEA said there were questions about how it was imported.
And:
The Nebraska Legislature approved lethal injection as the state's method of execution in May 2009. The state has not executed an inmate since Robert Williams died in the electric chair in 1997.
Raymond Bonner posts, "Indian Company Ends Sale of Lethal-Injection Drug to the U.S.," at the Atlantic.
The Indian company, Kayem, has already sold thiopental to Nebraska and South Dakota, and had been approached by 13 other states to buy it, the company's managing director, Navneet Verma said in a telephone interview from Mumbai, where the company is located.
Earlier today, the company announced on its website that it would no longer sell the drug for lethal-injection purposes:
In view of the sensitivity involved with sale of our Thiopental Sodium to various Jails/Prisons in USA and as alleged to be used for the purpose of Lethal Injection, we voluntary declare that we as Indian Pharma Dealer who cherish the Ethos of Hinduism ( A believer even in non-livings as the creation of God) refrain ourselves in selling this drug where the purpose is purely for Lethal Injection and its misuse.Mr. Verma said in the telephone interview he had not been aware that the drug was being used for executions until he received a letter from Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve, a British human rights organization that has been at the forefront of an effort to block companies from selling sodium thiopental for execution purposes.
Mr. Stafford Smith wrote, in February, that perhaps in making the sales Kayem, a wholesaler, had believed the drugs were going to be used "only to help treat prisoners not to kill them." If that were the case, Mr. Stafford Smith suggested that Kayem might want to join other pharmaceutical companies that "have made very strong statements condemning the use of life-saving drugs in the killing of prisoners."
And:
Mr. Verma said that he had sold the drug to Nebraska, in December, for $3.50 a vial. (The cost to him is $1.00 a vial, he said.) Three months later, in selling to South Dakota, he jacked up the price to $10.00 a vial. He said he had done this to make the cost prohibitive so that states wouldn't buy it for executions.
"Kayem Faced Activist Pressure Over Death Drug," by Margherita Stancati, at the Wall Street Journal Law blog.
Kayem had supplied thiopental sodium, an anesthetic commonly used during executions by lethal injection, to prison officials in Nebraska and South Dakota.
In explaining its decision, the company described itself as an “Indian Pharma Dealer” which cherishes the “Ethos of Hinduism.”
The London-based Reprieve, a legal action charity which focuses on fighting the death penalty, had earlier this week announced a press conference in Mumbai to try to pressure the pharmaceutical company to stop supplying thiopental sodium to U.S. prisons. Many of the U.S.’s 34 death penalty states have been struggling to source the drug in recent months. When the last U.S.-based manufacturer of the drug ceased production earlier this year, several U.S. prisons switched to other sedatives or to foreign suppliers including Kayem.
This sparked criticism from death penalty opponents such as Reprieve activists who, among other things, alleged the quality of foreign-made sodium thiopental could pose threats to inmates. They have questioned the efficacy of imported sodium thiopental, an anesthetic, which they fear could cause prisoners a painful death. No inmate is known to have yet been executed using the thiopental sodium supplied by Kayem.
In a press release issued late Wednesday, Reprieve welcomed Kayem’s move to halt exports of the drug, calling the decision “excellent.”
Earlier this week, the Associated Press reported that an attorney for a death-row inmate in the state of Nebraska, the first set to be executed using the Indian-made drug, filed a motion challenging the state’s use of the Indian-imported drug, alleging it was not registered with the Food and Drugs Administration, and hence not legally allowed to distribute it in the U.S.
The Times of India carries, "Kayem's US agent moved out," by Hemali Chhapia.
Kayem's director Navneet Verma told TOI, "In view of the sensitivity involved with the sale of our sodium thiopental to various jails/prisons in the USA, and as alleged to be used for the purpose of lethal injection, we voluntary declare that we as an Indian pharma dealer who cherish the ethos of Hinduism, will refrain from selling the drug where the purpose is for lethal injection or its misuse."
"Three other firms based in Mumbai, Gujarat and Noida, which have been manufacturing the same drug, have also decided to stop supplying it for lethal injections," he said. So, 13 other states in America which had lined up to buy the drug from Kayem will be turned down, said Verma. Lethal injections given to those serving capital punishments contain a 3-gram dose of sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride. Unlike in India, death row convicts are executed using lethal injections, not hanged.
Verma said his agent in the US, Chris Harris, an intermediary between the US corrections departments and Kayem, had been asked to move out. Reports said Kayem's US address was a post-box number.
Three other firms making the same drug will also stop supplying it for lethal injections.
Earlier coverage of the Indian firm's decision is at the link.
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