Today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch publishes the editorial, "Missouri gets death drug by mistake: 'Capital punishment for surgical patients'."
Last Nov. 1, a drug company representative spent all day sitting outside the warden’s office at the Missouri Corrections Department’s prison in Bonne Terre. She was trying to retrieve a package that her company, Morris & Dickson LLC, of Shreveport, La., had shipped to the prison by mistake.
The warden wouldn’t give it back; his bosses told him not to. At this point, the only way Morris & Dickson is going to get it back is if Gov. Jay Nixon orders it returned. He should do so immediately. Thousands of lives could depend on it.
The package contained 20 50-milliliter vials of a drug called Diprivan, a trade name for the anesthetic known generically as propofol. It is the most common general anesthetic in use today. “We use it in 90 to 95 percent of our cases,” said Dr. Elizabeth Cavanagh of Creve Coeur, past president of the Missouri Society of Anesthesiologists.
In correct doses, propofol can put patients into deep sleep or sedate them for procedures like colonoscopies. When the procedure is finished, patients wake up quickly with few side effects.
Waking up quickly with few side effects is not what the state of Missouri has in mind.
On Oct. 23, the Department of Corrections intends to administer a massive dose to Allen Nicklasson, 41.
And:
The state and national chapters of the Anesthesiologists Association have pleaded for Mr. Nixon’s intercession, as have other medical groups. An EU restriction on exports would affect millions of U.S. hospital patients. Fresenius estimates that each day, propofol is administered about 140,000 times in more than 35,000 U.S. hospitals and medical facilities.
Surgeries would have to be postponed or less effective anesthetics employed. Recovery times could take longer, with potentially more dangerous side effects. That would mean longer hospital stays and more uncertain outcomes. There is no good substitute for propofol.
Said one St. Louis anesthesiologist: “This could be like capital punishment for a lot of surgical patients.”
Earlier coverage of Missouri lethal injection issues begins at the link. Related posts are in the international and lethal injection indexes.
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