Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Firm to block lethal drug supply
From The Hindu
A Danish producer of pentobarbital, an animal euthanasia drug that prisons in the United States have recently started using in lethal injections, has said it would henceforth stop its product from reaching executioners.
Lundbeck, which came under enormous pressure from campaign groups and investors last year after a slew of U.S. correctional facilities switched to its barbiturate, said on Friday, “Going forward, Nembutal [the commercial name for pentobarbital] will be supplied exclusively through a specialty pharmacy drop ship program that will deny distribution of the product to prisons in U.S. states currently active in carrying out the death penalty by lethal injection.”
The company added that it had notified its distributors of the plan in late June and under its new distribution programme hospitals and treatment centres would continue to have access to Nembutal for therapeutic purposes but it would “review all Nembutal orders before providing clearance for shipping the product and deny orders from prisons located in States currently active in carrying out death penalty sentences.”
This development is a serious setback to U.S. correctional facilities, many of which switched to the pentobarbital after the drug earlier used became scarce in the country. The supply of that drug, sodium thiopental, dried up after the sole company producing it, Hospira, announced last year that it would halt production owing to raw materials concerns.
This week Maya Foa of a United Kingdom-based anti-death-penalty campaign group Reprieve however welcomed the steps taken by Lundbeck, which she said showed that it was possible to take action to stop the supply of drugs for use in executions. “Other pharmaceutical companies should now follow Lundbeck’s example... We also need to see action from the European Commission to block the export of execution drugs from the EU to the U.S.,” she said.
The action by Lundbeck followed from Reprieve and other groups pressing the company to commit to a concrete strategy to prevent U.S. prisons from diverting their product from legitimate medical use toward executions.
Spelling out some of the details on the proposed distribution changes, Lundbeck said that prior to receiving Nembutal, it would require the purchaser to sign a form stating that the purchase of Nembutal was for its own use and that it would not redistribute any purchased product without express written authorisation from Lundbeck. “By signing the form, the purchaser agrees that the product will not be made available for use in capital punishment,” the company said.
"Lundbeck adamantly opposes the distressing misuse of our product in capital punishment... While the company has never sold the product directly to prisons and therefore cannot make guarantees, we are confident that our new distribution program will play a substantial role in restricting prisons' access to Nembutal for misuse as part of lethal injection,” said Ulf Wiinberg, Chief Executive Officer of Lundbeck, in a statement.
However the company reiterated that its pentobarbital met “important medical need” and it had chosen not to withdraw the product from the market because “the product continues to meet an important medical need in the U.S. Nembutal is used to treat serious conditions such as a severe and life threatening emergency epilepsy.”
Labels: lethal injection, Lundbeck, Nembutal, Pentobarbital
Friday, June 10, 2011
Danish firm to curb death drug distribution
From The Hindu
Lundbeck, the Danish company embroiled in the controversy over the use of its products in lethal injections in the United States, has agreed to take action to restrict such use after facing intense pressure at home and abroad.
In a meeting this week with an anti-death-penalty campaign group, Reprieve, Lundbeck Chief Executive Officer Ulf Wiinberg reportedly said that the company had “reconsidered its position” and he acknowledged that “there are steps that the company could take to restrict the distribution of pentobarbital so that it is not delivered to execution chambers in the U.S., but still reaches legitimate users.”
Lundbeck is a U.S.-government-approved manufacturer of pentobarbital, a veterinary euthanasia barbiturate used to put down dogs. Pentobarbital has been used in 13 executions in the U.S. thus far, where it has replaced sodium thiopental, a more medically-tested and accepted barbiturate.
Over the course of the last one year, an increasing number of correctional facilities in the U.S. have turned to using pentobarbital – also known commercially as Nembutal – as the unconsciousness-inducing component of the lethal injection cocktail.
This trend accelerated following an announcement last summer by the main supplier of sodium thiopental in the U.S., a firm called Hospira, that it was ceasing production due to raw materials issues.
Reprieve officials said that while Lundbeck refused to make concrete assurances the company had agreed to hire “external consultants to assess the most effective strategies.”
The statement by Mr. Wiinberg came after months of intensive campaigns against Lundbeck, which also resulted in a major Danish pension fund, Unipension, selling 40 million Danish Kroner – nearly $8 million – worth of shares in the pharmaceutical company owing to concerns regarding pentobarbital use in U.S. executions.
After the meeting with Mr. Wiinberg, Reprieve said in a statement that the fierce criticism from press, politicians, non-governmental organisations and shareholders had led Lundbeck to promise that it would “be more transparent in their communications on this matter going forward... [and] that this time the full independent consultancy would be published.”
The campaign against Lundbeck’s involvement was further strengthened by the medical opinion of anaesthesia experts such as David Waisel of Harvard Medical School, who said, “The use of pentobarbital as an agent to induce anaesthesia has no clinical history... [and] puts the inmate at risk for serious undue pain and suffering.”
Following the meeting with Lundbeck, Reprieve representative Maya Foa said, "At last we are beginning to see some positive movement from Lundbeck on this issue. But too much time has already been lost - not to mention too many lives.”
Ms. Foa said that in addition to the 13 people killed to date using Lundbeck’s drugs, another seven were set to be executed by the end of June, which is the timeframe in which Lundbeck promised to reconsider the issue.
Lundbeck, the Danish company embroiled in the controversy over the use of its products in lethal injections in the United States, has agreed to take action to restrict such use after facing intense pressure at home and abroad.
In a meeting this week with an anti-death-penalty campaign group, Reprieve, Lundbeck Chief Executive Officer Ulf Wiinberg reportedly said that the company had “reconsidered its position” and he acknowledged that “there are steps that the company could take to restrict the distribution of pentobarbital so that it is not delivered to execution chambers in the U.S., but still reaches legitimate users.”
Lundbeck is a U.S.-government-approved manufacturer of pentobarbital, a veterinary euthanasia barbiturate used to put down dogs. Pentobarbital has been used in 13 executions in the U.S. thus far, where it has replaced sodium thiopental, a more medically-tested and accepted barbiturate.
Over the course of the last one year, an increasing number of correctional facilities in the U.S. have turned to using pentobarbital – also known commercially as Nembutal – as the unconsciousness-inducing component of the lethal injection cocktail.
This trend accelerated following an announcement last summer by the main supplier of sodium thiopental in the U.S., a firm called Hospira, that it was ceasing production due to raw materials issues.
Reprieve officials said that while Lundbeck refused to make concrete assurances the company had agreed to hire “external consultants to assess the most effective strategies.”
The statement by Mr. Wiinberg came after months of intensive campaigns against Lundbeck, which also resulted in a major Danish pension fund, Unipension, selling 40 million Danish Kroner – nearly $8 million – worth of shares in the pharmaceutical company owing to concerns regarding pentobarbital use in U.S. executions.
After the meeting with Mr. Wiinberg, Reprieve said in a statement that the fierce criticism from press, politicians, non-governmental organisations and shareholders had led Lundbeck to promise that it would “be more transparent in their communications on this matter going forward... [and] that this time the full independent consultancy would be published.”
The campaign against Lundbeck’s involvement was further strengthened by the medical opinion of anaesthesia experts such as David Waisel of Harvard Medical School, who said, “The use of pentobarbital as an agent to induce anaesthesia has no clinical history... [and] puts the inmate at risk for serious undue pain and suffering.”
Following the meeting with Lundbeck, Reprieve representative Maya Foa said, "At last we are beginning to see some positive movement from Lundbeck on this issue. But too much time has already been lost - not to mention too many lives.”
Ms. Foa said that in addition to the 13 people killed to date using Lundbeck’s drugs, another seven were set to be executed by the end of June, which is the timeframe in which Lundbeck promised to reconsider the issue.
Labels: anti-dealth penalty campaign, barbiturate, execution drug, Lundbeck, Pentobarbital, Reprieve, sodium thiopental
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Danish company at centre of U.S. death penalty row
From The Hindu
Even as more States in the United States deploy a veterinary euthanasia drug to execute death row inmates, a Danish company supplying the drug has been drawn closer into a stormy debate surrounding its use.
Since last year end, States such as Texas, Oklahoma and Ohio have turned to pentobarbital, commonly used to put down dogs, as one of the three components of the lethal injection cocktail. Where it has been used, it replaces sodium thiopental, the drug which had been in use to induce unconsciousness.
This switch followed the announcement earlier in 2010 by the sole manufacturer of thiopental, Hospira, that it would be ceasing production due to various raw materials issues. Since then U.S.-based Danish company Lundbeck has been sought out by correctional facilities for pentobarbital.
With the execution of Carry Kerr in Texas and Jeffrey Motts in South Carolina earlier this month, seven people have been executed using Lundbeck's drugs. While Lundbeck does not officially condone the use of its product in lethal injections, it has not taken sufficient steps to halt it, according to anti-death penalty campaigners.
Reprive, a campaign group based in the U.K., said though it had “asked Lundbeck to investigate a number of possible courses of action to prevent their drugs being used in this way... the firm has so far refused to either adopt these or to explain in any detail why they are not feasible.” Yet, the company is likely to find itself increasingly caught up in allegations of aiding “cruel and unusual punishment” towards death row inmates in the U.S., especially as anaesthesia specialists such as David Waisel of Harvard Medical School have warned that “the use of pentobarbital as an agent to induce anaesthesia has no clinical history... [and] puts the inmate at risk for serious undue pain and suffering.”
Meanwhile Lundbeck also came under fire in its home country this week when a major Danish pension fund, Unipension, sold 40 million Danish Kroner (nearly $8 million) worth of shares in the pharmaceutical company over concerns about the use of their drugs in U.S. executions. It was further reported that Denmark's largest pension scheme, ATP, said “there are still things that need clarification” by Lundbeck concerning this issue.
A Reprieve official, Maya Foa, said: “The moral consequences of being complicit in executions should have been enough to make Lundbeck take action; perhaps now that they are being hit in the pocket, they'll realise they simply cannot afford to ignore this issue for one day longer.”
Even as more States in the United States deploy a veterinary euthanasia drug to execute death row inmates, a Danish company supplying the drug has been drawn closer into a stormy debate surrounding its use.
Since last year end, States such as Texas, Oklahoma and Ohio have turned to pentobarbital, commonly used to put down dogs, as one of the three components of the lethal injection cocktail. Where it has been used, it replaces sodium thiopental, the drug which had been in use to induce unconsciousness.
This switch followed the announcement earlier in 2010 by the sole manufacturer of thiopental, Hospira, that it would be ceasing production due to various raw materials issues. Since then U.S.-based Danish company Lundbeck has been sought out by correctional facilities for pentobarbital.
With the execution of Carry Kerr in Texas and Jeffrey Motts in South Carolina earlier this month, seven people have been executed using Lundbeck's drugs. While Lundbeck does not officially condone the use of its product in lethal injections, it has not taken sufficient steps to halt it, according to anti-death penalty campaigners.
Reprive, a campaign group based in the U.K., said though it had “asked Lundbeck to investigate a number of possible courses of action to prevent their drugs being used in this way... the firm has so far refused to either adopt these or to explain in any detail why they are not feasible.” Yet, the company is likely to find itself increasingly caught up in allegations of aiding “cruel and unusual punishment” towards death row inmates in the U.S., especially as anaesthesia specialists such as David Waisel of Harvard Medical School have warned that “the use of pentobarbital as an agent to induce anaesthesia has no clinical history... [and] puts the inmate at risk for serious undue pain and suffering.”
Meanwhile Lundbeck also came under fire in its home country this week when a major Danish pension fund, Unipension, sold 40 million Danish Kroner (nearly $8 million) worth of shares in the pharmaceutical company over concerns about the use of their drugs in U.S. executions. It was further reported that Denmark's largest pension scheme, ATP, said “there are still things that need clarification” by Lundbeck concerning this issue.
A Reprieve official, Maya Foa, said: “The moral consequences of being complicit in executions should have been enough to make Lundbeck take action; perhaps now that they are being hit in the pocket, they'll realise they simply cannot afford to ignore this issue for one day longer.”
Labels: Danish company, Lundbeck, U.S. death penalty row
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