The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced on Friday that it has imposed sweeping controls on the distribution of its products to ensure that none are used in lethal injections, a step that closes off the last remaining open-market source of drugs used in executions. More than 20 American and European drug companies have already adopted such restrictions, citing either moral or business reasons. Nonetheless, the decision from one of the worlds leading pharmaceutical manufacturers is seen as a milestone.
With Pfizers announcement, all F.D.A.-approved manufacturers of any potential execution drug have now blocked their sale for this purpose, said Maya Foa, who tracks drug companies for Reprieve, a London-based human rights advocacy group. Executing states must now go underground if they want to get hold of medicines for use in lethal injection. The obstacles to lethal injection have grown in the last five years as manufacturers, seeking to avoid association with executions, have barred the sale of their products to corrections agencies. Experiments with new drugs, a series of botched executions and covert efforts to obtain lethal chemicals have mired many states in court challenges.
The mounting difficulty in obtaining lethal drugs has already caused states to furtively scramble for supplies.
Some states have used straw buyers or tried to import drugs from abroad that are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, only to see them seized by federal agents. Some have covertly bought supplies from compounding pharmacies while others, including Arizona, Oklahoma and Ohio, have delayed executions for months or longer because of drug shortages or legal issues tied to injection procedures.
Pfizers decision follows its acquisition last year of Hospira, a company that has made seven drugs used in executions including barbiturates, sedatives and agents that cause paralysis or heart failure. Hospira had long tried to prevent diversion of its products to state prisons but had not succeeded; its products were used in a prolonged, apparently agonizing execution in Ohio in 2014, and are stockpiled by Arkansas, according to documents obtained by reporters.
Because these drugs are also distributed for normal medical use, there is no way to determine what share of the agents used in recent executions were produced by Hospira, or more recently, Pfizer.
Campaigns against the death penalty, and Europes strong prohibitions on the export of execution drugs, have raised the stakes for pharmaceutical companies. But many, including Pfizer, say medical principles and business concerns have guided their policies.
Pfizer makes its products to enhance and save the lives of the patients we serve, the company said in Fridays statement, and strongly objects to the use of its products as lethal injections for capital punishment.
David B. Muhlhausen, an expert on criminal justice at the Heritage Foundation, accused Pfizer and other drug companies of caving in to special interest groups. He said that while the companies have a right to choose how their products are used, their efforts to curb sales for executions are not actually in the public interest because research shows, he believes, that the death penalty has a deterrent effect on crime.
Pressure on the drug companies has not only come from human rights groups. Trustees of the New York State pension fund, which is a major shareholder in Pfizer and many other producers, have used the threat of shareholder resolutions to push two other companies to impose controls and praised Pfizer for its new policy.
A company in the business of healing people is putting its reputation at risk when it supplies drugs for executions, Thomas P. DiNapoli, the state comptroller, said in an email. The company is also risking association with botched executions, which opens it to legal and financial damage.
