Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> StandDown Texas Project

Criminal Law

: StandDown Texas Project

FDA Helps States Get Execution Drug

By Steve Hall

That's the title of a widely-distributed Associated Press report, via NPR. The Food and Drug Administration helped Arizona and California obtain a quick overseas source of a hard-to-find execution drug even as the agency declared it would not regulate or block imports, records show. The shortage of the drug, sodium thiopental, has disrupted executions around the country. Newly released documents show the FDA helped Arizona import a supply of the drug from an English company last fall as it prepared to execute a condemned killer. California prison officials also say the agency last week released a batch of the drug the state bought, also from England. The FDA would not comment on its role in helping either state. Three states ? Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas ? plan executions this week...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on January 11, 2011 (boomark / email).