Death-row inmates from Arizona, California and Tennessee sued the Food and Drug Administration Wednesday, claiming the regulator has violated federal law by failing to examine states' imports of drugs used to carry out executions.
The FDA has permitted state prison officials in recent months to import thiopental sodium, an anesthetic used in lethal injections, even though the agency hasn't reviewed the safety and purity of the imported drugs, according to the suit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C.
"The FDA is improperly allowing drugs into the United States even though it won't stand behind their safety and efficacy," said Bradford Berenson, counsel to the six inmates.
A former associate counsel to President George W. Bush, Mr. Berenson said he has "never had a moral problem with the death penalty." Thiopental, he said, serves a critical role in executions of rendering condemned inmates unconscious, so that they do not suffer severe pain during the process. "What we are trying to prevent with the suit are inhumane executions," he said.
"Reviewing substances imported or used for the purpose of state-authorized lethal injection clearly falls outside of FDA's explicit public health role," the federal agency said in a statement Wednesday.
"This is the first serious attempt since at least 1985 to look at the FDA's role in drug shipments to prisons," said Deborah Denno, a professor at Fordham University School of Law and expert on lethal injections.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2011
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