Execution drug blocked

COPENHAGEN. A Danish company has moved to prevent prison officials in the US from using a powerful sedative it makes to execute prisoners.
Lundbeck said that it was reviewing all orders for its drug Nembutal, also known as pentobarbital, to block shipments to prisons in states that execute prisoners. The announcement creates the latest obstacle to capital punishment in the US.
Many states have begun using pentobarbital to execute prisoners instead of the anaesthetic sodium thiopental, which became unavailable when US company Hospira announced in January that it would stop making it. That was prompted by opposition to the death penalty in Italy, where the company had planned to produce drug.


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