NEW YORK, May 13 (UPI) -- Pfizer Inc., on Friday changed its policy to block the use of its drugs in U.S. executions, by updating controls to its drug-distribution channels.
The company's move will make it even more difficult for states to find drugs to carry out death sentences -- a challenge that has become substantially tougher in recent years, mainly because the ethical concerns involved with capital punishment have prompted many drug-makers to bar sales for that purpose.
The new policy, announced Friday, follows similar decisions made by more than 20 American and European drug companies, which have cited moral and business reasons for doing so.
"With Pfizer's announcement, all F.D.A.-approved manufacturers of any potential execution drug have now blocked their sale for this purpose," Maya Foa, who tracks drug companies for a human rights advocacy group, said. "Executing states must now go underground if they want to get hold of medicines for use in lethal injection."
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With Pfizer now out of the mix, states will likely have to turn to smaller companies or compounding pharmacies to obtain the drugs used in lethal injections. In the past, some states have reportedly tried to import non-FDA-regulated drugs from outside the country for executions, but in most cases they were seized by federal agents at the borders.
The policy change follows Pfizer's 2015 acquisition of Hospira Inc., which manufactured multiple drugs that are used by corrections agencies in executions.
"Pfizer isn't doing anything that others haven't done, but it's the latest and the last," Foa added.
"You have this huge company saying we're not going to allow this," Fordham University law professor Deborah Denno said. "It's a pragmatic blow, but it's also symbolically, it's the company turning up their nose to the Supreme Court."
Other experts believe that Pfizer's decision will have a smaller impact, and likely won't spell the end of lethal injections in the United States.
Many states have backup execution methods, in case lethal drugs cannot be attained or getting them is impractical. In Utah, that method is a firing squad and Tennessee has reintroduced the electric chair as its backup.
Other states, including Georgia and Oklahoma, have simply postponed executions due to drug shortages.
