Big Pharma Have Become Surprising Proponents for Death Row Inmates

Big Pharma Surprising Proponent of Death Row Inmates

A view of the new lethal injection chamber at San Quentin State Prison. (Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Not all drugs made by pharmaceutical brands are produced to heal people. Some are included in the lethal injection cocktails that are used to execute inmates on death row.

And according to Business Insider, some of these companies are weighing in on the issue—in favor of the inmates—in one recent case.

A federal judge recently moved to block the state of Arkansas from executing up to seven inmates in 10 days using one-third of its lethal injection cocktail, vecuronium bromide (a paralysis-inducing drug), it had apparently obtained “using a false pretense,” per The New York Times. Another third of the cocktail, Midazolam, which is used to make patients drowsy before surgery, was set to expire, hence the frenzied schedule.

But in recent years, all FDA-approved drugmakers, including Pfizer, have blocked their drugs from being used in these deadly cocktails. And this has made it increasingly difficult for states like Arkansas to get their hands on the drugs needed to execute inmates.

Below, CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains how death by lethal injection works.