A nationwide shortage of several widely used anesthetics, which has been exasperating doctors and veterinarians for months, has now spread to the country’s death rows.
Production difficulties have made the widely-used propofol difficult to obtain driving demand for out-of-favor anesthetics like thiopental sodium
Dr. J. P. Abenstein of the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine in Minnesota said drug supplies were driving anesthetic choices.
Several states have postponed executions and others may soon do so because of the scarcity of thiopental sodium, a barbiturate that is central to the lethal injection process in most of the 35 states with the death penalty.
