Pharmacist want lethal drugs back:TDCJ refuses

The Texas “compounding pharmacy” that recently
provided pentobarbitol to the Texas Department of
Criminal Justice for use in executions has asked for the
drug back because of the resulting media uproar. A
prison spokesman said the agency is keeping the drug.
“It was my belief that this information would be kept
on the “down low” and that it was unlikely that it
would be discovered that my pharmacy provided
these drugs,” states the letter which was filed in court
papers in a lawsuit challenging execution protocol.
“Now that the information has been made public, I
find myself in the middle of a firestorm that I was not
advised of and did not bargain for. Had I known that
this information would be made public, which the
State implied it would not, I never would have agreed
to provide the drugs to the TDCJ.”
“I must demand that TDCJ immediately return the vials
of compounded pentobarbital in exchange for a
refund.”
TDCJ spokesman Jason Clark issued a statement saying
“The drugs were purchased legally by the agency. TDCJ
has no intention of returning the pentobarbital.”
“We were up-front with the vendor that the name of
their company and the items purchased would be
subject to disclosure through open records requests,”
he said .
The letter came to light through legal actions seeking
to stop several executions. The filing on behalf of Texas
death row inmate Michael Yowell, who sought more
information about drugs provided through a
compounding pharmacy instead of a manufacturer
was denied by a federal judge Saturday . Judge Lynn
Hughes was not sympathetic to Yowell’s concerns that
drugs from another compounding pharmacy in
Massachusetts once cause a fatal fungal meningitis
outbreak. “Pentobarbital will kill Yowell in five to
eighteen minutes and his
consciousness will be diminished almost immediately;
therefore, infections like meningitis will not hurt him
because they require weeks to incubate,” Judge
Hughes wrote.
Yowell is scheduled for execution Oct. 9. T he U.S.
Supreme Court also declined to intervene. Yowell was
sentenced to die after shooting his father, strangling
his mother, and setting fire to their house. According
to TDCJ, his disabled grandmother died several days
later from injuries sustained after she was unable to
escape the fire.

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