Over at the Amnesty International USA blog, Brian Evans gives us yet another story about the bizarre things that happen as a result of our use of the death penalty.

Hospira, is the lone US company that manufactures sodium thiopental, the anesthetic used in all lethal injections (both the three drug and the new one drug methods). Today, the company sent a letter to all states urging them to stop using the drug for executions.

According to Ohio’s The Dispatch,  which obtained a copy of the letter, Hospira vice president Dr. Kees Groenhout wrote:

Hospira provides these products because they improve or save lives and markets them solely for use as indicated on the product labeling. As such, we do not support the use of any of our products in capital-punishment procedures.

While this development is pretty interesting in itself, far more compelling is the question of what might happen as a result of Hospira’s letter. While it’s unlikely that the Department of Corrections in any state will change its policies as a result of a moralizing letter like this one, Evans wonders — and I wonder along with him — whether Hospira will consider as a next step some sort of legal action to prevent the blatant and intentional misuse of its products.

That would be something to see.

UPDATE:

The wife — having not really thought about the subject beyond our dinner conversation — suggests that Hospira likely doesn’t have a claim here for which relief can be granted.

What they could do, of course, is pull their product off the market. But should they? How should we measure the good done by the appropriate use of their product against the harm done by the government’s misuse?