BOYCOTT OF PRODUCTS MADE BY MANUFACTURERS OF
LETHAL INJECTION CHEMICALS
by Shiriki Unganishi
Texas death row prisoners initiated a boy-cott of all products
by manufacturers who supply the chemicals for lethal injection. Three chemicals
are used in lethal injection: sodium pentathol, pancuronium bromide, and
potassium chloride.
The following are drugs used in lethal injection by the Texas Department
of Corrections, as well as the addresses of their parent companies. The
information comes from the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty,
918 F Street, NW, Ste. 601, Washington, DC 20004.
SODIUM THIOPENTAL: stops brain functioning, Abbott Pharmaceuticals,
Pharmaceutical Product Division, North Chicago, IL 60064. (Abbott does a
huge business in nutritional supplements-Ensure, Similac-as well as manufacturing
sodium pentathol. This company is Canadian and has a plant near Toronto.
PAVULON (pancuronium bromide): muscle relaxant, Organon Pharmaceuticals,
357 Mount Pleasant Avenue, West Orange, NJ 07052.
POTASSIUM CHLORIDE: stops lung functioning, Roxane Laboratories,
P.O. Box 16532, Columbus, OH 43216
The inventor of lethal injection machinery, who has also designed and built
execution machinery throughout the U.S., is Fred Leuchter, located in Boston,
MA. This man was hired by Toronto's Ernst Zundel ($30,000 U.S.) to go to
Auschwitz and proclaim that no gas chambers existed there. Zundel then published
the Leuchter Report, which he markets from his bunker (still needing
repairs after a deliberately-set fire, for which responsibility was claimed
by Jewish Armed Resistance Movement) on Carlton Street. Leuchter testified
for the defense at Zundel's "false news" trial in 1988. Leuchter
has been exposed, and the executioner states cannot openly do business with
him; however, execution teams may still seek his advice, and New York state
was recently offered a Leuchter execution package. Details on Leuchter's
role in the Far Right are contained in Stephen Trombley's book The Execution
Protocol, Vintage/Anchor 1993. Anyone doing work against the death
penalty should read this book.
