Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Denmark, said that she will call on the United States, like Texas and Ohio to stop using a lethal injection drug which is produced by the Danish society.
Lene Espersen said that she could not act directly against the company because the drug, pentobarbital, is not exported from Denmark, but produced by a plant in the U.S. State of Kansas is the Lundbeck a/S of the Denmark property.
Pentobarbital is sedative with a variety of medical uses including the treatment of seizures and other conditions that require a form any sedation.
Since the end of last year, it has been used in the United States for lethal injections. Denmark, as is the case with the rest of Europe, is against the death penalty.
Espersen has been invited by a group of left-wing opposition if the Denmark could find a way to stop certain American States, of the use of the drug in his performances.
"I have no possibility to act directly in the use of the American States of the product for the executions, but will also contact these States through the Danish Embassy in Washington with a call to stop the use of pentobarbital," Espersen said in a letter published on the website of the Parliament on 12 April.
The Denmark, legislators may ask written questions to the members of the Government which must respond in writing.
"I deeply regret that a legal medical product is used for the executions," it added in its response to the opposition of small, left Red-Green Alliance.
Espersen could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Lundbeck based in Copenhagen is in a difficult situation sodium thiopental - which is no longer available that several States have passed pentobarbital for lethal injections replacing another chemical-.
Pentobarbital was used to execute prisoners in Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas. U.S. fellow States of Mississippi and Arizona also considering switching the drugs for lethal injection.
Lundbeck has written letters to us prison authorities asking them not to use pentobarbital to lethal injection, but so far without success.
The pharmaceutical industry, whose best-sellers include drugs for the treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders, is under pressure from groups of human rights take stronger measures, such as the rewriting of the distribution contracts with clauses prohibiting the sale of pentobarbital in U.S. prisons.
Lundbeck has rejected this idea, saying: it would be impossible for distributors follow how each vial is used.
The company said it sold about 50 million doses of pentobarbital per year, but he refused to give any breakdown of sales. Pentobarbital, it said, represents a very small percentage of overall sales.
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