Documents from the FDA

Jan 19, 2011
By:
ACLU of Northern California

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Documents Received August 18, 2011

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Documents Received May 27, 2011

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Beaty v. FDA 

On February 2, 2011 death row prisoners from California, Arizona, and Tennessee filed suit against the FDA seeking to prohibit the FDA from allowing the importation or use of unapproved sodium thiopental.  Below are some of the court papers related to this case.

Beaty v. FDA, court papers filed April 20, 2011

Documents Received on April 11, 2011

On April 11, 2011 the ACLU of Northern California received additional and less redacted versions of the January 19, 2011 documents from the New Orleans District Office.  This was in response to an appeal filed by the ACLU-NC that the documents received on January 19, 2011 were not sufficient.  

View documents received on April 11, 2011

Documents Received on March 31, 2011

On March 31, 2011 the ACLU of Northern California received a batch of records from the FDA office in Los Angeles. The records all relate to Arizona, and provide new information that Arizona actually made two purchases of drugs from Dream Pharma.  One purchase in September of all three drugs and then a separate purchase in October of just sodium thiopental.

View documents received on March 31, 2011

Documents Received on March 21, 2011

On March 21, 2011 the ACLU of Northern California received 15 pages of email and other correspondence between the FDA and counsel representing incarcerated individuals in various states who are asking the FDA to ensure that the import of execution drugs into the U.S. was done legally.  

View documents received on March 21, 2011

Documents Received on February 8, 2011

The FDA sent additional documents to the ACLU of Northern California.  These documents have been grouped by state below:

Documents related to California

Documents related to Arizona

Documents related to Georgia

Documents related to Arkansas

Documents related to South Carolina

Documents Received on January 19, 2011

Below are records received from the New Orleans District Office of the Food and Drug Administration, in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act. The records reveal five separate purchases by state officials of sodium thiopental from Dream Pharma, in the UK. These records are grouped together below by the "entry number" assigned by the FDA when the shipments arrived in the US. Although the FDA has refused to reveal the state purchasing the drugs in these records, records released in other litigation seem to indicate that the first purchase was made by the state of Georgia and the second by Arizona. One of the final two orders was placed by California. Other states believed to have ordered the drugs from the UK are Arkansas and Tennessee.

In addition, the records provided also include the following correspondence: (1) a letter to Dream Pharma (records revealed in other litigation indicate this letter was sent by officials in Georgia); (2) a letter to FDA from the CDCR and accompanying emails; and (3) emails inquiring about one or both of the last two shipments, where the state sending the emails cannot be determined.