For example, Hospira, the sole American manufacturer of sodium thiopental, the critical anesthetic in the three-drug cocktail, announced in 2011 that it would no longer manufacture the drug for the American market, in part for ethical reasons and in part because its transfer of sodium thiopental manufacturing to Italy would subject it to the European Union's Torture Regulation, which forbids the use of any product manufactured within the Union for torture (as execution by lethal injection is considered by the Regulation).