Ohio lawmakers on Wednesday removed a measure from a death-penalty bill that doctors and drugmakers warned could have led to shortages of a key drug and set anaesthesiology back 20 years.

At issue was a requirement that would have prevented drugmakers from stipulating that their drugs not be used in executions. Opponents of the requirement warned that the European Union would quickly ban the export of the anaesthetic propofol to the US if Ohio’s bill became law and drug distribution became unrestricted.

Europe supplies almost 90% of propofol used in the United States, and no similar drug is as safe or effective, Dr Robert Small, an anaesthesiologist representing the Ohio Society of Anaesthesiologists, told the Civil Justice Committee.

“A shortage of this medicine would set the medical specialty of anaesthesiology back 20 years,” he said, leading to complications from an increased rate of nausea and vomiting after surgery to slower wake-ups after surgery.

The president of a company whose drugs include propofol said the restriction would have had a “cascading effect” that harmed patients and their families in Ohio.

“This would almost certainly cause delays or deferrals of elective surgeries nationwide,” said John Ducker, president and CEO of Lake Zurich, Illinois-based drugmaker Fresenius Kabi.

Last year the Missouri department of corrections dropped plans to use propofol as an execution drug because of concerns that it would prompt the EU to restrict its export and create a shortage of the popular anaesthetic.

The Ohio legislative committee, which scheduled a final vote on Thursday, kept in place a provision that companies supplying Ohio with lethal injection drugs have their names shielded for at least 20 years. Under the bill drugmakers must specifically ask for a 20-year period of anonymity, rather than receiving it automatically.

The anonymity is aimed at so-called compounding pharmacies that mix doses of specialty drugs.

The committee also added four recommendations from a state supreme court committee that studied the death penalty, including making it easier to research claims by death-row inmates that they received poor legal aid.

Ohio hasn’t executed an inmate since January, when Dennis McGuire gasped and snorted for 26 minutes before dying after being injected with a never-tried combination of a sedative and painkiller. His was Ohio’s longest execution.

Further questions about those drugs, midazolam and hydromorphone, arose after Arizona used them during a nearly two-hour execution of an inmate in July.

Ohio’s first choice for an execution drug is compounded pentobarbital, a version of pentobarbital not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Missouri and Texas, which shield the identity of their drug source, have used compounded pentobarbital successfully several times. But Ohio has been unable to obtain it.

Proponents of the Ohio bill, including Representative Jim Buchy, a Republican from Greenville, say the secrecy is necessary for Ohio to get supplies of the drug. They say it would protect companies from harassment over supplying the drugs.

Opponents, including the ACLU of Ohio and the Society of Professional Journalists, say secrecy erodes confidence in the execution process. They also say threats of harassment are overblown.