lily
05-30-2007, 06:35 PM
Absolutely disgusting! (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/29/AR2007052902107.html?referrer=email)
Pfizer Faces Criminal Charges in Nigeria
By Joe Stephens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 30, 2007; Page A10
Officials in Nigeria have brought criminal charges against pharmaceutical
giant Pfizer for the company's alleged role in the deaths of children who
received an unapproved drug during a meningitis epidemic.
Authorities in Kano, the country's largest state, filed eight charges this
month related to the 1996 clinical trial, including counts of criminal
conspiracy and voluntarily causing grievous harm. They also filed a civil
lawsuit seeking more than $2 billion in damages and restitution from Pfizer,
the world's largest drug company.
The move represents a rare -- perhaps unprecedented -- instance in which the
developing world's anger at multinational drug companies has boiled over
into criminal charges. It also represents the latest in a string of
public-relations blows stemming from the decade-old clinical trial, in which
Pfizer says it acted ethically.
The government alleges that Pfizer researchers selected 200 children and
infants from crowds at a makeshift epidemic camp in Kano and gave about half
of the group an untested antibiotic called Trovan. Researchers gave the
other children what the lawsuit describes as a dangerously low dose of a
comparison drug made by Hoffmann-La Roche. Nigerian officials say Pfizer's
actions resulted in the deaths of an unspecified number of children and left
others deaf, paralyzed, blind or brain-damaged.
The lawsuit says that the researchers did not obtain consent from the
children's families and that the researchers knew Trovan to be an
experimental drug with life-threatening side effects that was "unfit for
human use." Parents were banned from the ward where the drug trial occurred,
the suit says, and the company left no medical records in Nigeria.
Pfizer and its doctors "agreed to do an illegal act," the criminal charges
state, and behaved "in a manner so rash and negligent as to endanger human
life."
Internal Pfizer records obtained by The Washington Post show that five
children died after being treated with the experimental antibiotic, though
there is no indication in the documents that the drug was responsible for
the deaths. Six children died while taking the comparison drug.
Suspicion stirred by news of the drug trial has been so intense in Kano, the
lawsuit says, that parents last year refused to allow their children to be
immunized against polio, frustrating a program aimed at wiping out one of
the disease's last refuges.
In a statement, Pfizer said it thinks it did nothing wrong and emphasized
that children with meningitis have a high fatality rate.
"It is indeed regrettable that, more than a decade after the meningitis
epidemic in Kano, the Nigerian government has taken legal action against
Pfizer and others for an effort that provided significant benefit to some of
Nigeria's youngest citizens," the statement said.
"Pfizer continues to emphasize -- in the strongest terms -- that the 1996
Trovan clinical study was conducted with the full knowledge of the Nigerian
government and in a responsible and ethical way consistent with the
company's abiding commitment to patient safety. Any allegations in these
lawsuits to the contrary are simply untrue -- they weren't valid when they
were first raised years ago and they're not valid today."
The criminal charges also name Pfizer's Nigerian subsidiary and eight
current or former executives and researchers. The charges could result in
fines and prison sentences ranging from six months to seven years per count,
according to Aliyu Umar, who served as Kano attorney general until earlier
this month.
Pfizer Faces Criminal Charges in Nigeria
By Joe Stephens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 30, 2007; Page A10
Officials in Nigeria have brought criminal charges against pharmaceutical
giant Pfizer for the company's alleged role in the deaths of children who
received an unapproved drug during a meningitis epidemic.
Authorities in Kano, the country's largest state, filed eight charges this
month related to the 1996 clinical trial, including counts of criminal
conspiracy and voluntarily causing grievous harm. They also filed a civil
lawsuit seeking more than $2 billion in damages and restitution from Pfizer,
the world's largest drug company.
The move represents a rare -- perhaps unprecedented -- instance in which the
developing world's anger at multinational drug companies has boiled over
into criminal charges. It also represents the latest in a string of
public-relations blows stemming from the decade-old clinical trial, in which
Pfizer says it acted ethically.
The government alleges that Pfizer researchers selected 200 children and
infants from crowds at a makeshift epidemic camp in Kano and gave about half
of the group an untested antibiotic called Trovan. Researchers gave the
other children what the lawsuit describes as a dangerously low dose of a
comparison drug made by Hoffmann-La Roche. Nigerian officials say Pfizer's
actions resulted in the deaths of an unspecified number of children and left
others deaf, paralyzed, blind or brain-damaged.
The lawsuit says that the researchers did not obtain consent from the
children's families and that the researchers knew Trovan to be an
experimental drug with life-threatening side effects that was "unfit for
human use." Parents were banned from the ward where the drug trial occurred,
the suit says, and the company left no medical records in Nigeria.
Pfizer and its doctors "agreed to do an illegal act," the criminal charges
state, and behaved "in a manner so rash and negligent as to endanger human
life."
Internal Pfizer records obtained by The Washington Post show that five
children died after being treated with the experimental antibiotic, though
there is no indication in the documents that the drug was responsible for
the deaths. Six children died while taking the comparison drug.
Suspicion stirred by news of the drug trial has been so intense in Kano, the
lawsuit says, that parents last year refused to allow their children to be
immunized against polio, frustrating a program aimed at wiping out one of
the disease's last refuges.
In a statement, Pfizer said it thinks it did nothing wrong and emphasized
that children with meningitis have a high fatality rate.
"It is indeed regrettable that, more than a decade after the meningitis
epidemic in Kano, the Nigerian government has taken legal action against
Pfizer and others for an effort that provided significant benefit to some of
Nigeria's youngest citizens," the statement said.
"Pfizer continues to emphasize -- in the strongest terms -- that the 1996
Trovan clinical study was conducted with the full knowledge of the Nigerian
government and in a responsible and ethical way consistent with the
company's abiding commitment to patient safety. Any allegations in these
lawsuits to the contrary are simply untrue -- they weren't valid when they
were first raised years ago and they're not valid today."
The criminal charges also name Pfizer's Nigerian subsidiary and eight
current or former executives and researchers. The charges could result in
fines and prison sentences ranging from six months to seven years per count,
according to Aliyu Umar, who served as Kano attorney general until earlier
this month.