The Pfizer Drug Trial

A leaked report

There is a need to follow-up on the blog I wrote about Humanitarian Pfizer before a number of points I raised are misconstrued and misinterpreted.

Nowhere was I commending Kano State for refusing to have children vaccinated, rather, I was highlighting the fact that their refusal must have been as a result of the experience they had with Pfizer and the supposed unapproved and illegal drug trials that took place.

Apparently, there was a report completed five years ago which is still confidential and under wraps that details to a greater extent how papers were forged granting access to this demographic and the possibility that no drugs were tested on some the children presumably affected.

The problem here is that the report has not been released to public scrutiny and what we know of it is due to some unauthorised leakages and no official has necessarily corroborated what has been relayed from that report, however, we now have names and titles of the Nigerian personnel who believe they were first cajoled and then kept in the dark about what Pfizer was up to.

Panel Faults Pfizer in '96 Clinical Trial In Nigeria - washingtonpost.com - Thanks to Snazzy for the link.

Hence what we really have to go on in the public domain is the detail covered by the news in terms of the new court case filed a few days ago where the numbers and the events seem to be at variance with the yet confidential report - the truth will out.

The bane of intellectual blind-sidedness

I also refuse to be challenged from the emotive perspective that if I had children, I would not have refused their testing for polio and the consequent necessary vaccination.

The commentator speaks from the comfort of an educated pedestal without appreciating the composition of the said demographic not having been deceived into offering children for trialling an unproven and untried drug in the midst of a seeming pandemic; all in the guise that they were being helped and this was approved by both the government and supported by the WHO.

The people affected in Kano State were attended to in a field hospital and probably not knowledgeable or literate enough to appreciate what was being done or attempted on their children and after The Washington Post blew this rotten exercise wide open in 2000; 4 years after the said events, it was only an expected human reaction to resist any Western medicine offers for mass immunisation in the light of such previous cajoling, deception and betrayal of trust.

Pfizer in the courts

Pfizer would contend that they obtained verbal consent of the parents when they should have only gone ahead with informed consent, a higher standard of ethical probity as required in the West.

It would appear Pfizer once had a statement about the drug tests in Nigeria, but that article can no more be found on Pfizer's site. In all, 4 court cases have been through the US courts and they have mainly been dismissed on grounds of forum non conveniens, basically, issues of jurisdiction rather than substantive misgivings on the merits of the case.

At least, Pfizer has waived possible statute of limitation problems, which means this case might run for years till some sort of resolution is reached.

Hopefully, there would be a judge ready to hear this case and get to the heart of the matter, it might also require lobbying Congress to come down heavily on rich drug companies that take advantage of helpless, poor and illiterate people to attempt dangerous drug trials outside the purvey of their government and judicial processes.

You only have to do a search on Google for Drug Trials Africa to see how much we in Africa have become a continent of guinea pigs for Big Pharma.

So, once again, in the circumstances, I can understand why the Muslim North in Nigeria were against vaccination, though it was ill-judged and wrong; they definitely were not going to be guinea pigs in another macabre drugs trial - the government had to institute serious confidence re-building measures to get the people to acquiesce to hopefully an honest activity of really saving life with drugs that really do work.

Drug Trial links

Kano Trovafloxacin trial litigation - 4 cases brought in the States since 2001

Nigerians in drug trial take their case to US court - Raufu 326 (7395): 899 -- BMJ

Nigeria: 1996 Drug Trial - Kano State Sues Pfizer for $2.7bn

Good Clinical Practice

London Drug Trial Catastrophe - Collapse of Science and Ethics

Drug Trials

The Constant Gardener

Nigeria's drug trial fears

Researcher received undisclosed payments of 300,000 dollars from Pfizer - unrelated but relevant

Humantarian Pfizer fed Nigerian kids poison drug - allegedly

The devil's work in Africa

The sensationalism of the headlines made us want to cover our heads in shame as we tried to defend what was indefensible.

The Muslim North in Nigeria had refused to allow their children to be vaccinated against polio which in many ways delayed the eradication of polio in Sub-Saharan Africa, in some cases; places that were once clear became vulnerable too.

Anyone who read the by-line in the Scotsman - "Polio vaccination dismissed as devil's work across Africa" would have sniggered; the ignorant savages do not know what is good for them.

With hindsight, there is much to reckon with this refusal, Kano State in Nigeria has just sued Pfizer for a $2.75 billion compensation for using 200 of their children as guinea pigs to test an unapproved drug - Trovan Floxacin - under the guise of humanitarian aid.

Help from the devil

There was an outbreak of measles, cholera and meningitis in 1996; the World Health Organisation and Pfizer offered to help the government with this problem but it transpired that these children were given drugs that lead to complications, deformities and even death.

It would appear some independent research also found some batches of medication to be contaminated, allegedly.

What is quite disturbing about this case if it does get to court and suffer proper judicial scrutiny is that fellow Nigerians might have been party to this rotten exercise whilst the gravitas of the WHO might have given legitimacy to an activity that is completely unethical and utterly beneath contempt.

The might of Big Pharma that Pfizer represents might have hoped to exploit rife corruption in Nigeria so that this almost "eugenics" exercise would not be exposed, someone must have been paid off being privy to what was about to happen to helpless, innocent, frail and trusting little children and their seemingly gullible parents.

Low-level hysteria

Once this rotten activity was discovered, it was no surprise that low-level hysteria was employed by the religious leaders and government to prevent vaccinations from taking place a few years on.

Who was to say another Big Pharma firm would not use the large demographic of deprived Africa to test some drug for the benefit of the more privileged West.

There are many including the rich shareholders of Pfizer who would wish this suit was both frivolous and calumnious, but I would contend that some legal advice must have seen serious merit in this case.

This reeks of the infamous Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male which ran from 1932 to 1972 in America where poor illiterate black males were denied treatment for syphilis. There are stringent laws guiding medical trials in the West, but with the oaf of Professor Eyitayo Lambo sitting in the Ministry of Health in Nigeria, it is unlikely that he would have been agitated at all by this rotten exercise, though it happened long before he became a minister.

He could not be bothered about the prevalence of sub-standard drugs in Nigerian Teaching Hospitals because the case was not presented directly to him as it was to his predecessor.

Too small a price to pay

$2.75 billion sounds like a high price to pay but no price can be high enough a penalty for subjecting helpless innocent children to deafness, paralysis, brain damage and blindness with drugs that cause such immeasurable misery.

Let us see, with revenue of over $48 billion in 2006 if the price on the head of an African child is worth anything compared to if this exercise had been conducted in the West.

The deception in the guise of humanitarian aid in a very vulnerable situation is just unforgivable, I am all too livid with rage as I now understand the reticence of the people to take on new vaccinations, they were duped, robbed, betrayed and literally killed off for possible block-buster drug success - not only should Kano State be suing Pfizer, Nigeria and Africa as a whole should be scrutinising what other gifts we have been made to ingest in the guise of prophylaxis or therapy when in fact we were guinea pigs in an unconscionably malevolent trial.

Time to dump your Viagra pills down the drain and make sure they are properly flushed away before your toilet bowl thinks it is dysfunctional too.

Addendum:

Read the last paragraph as a metaphor, a reader left this comment - Actually, it is probably a bad idea to dump much Viagra in a toilet. Hormones and psychoactive drugs are starting to show up in the blood of aquatic organisms as well as in many bodies of fresh water in the United States and other industrialized countries. - I would agree, the prospect of seeing marine life cured of erectile dysfunction would be too horrific to countenance. Thanks Don.

Unhealthy directors of Nigerian Health

Oafs in charge

My blood reached boiling point as I watched the episode of Bad Medicine in BBC World as the toad of a Health Minister in Nigeria (Professor Eyitayo Lambo) could not seem to take any interest or responsibility to investigate a swathe of rotten incidents in the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) in Enugu.

A report was submitted to the Ministry of Health by NAFDAC the agency in charge of ensuring the quality of drugs available in Nigeria. This, within the months in which this minister was sworn in and he from his statements indicated he needed another report addressed specifically to him to take any action.

For once, I thought each minister’s tenure had a terminal end with no semblance of continuity; the sacked or redeployed minister simply has all his files and documents burnt as each new minister arrives for a clean-slate appointment. I hope not.

One cannot but commend Dr Dora Akunyili who in her crusade to rid Nigeria of fake, substandard and poisonous drugs internally and at source, has suffered various threats to her life.

Heart Starter stopper

The episode at the UNTH was palpable when it transpired that children had undergone major heart surgery with possible fake medications and in intensive care a particular child arrested and was administered ineffective adrenalin.

The visiting surgeons from the United States in exasperation simply concluded they were injecting the children with water.

When NAFDAC got in on the case, the results should have people like me asking for the institution of the death penalty for drug counterfeiters.

The forensic analysis conducted by NAFDAC came to the conclusion that the drugs were sourced from a local marketplace, a place many cautious people would not even deign to purchase basic electronic equipment.

It is all in the money

However, the web of intrigue goes further as popular block-buster drugs are copied and replicated sub-strength in countries like India and China and exported to countries where local collaborators fill their countries unconscionably with poisons.

Poison in the sense that certain drugs are supposed to exhibit potency when adjusting the chemical balance in the body in treatment – some are ineffective, some are of insufficient strength that the body develops resistance and others are just poisonous.

I could not bear the thought that some tested eye drops contained chemicals that should not be miles near the eyes – the possibility of blindness in the thought that one is receiving treatment of a condition gets relegated to divine providence than evident criminal activity.

Medical misdirection

The Reporter Olenka Frenkiel homed in on the feckless Medical Director of UNTH who completely feigned ignorance of the episode in his hospital; this just shows how people in authority can be so indifferent to their responsibilities.

In the case of both the Health Minister and the Medical Director, it should not have been about things landing on their desks, but them searching out issues in their departments and selflessly working to make things better.

Most especially those which have been in the news, but from my reading of their words, they probably do not keep up with the news either.

All we got was bluster, excuses and denials, I was disgusted to the point of violent vomit, Nigeria deserves better than these educated but seriously unintelligent oafs who are remiss of their briefs.

The sooner this issue moves in line with the crusade to ensure that anything ingested is exactly what it is purported to be and the weight of the law should come down heavily on all those who profit from trading in human misery, the better.

Important drugs should be working drugs

If we cannot trust our hospitals, especially teaching hospitals or the local apothecary, what hope do we have whilst we develop religious faith to pray through our healing?

The matter of the collusion or indifference of the major drug companies in this matter in their quest to protect their reputations leaves much to be desired.

I can understand if I ingest Viagra and find that my erectile dysfunction is not temporarily dissipated in lascivious passion, but having drugs injected to start the heart doing nothing cannot begin to illustrate why the war against drug counterfeiting needs to be the concerted effort of governments, agencies, industry and the public at large.

One thing is definite, that health minister and the medical director along with people of that ilk – surely must go and with them a public shaming of their stance.

Other references

Nigeria: UCH's Heart Matter: - First Heart Surgery in 28 years

Welcome to Nigeria- Federal Ministry of Health