Nigeria: A case for jail threats against those refusing vaccination

Protecting our shared community

I would hate to be in a society where vaccination is forced on people, but we need to understand the responsibility to be vaccinated if we are to participate healthily in our shared commonwealth, society and community.

The news is that 120 parents or guardians were arrested and threatened with jail terms if they continued to refuse to allow their wards be vaccinated. [Punch]

Polio or infantile paralysis, is an acute, viral, infectious disease spread from person to person, primarily via the faecal-oral route. [Wikipedia]

Herd immunity

It is preventable by immunisation or vaccination and recipients of this preventative measure block person-to-person transmission of wild poliovirus, thereby protecting both individual vaccine recipients and the wider community (so-called herd immunity).

The operative phrase here being herd immunity, the threshold in percentage terms a community population has to reach in vaccination numbers against preventable diseases to avoid an outbreak leading to a possible epidemic. [Wikipedia]

Source: Herd Immunity - Wikipedia

The chart above with regards to vaccinations against Diphtheria, Measles, Mumps, Pertussis (Whooping Cough), Polio, Rubella and Smallpox with the attendant modes of transmission implicitly confers a societal responsibility on everyone, first by not being a vector for transmission and avoiding that by being vaccinated.

With thresholds ranging from 80% of the population for Polio to 92% for Pertussis and Measles, it would be considered irresponsible for certain members of the public to shift the responsibility unto others by hoping the coverage of herd immunity when they interact with society assures their immunity if they have not yet been vaccinated.

Preventable means taking responsibility

More pertinently is the fact that in 2008, the WHO estimated that there were 1.5 million deaths amongst children under 5 due to preventable diseases. Preventable and avoidable possibly if those children had been vaccinated. [WHO]

Now, where there are no vaccines or a community has not had the opportunity to avail themselves of this life-saving activity, one’s sorrow and sympathy flows unabated as one also advocates for more vaccination drives to the unreached or deprived ends of the world.

Dread and death

However, where religious ignorance and rabble-rousing rhetoric of stupefying controversy as happened in Nigeria has bewitched the people into thinking the vaccination drive is to sterilise the population, then one wonders about the choices between needless childhood mortality or preserving maternal fertility creating a perpetual cycle of birth and death, joy and sorrow until indifference sets in.

That is not to say there is no cause for concern, vaccines are not perfect and as in the case of the Pfizer experiment in Northern Nigeria; what they did was unforgivable, the unethical conduct was reprehensible, and it set back the global vaccination drive that has left Nigeria as one of the only countries in the world with a polio problem, however, we cannot because of it stop the need to vaccinate and avoid preventable childhood deaths. [Wikipedia]

Just one and it spreads

Back to my premise for this blog, just because certain parents refused to take the MMR jab, in 2013, there was a measles outbreak in Wales, which affected 1,455 persons, 664 of those in Swansea and there was one reported death, in August 2013, there was a measles outbreak that found patient-zero in an evangelical mega-church in America.

The whole point I am trying to make is this, it is your prerogative not to get vaccinated, however, if you intend to share the same space as others, breathe the same air they breathe and interact with others as another social being, then that prerogative has to be subsumed to a greater good – you taking responsibility as much as others to be immunised or vaccinated and prevent unnecessary hardship, avoidable sorrow and needless deaths.

The choice is clear

It is in view of this that I support the jail threats made to the people arrested in Niger State of Nigeria, whilst it might be read as an encroachment on their rights, the wider responsibility is to society, with the desire to interact with the community comes a responsibility to help keep that community healthy and safe by attending to the smart obligation of being vaccinated.

Obviously, you can completely isolate yourself from civilisation, but then, hopefully you are too far away from any community to pose any risk at all, else, get vaccinated at the earliest opportunity.

Nigeria: Pfizer reaches settlement

A settlement agreed

Following one’s comments on this matter, it behoves one to present an update on developing circumstances.

On the 26^th of February 2009, the newswires [1] announced that under the negotiating auspices of General Yakubu Gowon (Rtd.) [2] who was the leader of Nigeria from 1966 to 1975 and former President Jimmy Carter [3]; the Kano State government in Northern Nigeria and Pfizer - the pharmaceutical conglomerate have in principle reached an out-of-court settlement.

This settlement which would be fully negotiated in March 2009 does not at the moment confer blame, admission or culpability but pursuant to the $2.75 billion compensation claim on behalf of 11 dead children and 189 other affected children, this settlement would close the criminal and civil cases brought against Pfizer.

The courts still sit

Much as Pfizer has protested its drug trial of trovafloxacin (Trovan) [4] conducted during a major outbreak of measles, cholera and meningitis “conformed to ethical practices and was carried out with the consent of the Nigerian government”, the cases against Pfizer which have been in the courts since 2001 [5] have had resilience [6] that it must now be a public relations nightmare for the company.

However, the woes of Pfizer have not ended because this settlement is quite different from another suit brought by the Federal Government of Nigeria for the compensatory sum of $6.5 million.

My hope for the victims

Obviously, once this settlement is completed, it is my hope that this money be put in trust for the 200 victims and their guardians for the improvement of their lives and one also hopes that the involvement of the Kano State government is for ethical, altruistic and compassionate reasons.

Knowing that the victims are rural folk, there is the danger that decisions might be made for their lives and livelihood that does not reflect the full compensation won on their behalf and it would be atrocious if administrative costs are exacted from the same claim when it appears from Pfizer’s perspective the government was culpable in the drug trial by offering consent on behalf of the people who probably did not know they were being used in unconscionable experiments.

In all, if the good names of Mr Gowon and Mr Carter are involved in this deal, their job would only be complete if the sense of justice and fairness catapults these wronged people out of their circumstances onto a trajectory of life-changing experiences.

This matter would be watched closely to see where it ends.

Sources

[1] AFP: Pfizer settles multi-billion dollar Nigerian case

[2] Yakubu Gowon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] Jimmy Carter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] Trovafloxacin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] Kano trovafloxacin trial litigation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[6] Suits Saying Pfizer Experimented on Nigerian Children Are Revived - washingtonpost.com

Earlier blogs on this issue

Nigeria: Pfizer, we are NOT lab rats [Originally on akin.blog-city.com] – February 2009

The Pfizer Drug Trial [Originally on akin.blog-city.com] – May 2007

Humantarian Pfizer fed Nigerian kids poison drug - allegedly [Originally on akin.blog-city.com] – May 2007

Church stance on condoms fuels atrocious claims

The curse of African leadership

To an observer from Mars, they would not be thinking amiss if they thought that Africa was cursed with people in authority who have no inkling of their responsibilities.

One such set of people in authority are those who derive their status from being proponents of religions ever so foreign to Africa but become part of the fabric of our societies.

The traditional rulers and healers who are the bastions of our historical and cultural heritage have now been demonised or subsumed into these religious political establishments that their erstwhile incumbency authority counts for nothing anymore.

They also have their faults, but this is not the forum to explore their failures.

The Origin of AIDS suspect

Critical analysis still leaves us a bit unsure of how HIV/AIDS ravaged the whole swathe of Sub-Saharan African through all the generations, because, it cannot have been people copulating with the Simian species but some conspiracies point to a major vaccination campaign that might have used contaminated agents – truth or not, that impression has stuck.

It then informs the way certain religious leaders admonished their followers to refuse polio vaccinations in Northern Nigeria stemming from a case where Pfizer had allegedly tested illegal drugs on children, some of which lead to deaths and disabilities.

This makes any offer of Western expertise to alleviate African problems a bitter pill to swallow because the question of trust is compromised with the history of Trojan Horse gifts that are offered in false sincerity for ulterior gains.

Outrageous baseless claims

This however does not excuse the claim made by the Catholic Archbishop of Mozambique where the church has failed to depress the sexuality and sexual energy of the people with Abstinence and Be-faithful but never use Condoms by claiming condoms are laced with HIV.

It is quite sad when supposedly knowledgeable leaders of society express such blatant ignorance and false assertions to excite hysteria in order to achieve an end when objective discussion has failed to yield the desired result.

Now, when it comes to planned parenthood or the management of sexually transmitted diseases, the Catholic Church cannot be said to have been the most help or responsible in understanding the demographics or attitudes of their laity.

In fact, one supposes the Church sees it fit to demand people abstain or be celibate since the priests never get to enjoy the joys of homo-sapiens-sapiens copulation – no fault of anyone because it is not doctrine; it is a rule of men.

Irresponsible behaviour

The greater dereliction of responsibility is in not realising that the weakness of human beings of sexual fulfilment has to be understand and catered for, in which case, if you cannot abstain from sex or be faithful to your partner (who could also be infected), use condoms.

The further issue here is to deprive those who are infected from enjoying sex if they decide to use protection because not everyone who has been infected acquired the infection through sexual contact.

The express stupidity of the archbishop is glaring from the fact that it is quite far-fetched that the HIV virus is conserved in condoms for the purpose of wiping out Africans who deign to use sexual protection.

There is enough scientific study to prove that HIV does not survive that well outside the body and it would only survive in blood if the blood is stored in the right conditions of temperature and containment, I doubt if condoms and their packaging fit into that scope of preservation.

Religion as a detriment to progress

The means of scare-mongering and urban legends to the end of stopping people from using condoms in the light of a greater humanitarian tragedy is beneath contempt to say the least.

I would expect that every respectable, knowledgeable and intelligent person with a stake in Africa would roundly condemn the archbishop as he finds ways to retract his statement whilst his integrity and status is diminished.

We just cannot afford to have such idiots mouthing nonsense and endangering the lives of vulnerable people just because they derive authority from some unAfrican religious order.

Defrock the man before the Catholic Church is a symbol of disgrace – even that is debatable in the light of this.

References

Polio Vaccines and the Origin of AIDS

The Origin of HIV & the First Cases of AIDS

HIV chimp vaccine theory dismissed

UNICEF Nigerian Polio Vaccine Contaminated with Sterilizing Agents Scientist Finds

Nigeria Muslims oppose polio vaccination

My Blogs on the Pfizer Drug Trials

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.