Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has agreed to pay $75 million to settle a class action
lawsuit filed against it by Nigerian parents who claim the company caused harm to their
children by using them as guinea pigs in a nonconsensual, unlicensed drug trial.
The case began in 1996, when Pfizer needed a human trial to gain approval for its new
antibiotic Trovan. When an epidemic of meningitis, cholera and measles broke out in Kano,
Nigeria, the company quickly put together a research team and flew them to that country. Pfizer set up a tent right near the
medical station where Doctors Without Borders were giving free treatments and recruited
200 children to participate in an unlicensed drug trial.
Parents say they were not told that proven medications were being distributed only yards
away, that their children were being enrolled in a drug trial, or that animal studies had
suggested that Trovan could cause liver and joint damage.
Eleven of the 200 children in the study died, and parents claim that others suffered from
brain damage, organ failure and other severe side effects.
The case broke when Pfizer researcher Juan Walterspiel, who had been schedule to take part
in the trial but was left behind, wrote a letter to Pfizer's then chief executive William
Steere, saying that the Kano study was "in violation of ethical rules."
"Some of the children were in critical condition and most of them malnourished, which
made oral absorption even more unpredictable," he wrote. "At least one died
after a single oral dose."
Class action lawsuits were filed against the company in a variety of jurisdictions in
Kenya and the United States,
while various levels of the Nigerian government also filed their own lawsuits against the
company.
The current settlement comes in a class action suit filed in Nigeria. In addition to a pending class
action suit in the United States, Pfizer may still face criminal prosecution in Nigeria.
In January 2008, a Nigerian judge issued arrest warrants for several top company officials
after they failed to appear in court. (Natural News,
7.24.2009, David Gutierrez, staff writer) http://www.naturalnews.com/026685_Pfizer_Nigeria_United_States.html