On This Day
Nigeria Orders Arrest of Pharmaceutical Officials
by
findingDulcinea Staff
The arrest order is the latest step in Nigeria’s efforts to hold Pfizer, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, responsible for deaths during a 1996 drug trial. The company has denied wrongdoing.
30-Second Summary
In 1996, a spinal meningitis epidemic in Nigeria infected more than 100,000 people and killed over 10,000. Pfizer employees used the outbreak to test the antibiotic trovafloxacin, also known as Trovan, which was undergoing clinical trials.
Pfizer recruited 200 children with meningitis, and gave half of them Trovan and the other half another medication. About five of the children are believed to have died.
After a 2000 Washington Post series on pharmaceutical testing in the third world, Nigerian officials began to look into the trial. They eventually filed criminal charges.
Nigerian state and federal officials are seeking more than $9 billion in compensation, claiming that Pfizer didn’t have the proper permission, killed children and left others with permanent disabilities.
Pfizer says the trial saved lives, and no participants suffered permanent ill effects that were unrelated to spinal meningitis. The parents, the company said, were fully informed and gave their consent.
Furthermore, some officials in Nigeria have also blamed the Trovan trial for a boycott of the polio vaccine in parts of the country in 2005 and 2006.
The Trovan case has prompted comparisons with the John le Carré novel, made into a movie in 2005, “The Constant Gardener,” which is about a pharmaceutical company’s conspiracy in an unnamed African country.
Others argue that clinical trials are essential to develop drugs that will eradicate diseases only found in Third World countries.
The Nigerian governments’ motives have also been questioned.
Pfizer recruited 200 children with meningitis, and gave half of them Trovan and the other half another medication. About five of the children are believed to have died.
After a 2000 Washington Post series on pharmaceutical testing in the third world, Nigerian officials began to look into the trial. They eventually filed criminal charges.
Nigerian state and federal officials are seeking more than $9 billion in compensation, claiming that Pfizer didn’t have the proper permission, killed children and left others with permanent disabilities.
Pfizer says the trial saved lives, and no participants suffered permanent ill effects that were unrelated to spinal meningitis. The parents, the company said, were fully informed and gave their consent.
Furthermore, some officials in Nigeria have also blamed the Trovan trial for a boycott of the polio vaccine in parts of the country in 2005 and 2006.
The Trovan case has prompted comparisons with the John le Carré novel, made into a movie in 2005, “The Constant Gardener,” which is about a pharmaceutical company’s conspiracy in an unnamed African country.
Others argue that clinical trials are essential to develop drugs that will eradicate diseases only found in Third World countries.
The Nigerian governments’ motives have also been questioned.
Headline Links: Arrest warrants issued
A Nigerian judge issued warrants for the arrest of three people from Pfizer, Inc. who allegedly failed to appear in court. Kano, the state in which the Trovan trial was conducted, is suing Pfizer for $2 billion and pressing criminal charges. Nigeria’s federal government is suing the company for $7 billion and pressing criminal charges, too. The next proceedings are scheduled for Jan. 29.
Source: BBC News
Background: Nigeria starts court proceedings against Pfizer
In May 2007, The Washington Post reported that Pfizer would face criminal charges in Nigeria. Officials accused the company of illegally testing an antibiotic on children with meningitis during a 1996 epidemic. The case has taken more than a decade to come to court because Nigerian officials, according to the Post, weren’t aware of the Trovan study’s effects until the Post published an investigation into pharmaceutical tests in the Third World in 2000.
Source: The Washington Post (free registration required)
In June 2007, IRIN News, which is affiliated to the United Nations, reported that the Nigerian government claimed that a boycott of the polio vaccine in 2005 and 2006 arose from fears arising as a consequence of Pfizer’s 1996 Trovan trial. Kano, the state in which the trial was conducted, is mostly Muslim, and Imams there started campaigning against government-sponsored vaccinations in 2001. One person anonymously quoted in the article said Kano’s governor never mentioned Trovan when vaccinations were suspended. “To turn round and blame Pfizer now, I think is an afterthought,” IRIN quoted the person as saying. Imams have also supported the government’s prosecution of Pfizer. IRIN reported: “’All we were trying to tell our people is to be wary of these [Westerners] who pretend they want to help us because they're actually killing us,’ said Abdullahi Sadiq, the imam of a mosque in the Fagge District of Kano. ‘We're happy the government is finally seeing our point.’”
Source: IRIN News
Reaction: Pfizer’s account of the Trovan trial
Pfizer states that Trovan had already been tested on thousands of people in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. The Nigerian government, according to Pfizer, approved the study and parents gave oral consent after nurses explained the trial in the local language. The trial involved 200 children who were diagnosed with meningitis. Half of them received Trovan, and the other half received Ceftriaxone. The survival rate with Trovan, the company says, was 94 percent, compared to less than 90 percent in the rest of the country.
Source: Pfizer
Opinion & Analysis: Pharmaceutical testing, fictional parallels, motives questioned
In a 2003 column from London’s Daily Telegraph, Roger Bate, a doctor and fellow at the International Policy Network, criticizes activists and the media for their portrayal of the Trovan trials. Bate argues that these attacks on pharmaceutical companies could encourage countries to enact legislation that would lower drug profits, which in turn could hamper the development of new medications.
Source: The Telegraph
In a 2001 World Press Review article, Sarah Coleman draws comparisons between the Trovan clinical trial to the John Le Carré novel “The Constant Gardener,” which is about the nefarious activities of a fictional pharmaceutical firm operating in Africa.
Source: Worldpress.org
Max Gbanite, a Nigerian living in the United States, claims the government is “arm-twisting” Pfizer. The government, he said, can’t account for millions of dollars in international donations that were intended to fight diseases such as malaria. Gbanite questions why it took the government so long, if there was a problem with the trial, to do anything. He also believes Pfizer could have provided better care for those trial participants who were diagnosed with meningitis.
Source: Kwenu.com
Reference: Meningitis
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls a strip of Africa from Senegal on the west coast to the western half of Ethiopia the “Meningitis Belt.” Much of Nigeria is included in that belt. The CDC advises that anyone going to that region be vaccinated against meningitis. Meningitis symptoms include severe headache, fever and stiff neck. The disease is serious, according to the CDC: “Meningococcal disease is potentially fatal and should always be viewed as a medical emergency. Admission to a hospital or health center is necessary.”
Source: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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