Truth is More Horrific Than Fiction
A few weeks ago, The Constant Gardner made its way to the top of our Netflix queue. My wife enjoyed it more than I did; however, I thought it was remarkably good as documentaries go:
The report concludes that Pfizer never obtained authorization from the Nigerian government to give the unproven drug to nearly 100 children and infants. Pfizer selected the patients at a field hospital in the city of Kano, where the children had been taken to be treated for an often deadly strain of meningitis. At the time, Doctors Without Borders was dispensing approved antibiotics at the hospital.
Pfizer’s experiment was “an illegal trial of an unregistered drug,” the Nigerian panel concluded, and a “clear case of exploitation of the ignorant.”
* * *
Pfizer contended that its researchers traveled to Kano with a purely philanthropic motive, to help fight the epidemic, which ultimately killed more than 15,000 Africans. The committee rejected that explanation, pointing out that Pfizer physicians completed their trial and left while “the epidemic was still raging.”
The panel said an oral form of Trovan, the Pfizer drug used in the test, had apparently never been given to children with meningitis. There are no records documenting that Pfizer told the children or their parents that they were part of an experiment, it said. An approval letter from a Nigerian ethics committee, which Pfizer used to justify its actions had been concocted and backdated by the company’s lead researcher in Kano, the report said.
* * *
A New York City attorney for the families of the children, Elaine Kusel of Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman, said her firm had spent years looking for the report, of which they believed there were only three copies. They tracked one to a Nigerian government safe, but it was reported stolen, she said. Another copy was reported to have been held by an official who died.
* * *
At the time of the Nigerian experiment, Pfizer was developing Trovan for release in the United States, where it was expected to gross up to $1 billion a year.
The FDA never approved Trovan for use in treating American children. After being cleared for adult use in 1997, the drug quickly became one of the most prescribed antibiotics in the United States. But Trovan was later associated with reports of liver damage and deaths, leading the FDA to severely restrict its use in 1999. European regulators banned the drug.
That’s odd. As those of you who watch television undoubtedly know, pharmaceutical companies exist solely to serve humanity. Huge profits and executive salaries are merely a fortuitous side-effect. That’s why every other television commercial you see is a drug ad: The industry spends more on marketing than on R&D and has spent more than $800M on lobbying in the past seven years because it wants to get its message out so that it can help as many people as possible. They’re off to a good start thanks to the Administration’s Medicare prescription drug plan. The fact that the Congressman who pushed that legislation through Congress left the House to become the head of The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America is pure coincidence.
[/sarcasm]
Look forward to more Big Pharma meta-marketing describing the industry’s charitable drug programs and single-minded humanitarian focus. I just wish they’d come up with a pill to help me keep down my lunch while watching.
On second thought, I’d rather deal with the nausea than anal bleeding and liver failure.
No Responses to “Truth is More Horrific Than Fiction”
“Truth is More Horrific Than Fiction” has generated no comments.You may post a comment below.