In follow up to
our class discussions of clinical trials in foreign countries, I thought it
might be interesting to mention the existence of more illegal examples of drug
testing. In reading about certain
instances of abuse by pharmaceutical companies, I was horrorstruck by the basic
disregard for human rights and health, especially considering the medical
purpose of the studies. Clearly,
the business aspect of big pharm has been able to trump the do-no-harm ideology
of medicine in numerous cases.
One such example is
the 1996 testing of Trovafloxacin, a quinolone antibiotic used to treat
meningitis, on 100 children in Nigeria.
All of the children treated with the drug were already severely ill with
meningitis. Of the 200 children in
the study, 100 received the untested Trovafloxacin while the other 100 received
Cetriaxone (1). Five children on Trovafloxacin
died due to the drug, with many others suffering from physical disabilities
including paralysis, deafness slurred speech and loss of sight. Other children suffered from brain
damage. It was also shown that in
at least one case, a child receiving Trovafloxacin was kept on the drug despite
her deteriorating condition, a breach of experimental ethics. This child died as a result.
Six children in the
Cetriaxone control group also died, despite this drug being an excepted form of
treatment for meningitis. It was
later shown that this was a result of Pfizer deliberately providing its
subjects with less than the proper dose of medication. I imagine this was to cut costs of the
study. Amazingly, the study was
conducted without the permission of the Nigerian government and without the
consent of the children's' parents.
Also amazing were the
company's attempts to bribe and pressure government officials to drop charges
after the crime had been found out and the numerous cover-ups that have taken
place (3).
Terrifyingly, according to expert
Charles Medawar, director of Social Audit, the UK pressure group that monitors
the pharmaceutical industry, “This particular case looks to be very bad, but I
hardly think it is untypical.”
1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1119465/
2.
http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportId=72601
3.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/dec/09/wikileaks-cables-pfizer-nigeria
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