The Washington Post has been covering the subject of Big Pharma testing in the developing world for years. In Africa it is not unusual to hear rumors of such testing and distrust of Big Pharma is widespread. If people volunteer for experimental treatment, perhaps, but the allegations in this lawsuit are horrifying not to mention illegal, with a complete disregard for human rights.
The panel said Pfizer administered an oral form of Trovan that apparently had never been given to children with meningitis. It said there were no records documenting that Pfizer told the children or their parents that they were part of a drug trial. And it said an approval letter from a Nigerian ethics committee, which Pfizer used to justify its actions, was a sham concocted long after the trial ended.
"The families of the children who [Pfizer] used as laboratory guinea pigs were led to believe and in fact understood that the Defendants were providing their children with volunteer relief, clearly focused humanitarian medical intervention and nothing more," the lawsuit says.
Parents were not told that alternative treatments were available, it adds.
The suit charges that parents were barred from Pfizer's ward and that the company's own lab tests had shown Trovan's life-threatening side effects. Researchers allegedly administered the comparison drug, Rocephin, in dangerously low doses to make Trovan look more effective.
