Experimentos Ilegales Hechos Por Pfizer En Africa

Martha Cortez Palma
Instructor Robert Guy
Essay # 1
Illegal experiments in Africa by Pfizer

Introduction
The premise develops around illegal experimentation in Nigeria, Africa. One serious complaint is directed towards the largest pharmaceutical company in the world, Pfizer, which is conducting illegal drug experimentations in Nigeria, Africa. After the deaths of 11 children and permanentdamage to many others, a law suit was filed leading to an in depth investigation into the laws and procedures pertaining to the drug experiments conducted.
The Charge
In December 2000, the government of Nigeria decided to demand that Pfizer show proof of its patient documentation towards the premise concerning the trials in the region of Kano. concerning an antibiotic against meningitis calledTrovan Trovafloxacino. This drug had been tested only on pigs. In the year 1996, this province had more than 3 million inhabitants flogged by the worst epidemic of Meningitis in the history of Africa. Thousands died without access to medicines. It was reported that the testing of the Pfizer’s medication, quinolone injectable Trovan, was missing the protocols established in the Declaration ofHelsinki. (World Medical Association). Prepared by Nigerian experts of the Ministry of Health, and after an investigation of the same North American newspaper by the journalist Joe Stephens, the first controversial point cites about 200 children were used as experiments, even though numbers given by Nigeria quote almost 600 children.
Violation of Human Rights and Health
The Declaration of Helsinki(WMA), that regulates this type of practices establishes in its article 5 that, “In medical research in human beings, the concern as the welfare of the human beings must always have supremacy on the interests of the science and of the society”; the article 8 clearly indicates that “The medical research is subject to ethical norms that serve to promote the respect to all the human beings and toprotect its health and its individual rights” and more when it is a question of vulnerable populations, in extreme poverty as is the Nigeria; Article 20 indicates that “to take part in a research project, the individuals must be voluntary and informed participants”; and article 24 aims with clarity that “When the person should be legally incapable” or unskillful physically or mentally ofgranting consent, or incompetent minor, the investigator must obtain the informed consent about the legal representative and in accordance with the current law.
The Background
Pfizer broke practice concerning these articles about the Declaration, since the Trovan experimentation was done on nearly 200 children in an illegal way. This led to the death of 11children and the malformation of the rest.Official reports of Kano mention that at least another 50 children incurred serious complications. Some of them could have died from the same supposedly associated use of the medicine, as a result of alterations from the psychomotor development and metabolic complications. This occurred in obvious violation of the Conventions of the (UN) and Africa on the rights of the children, and the violationsof the Nigerian laws.
The Nigerian lawyer Paul T. Adujie states “Pfizer knows the laws and ethical standards". Pfizer is totally familiar with protocol standards for clinical trials. Pfizer was completely indifferent to the value of the lives of our children in Kano, Tuskegee, as they carried out illegal experiments, with human beings as if they were lab rats. Pfizer conducted unethicalexperiments on our children, without the requirement of informed consent, and without first obtaining regulatory approvals and/or authorization from the appropriate authorities of Nigeria and agencies” Additional aggravating circumstances whereas Trovan was approved both by the EU and by United States, its use was too be administered only to adults and 2) later, the EU decided to withdraw it for liver...