Healthy Skepticism Library item: 11059

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Publication type: news

Adigun B.
Pfizer: Nigera Hasn't Refiled Suit
Associated Press 2007 Jul 24
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070724/nigeria_pfizer.html?.v=1

Full text:

Pfizer Says Nigerian Government Has Not Refiled Suit Against Company As Claimed

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — The Nigerian government has not refiled a multibillion dollar lawsuit against Pfizer Inc. to add more serious charges as its counsel claimed, lawyers representing the world’s biggest drugmaker said Tuesday.

The suit is one of four cases pending against the New York-based pharmaceutical over a mid-90s trial of an experimental antibiotic during a meningitis outbreak in northern Nigeria. The government has charged that the company conducted the study without the full knowledge of parents or proper regulatory approval, contributing to deaths of some children and illness in others.

Hearings were supposed to resume last week, but the Nigerian government withdrew the suit. Government lawyer Babatunde Irukera said then that the government only withdrew its complaint to refile the suit with additional documents supporting a more serious fraud charge. He told an Associated Press reporter Tuesday that the papers had been filed.

However, Pfizer’s lawyer said in a statement that they had checked at the court registry and found no record that the suit had been re-filed.

“The federal government on their own discontinued the case … because the case has no merit,” the statement said.

Representatives of the court registrar did not provide the Associated Press access to the court records to confirm if a document had been filed.

Of the four cases, the federal civil lawsuit has the potential do to the most damage to Pfizer, with its call for $7 billion in damages. A criminal and civil case are also pending on the state level, along with a federal criminal trial set to open Wednesday.

Pfizer treated 100 meningitis-infected children with an experimental antibiotic, Trovan, in the 1996 study. Another 100 children, who were control patients in the study, received an approved antibiotic, though families lawyers’ have charged that the dose was lower than recommended.

Eleven children died — five of those on Trovan and six in the control group, while others suffered physical disabilities and brain damage. Pfizer has insisted its records show none of the deaths were linked to Trovan or substandard treatment, noting that the study showed a better survival rate for the patients on Trovan than those on the standard drug, and that mental damage and other serious disabilities are known meningitis after-effects.

Authorities in Kano state have blamed the Pfizer controversy for widespread suspicion of government public health policies, particularly the global effort to vaccinate children against polio.

Islamic leaders in largely Muslim Kano had seized on the Pfizer controversy as evidence of a U.S.-led conspiracy. Rumors that polio vaccines spread AIDS or infertility spurred Kano and another heavily Muslim state, Zamfara, to boycott a polio vaccination campaign four years ago.

Vaccination programs restarted in Nigeria in 2004, after an 11-month boycott. But the delay set back global eradication. The boycott was blamed for causing an outbreak that spread the disease across Africa and into the Middle East.