Healthy Skepticism Library item: 11167

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Goldstein J.
Pfizer Calls for Dismissal of Nigerian Lawsuit
The Wall Street Journal Health Blog 2007 Aug 8
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2007/08/08/pfizer-calls-for-dismissal-of-nigeran-lawsuit/?mod=yahoo_hs

Full text:

Nigeria to Pfizer: Your clinical trial in our country was illegal and deadly. We’re taking you to court.
Pfizer to Nigeria: The trial was legal and our antibiotic didn’t kill anybody. Drop the case.

In the latest turn, the American drug giant has filed a brief asking a court in the state of Kano to dismiss a $2 billion lawsuit against the company over its 1996 test of the antibiotic Trovan, the Washington Post reports this morning.

Nigeria has filed four separate criminal cases against Pfizer that include 31 criminal charges and more than $8 billion in civil claims. The government argues that the trial, conducted during a meningitis epidemic, was conducted inappropriately and led to the death of 11 children and caused harm to 189 more. The new filing pertains only to the civil case in a state court.

In the filing, Pfizer says it conducted the trial appropriately, and “all clinical evidence points to the fact that any deaths were the direct result of the meningitis itself,” according to the Post.

Pfizer said the survival rate was 94.4% for children given Trovan, 93.8% for those given a comparison drug, and about 90% for children in the rest of the hospital, where treatment was given by the group Doctors Without Borders, the paper says.