WikiLeaks cables: Pfizer used dirty tricks to avoid clinical trial payout

[marmar]

from the Guardian UK:



The world's biggest pharmaceutical company hired investigators to unearth evidence of corruption against the Nigerian attorney general in order to persuade him to drop legal action over a controversial drug trial involving children with meningitis, according to a leaked US embassy cable.

Pfizer was sued by the Nigerian state and federal authorities, who claimed that children were harmed by a new antibiotic, Trovan, during the trial, which took place in the middle of a meningitis epidemic of unprecedented scale in Kano in the north of Nigeria in 1996.

Last year, the company came to a tentative settlement with the Kano state government which was to cost it $75m.

But the cable suggests that the US drug giant did not want to pay out to settle the two cases – one civil and one criminal – brought by the Nigerian federal government. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/dec/09/wikileaks-cables-pfizer-nigeria

[Matariki]

1. Kept them coming.

Let the world see how the world actually is being run and how the few are shitting on the many.

[drm604]

2. K&R... Think about this. What does this say about the U.S. role in this?

Think about this. The Pfizer rep had no qualms about telling the U.S. officials about this basically criminal behavior. They apparently had no concerns that the U.S. would raise a stink about it.

Now think about it some more. Why bother telling U.S. officials about it? What did Pfizer have to gain by telling them about this? They must have felt that the U.S. could help them in some way in their dirty tricks. Why else talk about it? Would you brag about such behavior for no reason?

[Jackpine Radical]

13. Interesting speculation.

[Uncle Joe]

3. Kicked, recommended and apparently Assange has distanced Wikileaks

• It emerged that Julian Assange had been transferred to the segregation unit in Wandsworth prison and had distanced WikiLeaks from cyber attacks on MasterCard, Visa, PayPal and other organisations.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.

[Whisp]

6. what does 'distanced Wikileaks' mean?

thanks

Is he saying that WikiLeaks had nothing to do with the hacking?
of course he would say that and of course they wouldn't directly be involved in that...


o well,
not really any news I guess

[Uncle Joe]

10. It's up to interpretation, the obvious one is having nothing to do with it, but there may be

another layer as well, for example not approving of it.

[City Lights]

4. K&R!

Expose them!

[Hell Hath No Fury]

5. "The Constant Gardner" --

Great movie about just such shit. :(

[LiberalFighter]

7. Who in Congress has major ties with Pfizer?

[Octafish]

8. This guy -- but he's out of government now.

Guy on the left -- and still on the dole, I understand.

[Hannah Bell]

11. Pfizer has retained some of the Washington’s best known lobbyists,

Pfizer has retained some of the Washington’s best known lobbyists, including former Reps. Bill Paxon (R-N.Y.) and Norman Lent (R-N.Y.) and former Sen. Dennis DeConcini (R-Ariz.). The company also retains Scott Hatch, son of Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who authored the drug patent law that remains in effect today. Since 1997, Pfizer has reported nearly $20 million in lobbying expenditures, according to the Secretary of the Senate. (Pharmacia spent $13.4 million during the same period.)" <35>
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pfizer_Inc#Lobbying



Senator Asks Pfizer About Harvard Payments
Source: NY Times

Senator Charles E. Grassley on Tuesday asked the drug maker Pfizer to provide details of its payments to at least 149 faculty members at Harvard Medical School.

The senator, who is investigating the drug industry’s influence on the practice of medicine, also asked for any Pfizer e-mail, faxes, letters or photos regarding Harvard medical students who have protested against drug company influence.

Mr. Grassley, in a letter to Pfizer, wrote that he was “greatly disturbed” to read a New York Times article Tuesday describing a Pfizer representative’s taking cell-phone photographs of the medical students last October at a campus demonstration against industry influence.

“I find this troubling as I have documented several instances where pharmaceutical companies have attempted to intimidate academic critics of drugs,” he wrote.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3765977

[Rockholm]

12. Probably has an (R) in it.

[Hannah Bell]

9. not secret information:

Nigeria
In May 2006, the Washington Post published a Nigerian government report that had remained unreleased for five years. In this report, a panel of Nigerian medical experts found that Pfizer violated international law. This stems from the company's alleged testing of an unapproved drug, an oral form of Trovafloxacin, on children with meningitis in Nigeria.

Pfizer replied to the report saying they conducted the trial with full knowledge of the Nigerian government.<23> These allegations have been the subject of litigation in both America and Nigeria. On June 5, 2007 the Nigerian government filed a civil lawsuit for $7 billion in damages against Pfizer, related to a study of an experimental meningitis treatment given to children. <24>. Two hundred children received Trovan in Kano, Nigeria, in 1996, the company said. The Nigerian government and Kano state government allege Pfizer gave the antibiotic to children without proper parental consent and that it disabled or killed some children. <25>

In July 2007, the Nigerian government filed criminal charges against Pfizer over the trials. <26>

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pfizer_Inc.

[drm604]

15. You're missing the most important part.

Pfizer tried to blackmail Nigerian federal attorney general Michael Aondoakaa to try to get him to drop the federal cases. I don't see that in your Source Watch link and I haven't heard anything about it before.

Possibly even more disturbing, to me at least, Pfizer seemed to have no qualms about telling U.S. authorities that they were doing this. They apparently had reason to believe that the U.S. wouldn't have a problem with it.

[Bonhomme Richard]

14. We are coming to find that the apple pie we have been eating is

rotten to the core.

[WinkyDink]

16. Corporations LIE?! NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!