WikiLeaks: Pfizer Sought Dirt on Nigerian AG

Umma Hassan, right, stands outside her home in Kano, Nigeria, June 6, 2007, with her 14-year-old daughter Hajara Hassan, a victim of the illegal meningitis drug test allegedly run by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer in 1996. Hajara Hassan lost her hearing.

/ AFP/Getty Images

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer hired investigators to dig up evidence of corruption against a Nigerian attorney general in order to force him to drop federal cases alleging that the company conducted an illegal drug trial on children suffering from meningitis.

A Pfizer manager in Nigeria told U.S. embassy officials that the company planned to "pressure" Attorney General Michael Aondoakaa, the Guardian newspaper of London reported Thursday evening.

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The disclosure comes from the trove of secret State Department cables released to a number of news outlets by the document-dumping website WikiLeaks.

A leaked embassy cable about a meeting between the manager, Enrico Liggeri, and embassy officials suggests that Pfizer did not want to settle the criminal and civil cases the Nigerian government brought against the company.

"According to Liggeri, Pfizer had hired investigators to uncover corruption links to federal attorney general Michael Aondoakaa to expose him and put pressure on him to drop the federal cases," the April 9, 2009, cable reads. "He said Pfizer's investigators were passing this information to local media."

In 2009, the company tentatively settled with the government of the Nigerian state Kano for $75 million, the Guardian reported.

The alleged trial took place during a meningitis epidemic in Kano in 1996. Pfizer's doctors used a new antibiotic, Trovan, on 100 children, federal authorities alleged. Another 100 children were treated with another drug, ceftriaxone, the Guardian reported.

Eleven children -- five on Trovan, six on ceftriaxone -- died during the trial, the Guardian reported. Authorities claimed Pfizer didn't have proper consent from parents and that the trial wasn't properly documented, the Guardian reported. Trovan was later licensed for adults in Europe and removed after concerns that the drug was linked to liver toxicity, the Guardian reported.

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[Puffin49]

Anyone who does enough investigative reading, from credible sources, knows that the Pharmaceutical Industry of the United States is as corrupt as Al Qaeda or the Taliban. The US is long-known for conducting "experiments" on third-world countries peoples, using them as guinea pigs. Anyone who thinks that our Pharmaceutical Industry truly wants to help people has their head (you know where). Pfizer, GlaxoSmith-Kline (GSK), and the hundreds of other pharmaceutical companies are all about making money, and lots of it. They cut corners just to get drugs approved as quickly as possible, and the cowardly, corrupt and powerless FDA does not protect citizens as well as it should. In fact, the FDA approves drugs for widespread use before they've even seen complete results of drug companies tests. Often, the drug companies don't even conduct enough tests, and through corrupt channels, they still get their drugs approved. Why do you think drugs are often pulled from the market when people start having strokes and heart attacks (side effects of these drugs), after the drug's been in use for years? Take Paxil, for example -- Paxil used to be available to CHILDREN! and adults; when hundreds of teenagers were committing suicide while on Paxil, GSK was forced (following the UK's lead) to remove Paxil from the market for everyone under the age of 18.

Don't be fooled by the fluffy pharmaceutical commercials, portraying (so-called) happy, healthy people while playing soothing background music; TAKE NOTE: READ or LISTEN to the frightening list of potential side-effects of any drug: may cause: liver damage, kidney damage, internal bleeding, headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness or even DEATH, etc., etc.

"Standard of Care" is very political as well...don't think that any citizens/patients are getting the best possible care they could possibly get. The Western Medicine model is pathetic -- it simply puts "Band-Aids" (doctors over-prescribing pills) on patient's symptoms. The Western model doesn't look at the source of a patient's health issue, the physicians merely placate our trusting citizens with drugs, lots and lots of drugs.

Lastly, it deeply saddens me to read, for as long as I can remember, about American Pharmaceutical Companies and the abuses they have carried out, especially on third-world countries citizens, who want so desperately to trust the ever-powerful United States of America. Corporate America stinks. And don't think you'll read about this stuff on CNN.com or any mainstream news media.

[Hobotron2084]

"Anyone who does enough investigative reading, from credible sources, knows that the Pharmaceutical Industry of the United States is as corrupt as Al Qaeda or the Taliban"

You better be wearing a tin foil hat if your going to make those sort of ridiculous statements.

[lilsweet21]

I dont mean to sound pro big buisness or anything, but Pfizer provided standard of care (ceftriaxone) and a drug that worked just as well as the standard of care (Trovan) to 200 children that probably didnt have access to medication. The death rate for meningitis is 21% if you catch it early and 90% if not (much higher than the 5-6% here). Depending on what type of informed consent they recieved (it says not "proper"), that could be anything from verbal conset, to a written document that didnt have all components! The trial doesnt seem bad at all.

[fxbolsa]

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