-Caveat Lector- |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| HEALTH & SCIENCE ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
DRUG COMPANIES USING WORLD'S POOR FOR UNREGULATED TESTING http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/37024/ KELLY HEARN, ALTERNET - A newly surfaced report alleges that in 1996, drug monolith Pfizer gave an unproven drug to Nigerian children and infants suffering from meningitis -- without the authorization of the Nigerian government. Completed five years ago and coming to light in a May 7 Washington Post investigation, the confidential report, written by a panel of Nigerian health experts, concluded that administering the drug Trovan to 100 patients suffering a deadly strain of meningitis was "an illegal trial of an unregistered drug." The drug was ultimately shown to be ineffective. A lawsuit against Pfizer claims some of the children in the trial died and others suffered brain damage. The report surfaces as more and more clinical research relocates to the global south in order to escape burdensome regulation schemes in the United States and Western Europe. AlterNet has obtained an early look at a book to be published later this year -- The Body Hunters: How the Drug Industry Tests Its Products On the World's Poorest Patients (New Press), by investigative journalist Sonia Shah -- that raises the curtain on a trend that's harming patients and health care systems while eroding the developing world's trust in conventional medicine. Researchers needing patients and freer working conditions have for years found a honey pot in the world's slums and shantytowns. The fact that poor, desperate patients are willing to try anything, means companies like GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Wyeth currently conduct 30 percent to 50 percent of their experiments outside Western Europe and the United States, and plan to boost foreign trials by 67 percent this year, according to USA Today. Their urgency is understandable; Shah's book notes that to get a single drug to market, drug companies are forced "to convince more than 4,000 patients to undergo 141 medical procedures each in more than 65 separate trials." www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/ <A HREF="http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
