Page 25 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 14

Wholeness

he couldn’t hear anything again – I meningitis, but not yet approved for
knew that it was Pfizer who gave that use or for treatment of children “We didn’t even leave the hospi-
him the drugs”. Maryam insists no by the US Food and Drug Adminis- tal before a reaction manifested.
one told her that Pfizer was testing tration (FDA). The company admin- Soon after, I developed paraly-
out a new drug. istered a drug trial of Trovan and sis in my legs,” Bello says, while
a second drug, Ceftriaxone, then a struggling to maintain a stable
The story of a 1996 Pfizer drug standard treatment for meningitis, to sitting position during the inter-
trial and its outcomes and aftermath some 200 children. view.
is linked to the current COVID-19 A Question of Consent
vaccination boycott in communities Pfizer has maintained that they
like Kano State - vaccine hesitancy obtained prior verbal consent from meningitis, not the drugs they ad-
ministered. (Pfizer did not respond
does not only apply to situations all parents for the experiment, but to multiple requests for comment
where vaccine uptake is low because parents like Maryam and trial partic- for this story.)
of poor availability but also because ipants like 29-year-old Bala Bello tell
of distrust and safety concerns - a different story. In 1998, the license for Trovan for
based on experience. Bello, a graduate of Business Ad- use by adults was withdrawn from
the European Medical Agency,
ministration from Bayero University because of concerns over serious
Drug Trials During an Outbreak Kano, was four- years-old during the medical problems and multiple
In June 1996, a severe meningitis meningococcal meningitis outbreak. deaths. It was withdrawn from the
outbreak rocked Nigeria, an infec- His hometown was the epicenter of US market in 1999 for the same rea-
tion that caused inflammation of the outbreak, which left scores dead sons, though at the time Pfizer said
the brain and spinal cord linings and in Kano State. trials had revealed no side effects.
spread through sneezing. It appears results from the trial in
As of March 4, 1996, the infection Bello recounted what his mother Kano State were never published.
had spread to 12 states in Nigeria in told him happened. “I was ill and
the space of six months, leading to taken to the Infectious Diseases What followed in the years after the
over 100,000 cases and a fatality rate Hospital (IDH), popularly known as drug trial would be a lengthy legal
of 10.7% – meaning it caused death ‘Asibitin Zana’ located along France battle between Pfizer, the Nigerian
in one in every ten patients with the Road in Kano”, he explained. “I government, and the families of the
infection. It was the most severe was given some drugs, which no one children involved.
epidemic of the illness ever record- explained to her (my mum) what the
ed in Nigeria. said drugs were meant for.” From Drug Trial to Legal Trial
In June 2007, the Nigerian federal
The outbreak, which lasted over Bello’s mum had assumed the drugs government and the Kano State
three months, saw the combined were for the treatment of meningi- government filed criminal and civil
efforts of a National Task Force tis, but shortly after the drugs had suits against Pfizer and eight other
set up by Nigeria’s Federal Ministry been administered to him he devel- defendants, asking for $7 billion in
of Health, the WHO, UNICEF, oped an unexpected side effect. damages. The suit charged that the
UNDP, Médecins Sans Frontières, company had tested an unapproved
the International Red Cross and It was “soon after I was paralysed, and experimental drug on children
several other non-governmental that my mother got to know that it with neither informed consent from
organizations to bring the epidemic was Pfizer who had given her the parents, nor approval from the Ni-
under control, but not without scars drugs from their experiment,” Bello gerian government. Pfizer countered
left behind for some families in recalls. that such approval wasn’t necessary.
Kano State.
Of the participants in the trial, 11 In 2001, an investigation by the
In addition to the international task children died and dozens of others Washington Post uncovered that a
force, the US-based pharmaceutical were left with debilitating injuries: document Pfizer claimed to prove
company Pfizer was in Kano at the blindness, paralysis, deafness, and ethical approval by Nigerian au-
time with an antibiotic drug called neurological deficits, which the thorities for the trial appeared to be
Trovan, expected to potentially treat company maintains are the result of falsified and back-dated.

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