Law suit accuses drugs giant of rights violations

A lawsuit filed against the US company Pfizer alleges that it violated international law by testing an experimental drug on children during a meningitis epidemic in northern Nigeria in 1996, news organisations reported on Thursday. The suit, filed on Wednesday in a federal court in New York on behalf of 30 Nigerian families, alleges that the world’s largest pharmaceutical company “exploited the chaos” caused by the epidemic in Kano and performed risky drug trials on children, news organisations reported. Some 200 children were subjected to clinical trials of a Pfizer antibiotic known as Trovan without their knowledge or consent, the ‘Washington Post’ first reported in December 2000 after an 11-month investigation. Eleven children died during the test and others suffered injuries including brain damage, paralysis and deafness. In response to the ‘Washington Post’ article, a company spokeswoman said the trial was “sound from medical, scientific, regulatory and ethical standpoints”, and that it may have saved lives. The families are seeking an unspecified amount in punitive damages and an order barring Pfizer from conducting illegal experiments. They say Pfizer violated UN human rights standards and the Nuremberg Code of 1947, enacted in part to prevent the horrors of medical experimentation performed during the Jewish Holocaust from happening again.