Suits Saying Pfizer Experimented on Nigerian Children Are Revived

[struggle4progress]

Source: Washington Post

By Joe Stephens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 31, 2009; Page A07

... The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York ruled that the suits, dismissed earlier by a lower-court judge who said they should have been brought in Nigeria, can now go forward in the U.S. courts. Lawyers said the ruling could set a precedent affecting other American companies accused of wrongdoing overseas.

The lawsuits seek unspecified damages on behalf of the families, who say Pfizer violated international law by testing the drug, known as Trovan, on perilously ill children without their knowledge. Eleven children died during the 1996 clinical trial, carried out during a record meningitis epidemic. Other children developed brain damage and crippling arthritis.

"This is a home run for us," said Richard P. Altschuler, an attorney for the families. "The judges are making a statement. They are telling companies, 'If you go overseas, justice will come back to the United States' " ...

Trovan was never approved for use by American children. The Food and Drug Administration approved it for adults in 1998 but later severely restricted its use after reports of liver failure. The European Union banned the drug in 1999.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/30/AR2009013003432.html?wprss=rss_nation

[dipsydoodle]

1. Hard to know

what to say about these drug companies sometimes without risking getting chucked off DU.

[Judi Lynn]

2. These murderers should not be allowed to flaunt their disprespect for human beings again.

They dare to throw away the lives of equally precious children in another country when they would have been slammed down hard for trying it here, or one would hope they would have. Maybe not, had it been poor children with powerless parents.

Here's what the posted article also said:

Pfizer issued a statement dismissing the court action as "only a procedural ruling."

"It is not a determination on their merits," the statement said. "Indeed, the strong dissent by one of the judges may be grounds for further appellate proceedings. Pfizer remains confident that it will prevail in these cases, and is weighing its options on how to best respond to this decision."

Pfizer said the clinical study was conducted with the approval of the Nigerian government and the consent of the participants' parents or guardians. The trial violated no international or Nigerian laws, the company said.

The experiment came to light in December 2000, when The Washington Post published a lengthy examination of the trial. It found that Pfizer carried out the experiment on 200 children at a makeshift epidemic camp in the Nigerian town of Kano. The articles reported that Pfizer had no signed consent forms for the children and relied on a falsified ethics approval letter to defend the design of the experiment.

Filthy, evil bastards. They are laughing in our faces. Hope their future will have some grim surprises ahead for them.

[newfie11]

3. Whoever the medical staff was that give this should be brought up on charges too.

[buckrogers1965]

4. Can a child even give informed consent?

It is one thing for a parent to consent to medical treatment for their child when the only alternative is death or serious harm. It is a completely different thing if they were volunteering healthy kids for this treatment.

If someone experimented on a child without informed consent they should be disbarred from medical practice forever and ever.

[tomp]

5. constant gardener.

sounds like bush's touted good work in africa.

[Shardik]

6. Pfizer pancreatic cancer drug fails, trial halted (I'd hate to be long with Pfizer)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc, in its latest research setback, said on Friday it stopped a late stage study of an experimental drug to treat advanced pancreatic cancer after an independent monitoring board found no evidence that it prolongs survival.

The drug, axitinib, is still being studied for kidney cancer in late stage clinical trials, and is in mid-stage trials for non-small cell lung cancer, colon cancer and other tumor types.

Axitinib had shown promise against notoriously tough to treat advanced pancreatic cancer in combination with chemotherapy in mid-stage trials, and the company decided to proceed with larger, more expensive Phase III trials.

"These results were disappointing, given the trend toward prolonged survival seen in a Phase II study of axitinib in this extremely difficult-to-treat patient population," Mace Rothenberg, head of Pfizer's oncology business unit, said in a statement.

The company said it has notified all clinical trial investigators involved in the study and regulatory agencies of the findings and recommends patients discontinue treatment with axitinib.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNewsMolt/idUKTRE50T70T20090130

[Jambalaya]

7. Pfizer's Billion $$$$$Tax Breaks

A One-Time Tax Break Saved 843 U.S. Corporations $265 Billion

By LYNNLEY BROWNING
Published: June 24, 2008

More than 840 of the largest American corporations reaped a $265 billion windfall thanks to a one-time tax break aimed at bringing home profits stashed overseas, according to recent government data.

The windfall resulted from a temporary tax deduction for big corporations, which were keeping billions of dollars in profits in overseas subsidiaries and out of the hands of the Internal Revenue Service.

American companies can typically defer paying taxes on foreign profits as long as they keep that money outside the United States. When companies bring the money back, they usually pay the top corporate tax rate of 35 percent.

In recent years, the biggest and wealthiest companies in the United States have increasingly set up foreign subsidiaries and used them either as foreign operations or offshore repositories.

The subsidiaries, many in offshore tax havens like the Netherlands, Ireland and the Cayman Islands, collectively held about $804 billion in foreign profits on which their American corporate parents had yet to pay any United States taxes, according to the I.R.S.

A one-time tax holiday enacted by Congress in 2004 offered companies the chance to bring that money back at a reduced tax rate of 5.25 percent.

Some of the biggest names in corporate America decided to take advantage, in particular those in the pharmaceutical and technology industries. Pfizer brought back $37 billion, while Hewlett-Packard repatriated $14.5 billion.

In all, 843 corporations took advantage of the offer, according to recent I.R.S. statistics of income data, bringing back $362 billion in foreign profits, paid to the parent corporations as dividends. Of that amount, $312 billion qualified for the tax break, giving those companies total tax deductions of $265 billion claimed from 2004 through 2006.

Put another way, the tax break gave each company claiming it an average $370 million in tax deductions.

But the tax break would not produce income for the I.R.S. in later years in part because of associated foreign tax credit provisions set to kick in later, and in part because of the need to replenish capital in foreign subsidiaries.


The tax break was included in a larger piece of legislation called the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, with the intention that the repatriated money would prompt investment in the United States economy and spur job growth. Companies had to promise to use the money to invest in their domestic operations. They could not use it to pay dividends, or compensate executives.

But the provision had wide definitions of the term investment and allowed corporations to use repatriated profits to shore up their domestic finances, pay legal bills and even bankroll advertising.

Critics of the legislation say there is little convincing evidence that companies put the money into creating jobs or investing in United States operations and deride the tax break as corporate welfare.

“It basically worked out to be one big giveaway,” said Robert Willens, a tax and accounting authority in New York. .

According to I.R.S. data and Grant Thornton, PHARMACEUTICAL manufacturers alone accounted for more than 30 percent of the repatriated total, with 29 corporations each claiming an average tax deduction of almost $3 billion on foreign profits brought home.


NYT via Tax Justice Network

[Mari333]

8. racism by corporations at its ugliest

these corporations do not consider these children to be human beings, believe me.