Poor Families Pressed Into Vaccine Trials by Drug Companies; 12 Babies Die

[lovuian]

http://www.naturalnews.com/025032.html

NaturalNews) Major pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline has been accused of pressuring poor Third World parents into enrolling their children in experimental drug trials that have led to the deaths of at least 12 infants.

The company is currently testing an experimental pneumonia vaccine on children under the age of one in Argentina, Colombia and Panama. According to the Argentine Federation of Health Professionals (Feprosa), poor Argentinean parents have been "pressured and forced into signing consent forms."
more

These corporations have just gone out of control

[CoffeeCat]

1. I'm so sick and tired of big pharma...

trying to convince us that we need vaccines for absolutely everything. That's their new
money maker I guess.

One of the pharmaceutical companies has a vaccine for meningitis, a very rare disease. They
engaged in a very emotional, fear-based campaign, to convince parents to spend money on this
vaccine.

Given the fact that drugs/vaccines are rushed through sloppy FDA processes, I'm highly suspect.

Suddenly, we need to vaccinate EVERY child against EVERY known disease? We're supposed to
inject this stuff into our children, when we see so many drugs that have horrendous side
effects or even deaths--that we find out were covered up by the drug companies.

No thanks.

I had my two children vaccinated. They got the standard measles, mumps, rubella, polio vaccinations.
I'm not against vaccinations, but I am against these drug companies using fear to pedal unnecessary,
vaccinations that are most likely unnecessary and exist only to drive profits for big pharma.

[Crunchy Frog]

2. You should post this in the Health forum...

Of course, it would probably provoke a major flame war, as there is a certain contingent who like to hang out there and massively flame anyone who makes any kind of critique whatsoever of the pharmaceutical industry or of vaccines in general.

Anyway, I hope you'll post it there, just for the entertainment value.

[Hanse]

7. Or maybe in the 9-11 forum.

They seem to be catchbasins for all the really silly stuff.

[Crunchy Frog]

8. Silly stuff like pharmaceutical companies experimenting on poor children?

You think that discussing that is the same thing as yammering about contrails? Do you think that pharmaceutical companies always conduct themselves with the utmost purity, even in poor countries with little regulation, and it's tinfoilish to even suspect the possibility that it could be otherwise?

I guess maybe I'm more of a wacko than I realized.

[wtmusic]

11. FABS makes it unimportant

Far Away / Brown Skin

[TZ]

12. Most Pharmas obey the Helsinki Protocols -WHO on these things

with vaccine trials. Because sometimes you know the company actually wants to do research on people where the disease is prevalent.
How would I know this? I worked on a joint NIH/Merck malaria vaccine trial that was on going in Africa..and they spent ALOT of time consulting Geneva about protocols.
But hey, we all know that EVERY SINGLE PHARMA COMPANY is corrupt right?
So tired of fucking stereotypes.

[wtmusic]

19. The article makes it clear that economic considerations were important

so at least part of the reason that GSK was putting South American kids at risk is because it was cheaper (they don't mention that it is also less likely to result in litigation).

[TZ]

13. just bigoted..n/t

[Hanse]

23. "is the same thing as yammering about contrails?"

Pretty much. Looking at the source, the same source talks about healing diseases with sound, and curing pneumonia with coconut oil.

Sure, you found another source. But that doesn't present any evidence against GSK either.

[xchrom]

3. really -- natural news -- that's -- um -- scientific and impartial. nt

[wtmusic]

5. The story quotes FDANews as a source

although you have to shell out $20 to read it. :-(

[xchrom]

9. naturalnews is as or more{really} compromised

than just about anything you can imagine.

so i'm guessing there is more at work here?

[Crunchy Frog]

10. Same story from a "legitimate" news source.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Story?id=5735276&page=1

[TZ]

15. Yes and because one company behaved badly

we know that EVERY BODY does the same fucking thing.
Geezus fucking christ. I notice the news on GOOD trials never get covered here...
BTW same company--different vaccine..
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/12/08/malaria-vaccine.html

[Hanse]

22. I don't see anything that GSK did wrong in that trial.

They tested a pneumonia vaccine in a place where 50,000 children die every year. Of all the people who were being tested, 12 died, causes unknown. No reason to blame the vaccine or GSK without further evidence.

[KittyWampus]

16. From CrunchyFrog's link to ABCNews below:Is GlaxoSmithKline Behaving Badly in Argentina?

Is GlaxoSmithKline Behaving Badly in Argentina?
Parents Allege Pharmaceutical Giant Tricked Them With Experimental Vaccine
By AINA HUNTER
SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO, Argentina, Sept. 23, 2008

snip

Michaela had been one of more than 13,000 Argentine children to participate in a clinical study implemented a little more than a year ago by the London-based GlaxoSmithKline, the world's second-largest drug manufacturer.

Streptococcus pneumoniae is a major cause of meningitis and pneumonia in children in Latin America. More than 12 million pneumonia episodes occur each year in this region in children under five and it is estimated that at least 50,000 children die each year of pneumonia in the region according to 2006 data from UNICEF.

Ester says that if her infant hadn't participated in the study Michaela would still be alive.

Protocol Compas is the name of the study designed to test the efficacy of Synflorix, GSK's experimental pediatric pneumonia vaccine, which can also ward off the bacteria that causes meningitis and ear infections. Synflorix is still in the preapproval stage.

GSK compares Synflorix with Wyeth's hugely successful Prevnar vaccine, which has proved effective in the United States. Besides Argentina, trials are also being conducted in Panama, Chile and Colombia.

Americans are swallowing more prescription medications than ever, and the ever-increasing appetite for pharmaceuticals has fueled the drug industry's search for cheaper and faster ways to conduct clinical testing.

In 1997, the United States conducted 5 percent of its clinical studies outside of the United States and Western Europe, according to a study conducted by Tufts Center for Drug Development. By 2007, that number had climbed to 29 percent.

snip

The lion's share of drug studies has gone to regions with "emerging markets": Eastern Europe and Central Europe, Latin America, and south and Southeast Asia. In order for a region to be of use to a legitimate drug company, the country has to maintain a minimal level of infrastructure, says Mary Jo Lamberti, director of market research at the Boston-based Center Watch, a consulting firm that bills itself as the "Global Destination for Clinical Trials Information."

According to Fortune magazine, it takes about $900 million to bring a new drug to market, and procuring and retaining human subjects typically accounts for about 40 percent of a drug company's budget. Conducting trials in regions considered "poor" by Western standards makes economic sense.

Yet money is not the only factor in the equation, Lamberti says, whose work includes helping pharmaceutical companies find suitable locations for clinical trials. It's easier and takes far less time to find suitable subjects in many developing countries, she says, because they have large "drug naive" populations.

In other words, a large percentage of Americans are already on various medications, so it's difficult to find subjects with unadulterated -- that is, completely unmedicated -- bodies in the United States.

Critics say there is an additional issue that has yet to be taken seriously.

Individual countries generally have their own boards of medical professionals charged with setting standards to ensure the safety of their citizens. And the United States, for example, has an arm of the Food and Drug Administration tasked with overseeing clinical studies performed abroad. The trouble, critics say, is that the standards that exist are sometimes not upheld.

[wtmusic]

4. Imagine what would happen if they were babies in the US.

Nope just poor brown babies. Move along.

[JackBeck]

17. NIH-Sponsored AIDS Drug Trials 'Often' Did Not Appoint Advocates for Foster Child Participants

In the US, but still mostly poor brown babies.

" http://www.nih.gov/">NIH-funded HIV/AIDS drug trials involving hundreds of HIV-positive foster children in at least seven states "often" did not appoint independent advocates for the children, according to a review of the studies conducted by the Associated Press, the http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-aids-foster-kids,0,4624798.story">AP/Long Island Newsday reports. The studies tested AIDS-related medication in hundreds of HIV-positive foster children, allowing the children to receive treatment from "world-class" researchers but also exposing them to the risks of research and potentially serious side effects of the trial drugs, according to the AP/Newsday (Solomon, AP/Long Island Newsday, 5/5). The research among foster children was "most widespread" in the 1990s and was conducted in at least seven states, including Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Colorado and Texas, according to the AP/San Francisco Chronicle. More than 48 HIV/AIDS-related drug studies involved foster children, most of whom were poor or minority and ranged in age from infants to late teens, according to government records and interviews, the AP/Chronicle reports. In several of the studies, foster child participants reported side effects, including vomiting, rashes and rapid declines in their CD4+ T cell counts, according to the AP/Chronicle (Solomon, AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 5/4). Some children died during the studies, although state or city agencies could not find evidence that any of the children's deaths being caused by the experimental drugs, according to the AP/Newsday. "

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=29843

The article points the finger of blame at many different agencies and institutions for failing to follow protocol, including IRB's, which ultimately have the responsibility to monitor the trial and make sure the trial is being properly conducted.

Ultimately, though, these types of stories get added to the list of complex and pervasive disparities that people of color face in this country on a day to day basis.

[wtmusic]

20. IMO it's encouraging that this stuff is even reported nt

[EC]

6. Isn't this the company that Rummy has some ownership or

on the board or something with?

[TZ]

14. No.

According to DU Rummy has stock in every pharma company:eyes:

[hedgehog]

18. Have you or someone you loved benefited from a new drug or vaccine?

Have you or someone you love volunteered to take part in a trial?

American parents volunteered their children to take part in the trials for the polio vaccine because they were desperate to protect their children. Families and patients every day take part in last ditch efforts to find a cure for cancer or other diseases. Sadly though, many (most) new medicines used in the First World are tested on people in the Third World who will never be able to afford them.

[xchrom]

21. i have taken part in both interferon and interleukin trials.

as well as trials for a number of drugs that are now life savers for millions.

there are no facts presented here -- just a suspicion.

[Hanse]

24. Good for you.

This is a serious problem, as typically most American volunteers are either prison convicts or young college age men.

[xchrom]

25. good for you -- for posting horse shit. nt

[Hanse]

26. You know what? You're probably right.

It's probably just as likely that you'll see upper-class, middle-aged parents with large families down at the Phase I trials as any other demographic.

[xchrom]

27. in my community -- lots of people with good economic backgrounds

JUMP to que up in clinical trials.

[defendandprotect]

28. Because torturing animals isn't enough ...