Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15015

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Lenzer J.
Appeals court rules that Nigerian families can sue Pfizer in US
BMJ. 2009 Feb 6
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/338/feb06_1/b458

Abstract:

A US federal appellate court has ruled that 88 Nigerian families can continue their lawsuit in the United States against Pfizer, the world’s largest drug maker. The 2-1 decision, issued by the Second Circuit Court in New York on 30 January, will allow the plaintiffs to reinstate their suit claiming that Pfizer conducted an illegal drug trial in 1996 during an outbreak of bacterial meningitis in Kano state, Nigeria.

The families allege that Pfizer conducted the study of its experimental drug trovafloxacin (Trovan) without obtaining informed consent (BMJ 2006;332:1233, doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7552.1233-a). According to court documents, the families claim that Pfizer gave the experimental drug to half of the 200 children enrolled in the study despite the results of animal studies showing that the drug had life threatening complications. Trovafloxacin never received approval for use in children in the US, and the European Union banned the drug in 1999.