After learning of the meningitis epidemic, Pfizer decided to use it as an opportunity to test the efficacy of Trovan in pediatric settings. So they just took it upon themselves? By whose authority?
Kids and adults in Nigeria have to take a DNA test to prove they were injured by a failed drug trial by pharmaceutical company named Pfizer 15 years ago in Kano state, Nigeria.
Why have we come to accept pharmaceutical vaccines and their drug trials on human beings as just a matter of course? Where's the questioning, the conversation, the debate?
11 people were killed and several more were injured when Pfizer tested an antibiotic drug called Trovan in 1996. Now, 26 years ago. Pfizer tested out the drug on 200 children, supposed to treat [what does 'treat' mean, you know, in the vaccine maker's dictionary? For clearly, the everyday person does not operate on the same meanings of words that vaccine makers operate on and yet we're supposed to abide by their definitions and meanings. Oh, what fun.] a deadly regional outbreak [so it's confined?] of meningitis. [what do they mean by 'outbreak'? These terms refer to specific amounts of people with the disease, so what is the amount for an outbreak, 3% of the population, 5%, 7%? The media fails to inform; dare it say it, they misinform?] Pfizer agreed to pay $75 million dollars in compensation in 2009 but they introduced DNA testing as part of the process for qualifying for the payment.
The reporter continues,
Back at home, survivors like Shamsu who was crippled and their families feel the DNA test was designed to deny them of the compensation money. Many say they've already provided Pfizer with documents proving their children were part of the trial. Shamsu's father explained that "In the claim that we filled, it stated clearly 'that only when we undergo the DNA test, they will pay the compensation.'"
The Pfizer rep explained it this way, Pfizer, which denies all wrong-doing even though it's agreed to pay out $75 million dollars, said the DNA test is to guard against fraudulent claims. Wow, Pfizer really mistrusts the very people they've promised to serve. Some conflict of interest right there, I'd say.
David Odiwo, of Pfizer's Victims Trust Fund, explains that
As we're talking, we have about . . . we've collected samples from 547 people, and only 200 people participated in this study, so what do we do?
[BBC REPORTER, YVONNE NDEGE] But many of the victims are poor and illiterate. They don't understand what DNA testing is and fear it's another attempt by Pfizer to make them guinea pigs in a new drug trial. Some victims abandoned their claims when DNA testing was introduced as a condition of receiving payment. Some of the compensation money released by Pfizer has gone into building this $25 million dollar medical research and disease control center. The hope is that one day locals will be able to deal with things like outbreaks of disease and medical epidemics themselves.
Wait, isn't that exactly what they were doing before Pfizer showed up and started injecting kids with Trovan?
It may go someway to healing the wounds of Pfizer's and benefit the survivors who are simply too afraid to go for DNA testing.
If the victims of Pfizer's drug trials got $75 million in damages, how much did the governments of the african nations get paid from Pfizer to agree to have their citizens DNA tested where the device for the test could make them sick and the test is designed to collect DNA and biological dara for future drug creation by Pfizer?
From the Brookings Education,
Vaccinations are essential to responding to epidemics, and the current COVID-19 pandemic is no exception.
No, they're not. Where's the proof of that, that vaccinations are essential to responding to epidemics? Even the suggestion that some corporate body has to respond to a natural event to suddenly stop seeing people as individuals to overnight seeing people as a mass of insects that need to be dealt with through a biological agent en masse should tell you something about the ethics of that organization and to brace yourself, meaning protect yourself, against their self-imposed authority and their self-anointed expertise.
Yet, globally, many choose not to get vaccinated for reasons that have, only recently, gained attention among researchers, policymakers, and the wider public.
Yeah, people don't want them. They choose not to get vaccinated because public vaccination programs are abysmal failures. People die. People get injured. This information isn't quickly or soon forgotten. Death has a way of lodging in one's mind. Plus, with the advantage of the internet and videos, like this one, we get reminders of how horrific vaccines can be. And you wonder why people don't want to be gifted with poison? Huh. And without skipping an unethical beat, the author writes,
In 1996, Nigeria experienced one of the worst meningitis epidemics in its history with 109,580 cases and 11,717 deaths. Bacterial meningitis is an infection of the lining of the brain that is especially virulent in children. Northern Nigeria is also a majority-Muslim region, with around 99% of residents in Kano state identifying as Muslim. At a hospital in Kano, Doctors Without Borders treated children with chloramphenicol, a well-known antibiotic endorsed by the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) to treat bacterial meningitis.
So Doctors Without Borders was working with Pfizer? Good to know.
Over the same period, Pfizer, a U.S. pharmaceutical company, tried to launched a new antibiotic drug, Trovan. While Pfizer had tested the drug on adults, it had not yet been tested on children.
So, wait. Pfizer tested a drug on kids out in the field without having tested the drug on kids in a trial? Pfizer and the rest of the pharmaceutical companies see you and your kids as lab rats. They have no limiting principle.
Additionally, early testing on adults had shown some serious side effects of the drug, including liver problems and cartilage abnormalities. After learning of the meningitis epidemic, Pfizer decided to use it as an opportunity to test the efficacy of Trovan in pediatric settings.
So they just took it upon themselves? By whose authority?
Pfizer set up a site beside the Doctors Without Borders testing area and over two weeks, selected a sample of 200 children between 3 months and 18 years old to participate. A month later, 11 of the children that had participated were dead. Additionally, numerous parents of children involved in the trials reported disabilities among their children, including paralysis and liver damage.
