Comments on: Is Africa The Dumping Ground For Pharmaceutical Company Experimental Drugs?

By: Radzewic

Radzewic — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:05:38 +0000

i guess you answered you own question huh?

By: Snout

Snout — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:39:28 +0000

Yes, and Albert Schweitzer and Jonas Salk are the original instigators.
We should never try to cure diseases in third world countries because these people don’t really want to live. If they really wanted to live they would have done their own drug research in the first place. Saving them is meddling in other peoples lifestyles and we have no business doing it.
I recommend that you never use pharmecutical drugs again in your life, both as a form of protest but also to preserve your own mental health. After all, you can find everything that you really need in the forest.

By: borregui

borregui — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:41:16 +0000

The case raises serious questions about the ethics of drug trials in third world countries.
Participants in trials should be able to provide fully informed consent. One wonders whether such consent was obtained, or even possible under the circumstances.
It is not unheard of for drug companies to take advantage of relatively lax regulation in some countries, and the promise of free treatment rather than standard but expensive treatment makes the poor particularly vulnerable.
Having said that, the trial was of a drug called trovafloxacin in the treatment of what seems to be meningococcal meningitis. Trovafloxacin was marketed in the 1990s in the US, but warnings were issued by the FDA in 1999 about possible serious liver disease associated with the drug, and physicians were advised to limit their prescribing of the drug, especially where alternative treatments were available.
The neurological effects (deafness, etc) listed in the article do not appear to be associated with the drug, but are a common sequel of meningococcal disease, even with treatment.
Of the 11 children Pfizer reports died in the trial, six were taking the control treatment, not the trial drug. Deaths from meningococcal disease are common, even with the best available treatment.
To argue that the deaths and sequellae were due to the drug rather than the disease, you’d have to find a higher rate of adverse events in trovafloxacin-treated children than in those who received standard treatment. I can’t find any evidence this was the case. Around 18,000 people, mostly children died during this particular epidemic.

By: energeti

energeti — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:04:07 +0000

no, do not worry. very single country is the dump groun. even u.s.a.

By: Sally S

Sally S — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:51:56 +0000

First they call old epidemic diseases ‘AIDS’ and then they sell them our most toxic drugs and when thy die thet say “Oh look, they are dying of AIDS’.
Criminal madness.
Every epidemic disease is now renamed ‘AIDS’ under the Bangui Definition.
Mortalities (non natural) in S.A. remain at the same 2.2% P.A. that they were BEFORE AIDS. Either every other disease in the region vanished overnight or ‘AIDS’ is simply the old diseases with a new name. You decide.
————-
In Africa, the continent supposedly being decimated by
HIV, HIV tests are rarely ever done, so there the idea
that all patients with AIDS are infected with HIV is
based entirely on supposition.
At a WHO conference in the Central African Republic in 1985, U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) introduced the “Bangui Definition” of AIDS in Africa.
The CDC officials later explained, “The definition was reached by consensus, based mostly on the delegates’ experience in treating AIDS patients. It has proven a useful tool in determining the extent of the AIDS epidemic in Africa, especially in areas where no testing is available.
It’s major components were prolonged fevers (for a month or more), weight loss of 10% or greater, and prolonged diarrhea…”(McCormick, 1996). Where AIDS is diagnosed clinically, large numbers of AIDS patients test negative for HIV. As no HIV testing is required in Africa we have no idea how many AIDS cases there are HIV positive (De ####, 1991; Gilks, 1991; Widy-Wirski, 1988).
_______
Other conditions common in underprivileged and
impoverished communities that are known to cause false
positive results are tuberculosis, malaria, hepatitis and leprosy (Burke, 1993; Challakeree, 1993; Johnson, 1998; Kashala, 1994; MacKenzie,1992; Meyer, 1987). In fact, these are the primary health threats in Africa; several million cases of tuberculosis and malaria are reported in Africa each year – more than all the AIDS cases reported in Africa since 1982 (WHO, 1998)*.

By: cantruth

cantruth — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:43:52 +0000

It is quite possible that the pharmaceuticals are treating these people as guinea pigs.
However, it is important to ask are these people, as a whole, better off for having had the free medicine, or are they worse off.
grumbli
Also, what alternatives did they have? Were they better or worse than the one the partook of?
This reminds me of the concern about the use of DDT in Africa. It is true that DDT causes health problems. However, these health problems are far less devastating than the malarial infections that it prevents. DDT is cheap & effective, and saves more lives than it kills.
In chastizing any group of people (corporation or otherwise), it is important to compare their bad that they have done to the good that they have done.
We do not live in a perfect world…we sometimes have to swallow bitter pills to increase our overall odds.
I wish you well…and empathize with your concern about the abuses of corporations.