Nigeria sues Pfizer in children’s deaths

WASHINGTON – Officials in Nigeria have brought criminal charges against pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. for the company’s alleged role in the deaths of children who received an unapproved drug during a meningitis epidemic.

Authorities in Kano, the country’s largest state, filed eight charges this month related to the 1996 clinical trial, including counts of criminal conspiracy and voluntarily causing grievous harm. They also filed a civil lawsuit seeking more than $2 billion in damages and restitution from Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company.

The government alleges that Pfizer researchers selected 200 children and infants from crowds at a makeshift epidemic camp in Kano and gave about half an untested antibiotic called Trovan. Researchers gave the other children what the lawsuit describes as a dangerously low dose of a comparison drug made by Hoffman-Laroche. Nigerian officials say Pfizer’s actions resulted in the deaths of an unspecified number of children and left others deaf, paralyzed, blind or brain-damaged.

The lawsuit says the researchers did not obtain consent from the children’s families, and also says the researchers knew Trovan to be an experimental drug with life-threatening side effects that was “unfit for human use.”

Internal Pfizer records show five children died after being treated with the experimental antibiotic, though there is no indication in the documents that the drug was responsible for the deaths. Six children died while taking the comparison drug.

In a written statement, Pfizer said the company believes it did nothing wrong and emphasized that children with meningitis have a high fatality rate.