Ali Yako says the drugs they gave his four-year-old son as part of a Pfizer drug trial as he suffered from meningitis first made the boy deaf before eventually killing him.
A measure of relief came only years later, when the Nigerian state of Kano reached a multi-million dollar settlement with Pfizer to compensate families who were alleged victims of the Trovan drug trial.
But 18 months after the settlement, Yako and the other families are yet to receive anything, with compensation money tied up in legal battles over DNA testing to identify victims.
“We feel used and dumped by both Pfizer and Kano state government,” Yako said recently at a foundation-laying ceremony for a Pfizer-funded paediatric hospital, part of the settlement. “We are left in the cold.”
Pfizer says the delay is the result of a legal challenge over DNA testing.
The testing is needed, the company says, for identification purposes since the number of people who filed claims far exceeded the amount involved in the trial.
“The collection and testing of DNA is a safeguard — included in the settlement agreement — to ensure as much as possible that the funds reach only those for whom they are intended,” the US pharmaceutical giant said in response to questions from AFP.
The 1996 trial in the northern Nigerian state of Kano occurred during a meningitis epidemic that, according to Pfizer, killed nearly 12,000 people.
Pfizer says it was given approval from government authorities and about 200 children were involved in the trial, half of whom were treated with Trovan.
“The fact is that results of the study plainly proved that Trovan helped save lives,” the company has said.
“With a survival rate of 94.4 percent, Trovan was at least as effective as the best treatment available at Kano?s (infectious disease hospital).”
But France-based medical charity Doctors Without Borders, which was at the time urgently trying to treat meningitis victims in Nigeria, has harshly criticised Pfizer.
“When MSF staff became aware of what Pfizer was doing, they were appalled at the practices of the company?s team,” a statement from the organisation said, using the initials of its French name (Medecins Sans Frontieres).
Jean Herve Bradol, former president of Doctors Without Borders-France, said “the team were shocked that Pfizer continued the so-called scientific work in the middle of hell.”
Nigerian authorities allege the trial led to the deaths of 11 children and deformities in dozens of others, including deafness, paralysis, blindness and brain damage.
In July 2009, Pfizer and Kano’s state government reached a $75 million settlement.
Out of the $75 million, families of 192 victims were to be paid $35 million in compensation, while $30 million was for construction of the paediatric hospital.
The remaining $10 million was intended for Kano’s legal expenses. The deal meant payments of some $175,000 to each of the victims’ families.
But the process has since been bogged down by the DNA dispute, with families alleging payments are being deliberately delayed.
Pfizer blames a court injunction suspending DNA testing that resulted from a May 2010 legal challenge by a group that claims to represent victims.
More than 600 parents showed up when the verification process for the trust fund for victims began, said David Odio, executive secretary of the Healthcare/ Meningitis Trust Fund, set up to disburse the funds.
“How could we verify the authentic claimants from this huge list if not through DNA matches?” Odio asked.
Pfizer said “the company is hopeful that distributions from the fund will be allowed to move forward promptly once the injunction is lifted by the court.”
It said 355 Nigerians had voluntarily submitted DNA samples “and are awaiting results and potential compensation.”
The victims group alleges Pfizer does not have the DNA samples of the victims it says it took during the trial. The company says it has the samples and a “world-class lab” has been hired to match them.
Negotiations have occurred to resolve the deadlock, a lawyer for the victims group said, but in the meantime, families are left to wait.
“Most of the victims? families are poor people who have been struggling to provide for their deformed children,” said Mustapha Maisikeli, head of the victims group who also said he lost two daughters in the trial.
“The settlement kindled hope that their children would have a decent life from the compensation, but that hope is being frustrated by unnecessary delay.”
Feb12011