AFRICANS IN AFRICA HAVE BEEN USED AS GUINEA PIGS FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH BY THE WEST. WHY AFRICA ? IS IT BECAUSE OF IGNORANCE, POVERTY AND THE ROLE OF CORRUPT OFFICIALS ? African countries have been sites for clinical trials by large pharmaceutical companies, raising human rights concerns. Incidents of unethical experimentation, clinical trials lacking properly informed consent, and forced medical procedures have been claimed and prosecuted. Unethical medical experimentation that has occurred for over a century may be the cause the documented fear and mistrust of doctors and medicine in Africa. For example, polio has been on the rise in Nigeria, Chad, and Burkina Faso because many people there avoid vaccinations because they believe that the vaccines are contaminated with HIV or sterilization agents. Due to the meningitis testing incident in Kano, many Nigerians now refuse to participate in clinical trials. Many African nations cannot afford to offer medicine for their citizens without subsidies from multinational pharmaceutical corporations. To court these pharmaceutical corporations, some African nations minimize legal regulations on the conduct of medical research, which prevents potential legal battles from arising. This forces some Africans to make a Hobsons choice: experimental medicine or no medicine at all. People living in the rural or slum area are also more vulnerable to experimentation because they are more likely to be illiterate and to misunderstand the effects of the experimentation. EXAMPLE OF SPECIFIC INCIDENTS Meningitis testing in Nigeria - 1990s. The Pfizer drug, Trovan was used in a clinical trial in Kano, Nigeria. The trial compared the new antibiotic (Trovan) against the best treatment available at the time (intravenous ceftriaxone). Eleven children died in the trial: five after taking Trovan and six after taking an older antibiotic used for comparison in the clinical trial. Others suffered blindness, deafness and brain damage, the cause of which is difficult to determine because these disabilities are relatively common outcomes of the disease itself. A panel of medical experts later implicated Pfizer in the incident, concluding the drug had been administered as part of an illegal clinical trial without authorization from the Nigerian government or consent from the childrens parents. This led to a lawsuit from the Nigerian government over informed consent in Kano, Nigeria. Pfizer countered that it met all the necessary regulations. Note: the drug was then approved for general use in the US, and then eventually withdrawn due to hepatotoxicity (i.e., damage to the liver ) HIV/AIDS testing in Zimbabwe - 1990s. AZT trials conducted on HIV-positive African subjects by U.S. physicians and the University of Zimbabwe were not performed with proper informed consent. The United States began testing AZT treatments in Africa in 1994, through projects funded by Centers for Disease Control (CDC), World health organization (WHO) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It included testing of over 17,000 women for a medication that prevents mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS. The subjects did not fully understand the testing methods, the effectiveness, the possible dangers, or the nature of a placebo in testing situations. They were also told about the trials under duress. Half of these women received a placebo that has no effect, making transmission likely. As a result, an estimated 1000 babies contracted HIV/AIDS although a proven life-saving regimen already existed.] The CDC ended the short course testing in 1998 after they announced they had enough information from Thailand trials. Forced contraception in Zimbabwe - 1970s. Depo-Provera was clinically tested on Zimbabwean women in the 1970s. Once approved, the drug was used as a population control measure. Women on white-run commercial farms were coerced into accepting Depo-Provera. In 1981, the drug was banned in Zimbabwe. Sterilisation experiments in Namibia - Late 1900s-1910s. Dr. Eugen Fischer conducted sterilisation experiments on Herero women in German-occupied Namibia in South West Africa in the early 1900s. His experimentation was largely done on mixed-race offspring in order to provide justification to ban mixed-race marriages.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 16:17:46 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015