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DJIA Drug Kingpins Exposed

WikiLeaks cables: Pfizer 'used dirty tricks to avoid clinical trial payout' Cables say drug giant hired investigators to find evidence of corruption on Nigerian attorney general to persuade him to drop legal action

The Guardian, Thursday 9 December 2010 by Sarah Boseley, health editor

The world's biggest pharmaceutical company hired investigators to unearth evidence of corruption against the Nigerian attorney general in order to persuade him to drop legal action over a controversial drug trial involving children with meningitis, according to a leaked US embassy cable.

Pfizer was sued by the Nigerian state and federal authorities, who claimed that children were harmed by a new antibiotic, Trovan, during the trial, which took place in the middle of a meningitis epidemic of unprecedented scale in Kano in the north of Nigeria in 1996.

Last year, the company came to a tentative settlement with the Kano state government which was to cost it $75m.

But the cable suggests that the US drug giant did not want to pay out to settle the two cases – one civil and one criminal – brought by the Nigerian federal government.

The cable reports a meeting between Pfizer's country manager, Enrico Liggeri, and US officials at the Abuja embassy on 9 April 2009. It states: “According to Liggeri, Pfizer had hired investigators to uncover corruption links to federal attorney general Michael Aondoakaa to expose him and put pressure on him to drop the federal cases. He said Pfizer's investigators were passing this information to local media.”

The cable, classified confidential by economic counsellor Robert Tansey, continues: “A series of damaging articles detailing Aondoakaa's 'alleged' corruption ties were published in February and March. Liggeri contended that Pfizer had much more damaging information on Aondoakaa and that Aondoakaa's cronies were pressuring him to drop the suit for fear of further negative articles.”

The release of the Pfizer cable came as• The American ambassador to London denounced the leak of classified US embassy cables from around the world. In tomorrow'sGuardian Louis Susman writes: “This is not whistleblowing. There is nothing laudable about endangering innocent people. There is nothing brave about sabotaging the peaceful relations between nations on which our common security depends.1)

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