Drugs, Blackmail, And Wikileaks

Drugs, Blackmail, And Wikileaks

Did Pfizer Bribe Its Way Out of Criminal Charges in Nigeria?

On Day 12 of WikiLeaks's release of U.S. State Department cables, the daily drip, drip, drip of diplomatic secrets implicated the pharmaceutical industry. The company was Pfizer, the country was Nigeria, and the context was the long-simmering, still-bitter aftermath of the drug giant's quick-and-dirty 1996 trials of an experimental antibiotic for children during a devastating meningitis outbreak. A truly chilling cautionary tale of industry-funded clinical trials in the developing world, this event is recalled in the West mainly as the inspiration for John le Carré's evil-pharma thriller The Constant Gardener.

The cables suggest that the world's largest drugmaker may have blackmailed the head of Nigeria's Ministry of Justice into dropping a $6 billion criminal lawsuit.

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A State Department cable dated April 20, 2009 http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/04/09ABUJA671.html and released by WikiLeaks, however, suggests that Pfizer's legal strategy was not simply to delay--it was also to blackmail. Written by an economic counselor at the US embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, the cable reports minutes of meetings during which Pfizer representatives informed the U.S. ambassador that the firm had agreed to settle the Kano State suit for $75 million, mere pocket change for the pharma giant. The ambassador was told that Pfizer "was not happy settling the case, but had come to the conclusion that the $75 million figure was reasonable because the suits had been ongoing for many years costing Pfizer more than $15 million a year in legal and investigative fees."

(It was how Pfizer deployed these fees that dropped a bombshell:)

According to (Pfizer country manager Enrico) 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, XXXXXXXXXXXX. 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.

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http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/12/did-pfizer-bribe-its-way-out-of-criminal-charges-in-nigeria/68495/

Just want to kick this

I feel like I need a drink.

Saw him on DemoctacyNow! with his old cohort Amy Goodman. Obama supporters are like battered spouses. He gives BushCo a pass, and joins the witch hunt for Julian who merely embarrassed them.

Nobody was BS'd into a BS war for profit, nobody died at all. Yet the corporatist world has cast him into estraka.

countries. Evil enough. But even if Americans don't care about those people, maybe they will care that the results of such trials can be applied to how these drugs might work on people here.

This planet is full of evil racists.

Something struck me about it that no one seems to be talking about. It's a rather disturbing thought.

Why would Liggeri tell the U.S. embassy about this? Think about it. Apparently he was confident that the U.S. wouldn't have a problem with this kind of behavior.

Even so, why bother to tell them? Why take the risk, however small, that the U.S. would object? What was there to gain by revealing this behavior? It seems like Pfizer must have had something to gain by revealing their blackmail to the State Department. Did they have reason to believe that the U.S. could and would somehow help them with it?

This deserves much more attention.

:kick: