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Poor Families Pressed Into Vaccine Trials by Drug Companies; 12
Babies Die
David Gutierrez
NaturalNews
Tuesday, Dec 09, 2008
Major pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline has
been accused of pressuring poor Third World parents into enrolling
their children in experimental drug trials that have led to the
deaths of at least 12 infants.
The company is currently testing an experimental pneumonia vaccine
on children under the age of one in Argentina, Colombia and Panama.
According to the Argentine Federation of Health Professionals
(Feprosa), poor Argentinean parents have been "pressured
and forced into signing consent forms."
"In most cases these are underprivileged individuals, many
of them unable to read or write, who are pressured into including
their children," said Juan Carlos Palomares of Fesprosa.
"This occurs without any type of state control [and] does
not comply with minimum ethical requirements," the federation
said.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
At least 12 Argentinean babies enrolled in the study have died
in the past year.
In response to be criticism, Glaxo said its strict safety protocols
are monitored by an independent committee, and that no one is
forced to participate in the program.
"Enrollment in the trial is on a voluntary basis and trial
participants are free to withdraw at any time," the company
said.
But according to Julieta Ovejero, great aunt of one of the children
who died, "A lot of people want to leave the protocol but
aren't allowed; they force them to continue under the threat that
if they leave they won't receive any other vaccine."
The vaccine trial has also drawn accusations of corruption: The
trials in the Argentinean province of Santiago del Estero were
authorized under provincial Health Minister Juan Carlos Smith,
brother of the lead researcher in the study.
Critics such as Ana Maria Marchese, a pediatrician at the Santiago
del Estero children's hospital where the study is taking place,
accuse Glaxo of using Third World children as guinea pigs.
"Because they can't experiment in Europe or the United States,
they come to do it in third-world countries," she said.
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