Just a reminder its been quite a while our country has been in the docks. Makes for really gruesome reading.

Officials of the Federal Government as well as those of the Kano State government were complicit in the 1996 Pfizer’s Trovan clinical trial that used Nigerian children as guinea pigs, leaving at least 11 infants dead and several others with permanent disabilities. This is according to the report of the Investigative Committee on the Clinical Trial of Trovan constituted by the Federal Government in 2001.

This man that should have known better. . . .For his role in the killings, he got rewarded Nigerian style.

Isa Dutse, chief medical director, Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, now the chief medical director of the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, was also indicted by the report. Shortly before Pfizer hurriedly flew its doctors into Kano on a DC 91 jet in the heat of the triple epidemic, Isa Dutse, who had previously worked for Pfizer, was contacted and made the principal investigator for the clinical trial.

The investigative committee report identified Mr. Dutse as being responsible for recruiting patients for the trial without written consent.

"As principal investigator, he had no record either of the patients recruited or the outcome of the investigation," the report said.

Mr. Dutse, who claimed to have been paid $20,000 (N3 million) also admitted to the committee that he single-handedly issued a backdated ethical clearance certificate to Pfizer at a time an ethical committee was not in existence at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital when contacted by Pfizer six months after the trail.

Mr. Dutse also confessed that a child, identified as Patient 0069, died after the Pfizer team continued to give the child oral Trovan and did not consider changing therapy. The committee recommended that Mr. Dutse should "be reprimanded and considered for disciplinary action."

Instead of the government punishing Mr. Dutse as the committee recommended, he was richly rewarded for participating in the killing of helpless Nigerian children. Mr, Dutse, now a professor, enjoyed a rapid career rise, and is heading the biggest hospital in Kano as the chief medical director.

And how was the lone man of integrity treated. . . . .

In the midst of the confusion and deliberate collusion by government officials and Pfizer to experiment on Nigerian children, one voice stood out against this evil.

Mr. Idris Mohammed, the chairman of the Federal Task Force for the Control of the Epidemics, was the only person who tried to put a stop to the Pfizer trial. The report commended the efforts of Mr. Mohammed, who is a retired professor of medicine.

He had insisted that Pfizer produce a clearance certificate for the trial when he found out that Pfizer was conducting a clinical trial, but Pfizer failed to produce it. He subsequently ordered the immediate halt of the trial but Pfizer seemed to have entered into negotiations and subsequently secured the backing of officials of the Kano State ministry of health to continue with the trial.

He also obtained sample of the drug from Pfizer investigators and handed them over to NAFDAC in Kano for analysis but nothing was done about it.

He then wrote a petition to Mr. Madubuike on 1 July, 1996, where he detailed what transpired during the trial. But on 11 December, 1996, the minister sent a reply maligning Mr. Mohammed, based on the submissions of Pfizer and the Kano State government, all without inviting Mr. Idris Mohammed to defend himself.

"There was no breach of Nigerian law as alleged by you. The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has the legal mandate to grant permit for importation or manufacture of unregistered drugs for the purpose of clinical trial investigation. Kano State Ministry took appropriate actions," the letter stated.

The report reprimanded the former minister for not setting up a committee to look into Mr. Mohammed's petition and for not inviting him for discussions on the matter before writing him "an undeserving and distasteful letter."

While responding to questions from the committee, Mr. Mohammed noted that Pfizer got "excellent cooperation from the Kano State Ministry of Health."