Czech Republic to sue State of Connecticut and Yale over LYMErix
Mort Zuckerman
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Subject: Czech Republic to sue State of Connecticut and Yale over
LYMErix
Date: May 21, 2009 7:48 AM
Yale and UConn conducted a bogus vaccine trial on Czech
children. That means Czechs can sue the State of CT under
these terms.
Thanks for the info.
http://www.actionlyme.org/UCONNS_ABUSE_OF_CZECH_CHILDREN.htm
http://www.actionlyme.org/UCONN_NO_HOSPITAL.htm
Kathleen M. Dickson
http://www.actionlyme.org
================================
http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-pfizer0521.artmay21,0,6524944.story
$75 MILLION OFFER
Connecticut Attorney Fights Pfizer Inc.'s Effort To Settle Nigerian
Lawsuit
By MATTHEW KAUFFMAN
May 21, 2009
Pfizer Inc. is prepared to pay tens of millions of dollars to
Nigerians who were killed or injured when the pharmaceutical giant
tested an experimental antibiotic on scores of children during a
meningitis outbreak in the African country.
So why is a Connecticut attorney working so hard to scuttle the
settlement?
It's the latest twist in a long-twisted court battle that has skipped
across an ocean and back again, and drawn on everything from Colonial-
era piracy laws to the Nuremberg trials and a John le Carré murder
mystery.
West Haven lawyer Richard Altschuler has been suing Pfizer for most of
the past decade, but he wasn't cheering when he first got word of a
$75 million offer to resolve a case in the Nigerian courts. Instead,
he's gone to court in Connecticut to block the settlement, charging
that the drug company and lawyers for the Nigerian government are
conspiring to shortchange his clients — and slam the door on his U.S.
suit.
The wrinkle: Altschuler is not involved in the Nigerian negotiations
and, technically, neither are the Nigerian families he represents. But
if the Nigerian settlement establishes a pool of compensation money,
Altschuler fears that his clients will be pressured to abandon his
U.S. lawsuit in exchange for a share of the settlement pie.
"Even with the $75 million, it's certainly nowhere near enough,"
Altschuler said. "When you divide it up, it's totally ludicrous and
unfair. And also: these are our clients."
Altschuler and a New York firm filed lawsuits against Pfizer in 2001
and 2002 on behalf of more than 100 participants in the 1996 drug
test.
But they're not the only ones who sued.
Two years ago, state and federal governments in Nigeria brought civil
and criminal charges against the drug company in Nigerian courts,
demanding as much as $9 billion and raising the prospect of jail time
for Pfizer officials.
Pfizer spokesman Chris Loder said that negotiations are continuing,
but in recent weeks Pfizer was reportedly close to a settlement that
would give $30 million to the governments and $10 million to the
Nigerian lawyers, while setting aside $35 million for those harmed
during the drug trial. Altschuler says that the victims would do far
better in the U.S. courts and that Pfizer has no business involving
his clients without his participation.
But Pfizer says it is Altschuler's attempt to block the deal that is
out of bounds.
"The U.S. lawyers' complaints about interference with their cases are
unfounded," Pfizer said this week in a statement released by Loder.
"Instead, their own actions constitute interference with Pfizer's
negotiations in Nigeria, where these lawyers are not involved."
And what of the accusation that Pfizer intends to use the settlement
to persuade Altschuler's clients to withdraw their U.S. lawsuit? To
that, Loder will say only: "We're not going to comment on our legal
strategy."
Altschuler said that the Nigerian settlement would give too much money
to the governments and the Nigerian lawyers, and too little to the
victims. And he unabashedly says he thinks that he's being cheated,
too, with the possibility that he'll end up with nothing for his years
of court battles.
"The bottom line is: The way you get lawyers to bring cases like this,
class actions, is that they gotta be paid," he said.
In the U.S. courts, Altschuler has relied on novel legal theories,
alleging that Pfizer — which developed the protocol for the Nigerian
drug trial at its Groton research plant — violated the Connecticut
Unfair Trade Practices Act. And he argues that the suit belongs in the
United States under the Alien Tort Statute, a 1789 law that allows
foreigners to sue in U.S. courts for violations of customary
international laws.
The statute was originally written to address piracy on the high seas
and the occasional aggrieved foreign ambassador. But relying in part
on the Nuremberg Code — a set of universal research principles
developed in response to Nazi experiments — Altschuler said that the
law also applies to what he says was a medical study conducted on
children without proper consent. During a 1996 meningitis outbreak in
northern Nigeria, Pfizer treated 100 infected children with an
experimental antibiotic known as Trovan, and gave another 100 children
an approved antibiotic,but allegedly at one-third the recommended
dose. Altschuler alleges that 11 children died and that others
suffered permanent injuries and deformities.
Pfizer has since withdrawn Trovan from the marketplace. But company
officials have said that the deaths and injuries in Nigeria were
caused by the children's underlying illnesses, not by Trovan or the
drug test, which they say was prompted by humanitarian concerns and
conducted appropriately.
Nevertheless, the case is frequently compared to the novel and movie
"The Constant Gardener," which revolves around an unethical and deadly
drug trial in Kenya. Altschuler charges that Pfizer failed to obtain
informed consent from the children's parents, failed to tell them that
a tested antibiotic was also available and kept children on Trovan
even after evidence of dangerous side effects emerged. He also claims
that Pfizer backdated a key approval letter from an institutional
ethics committee in Nigeria — a committee that did not exist at the
time the letter was allegedly written.
If the Nigerian settlement is signed, Altschuler says he still intends
to fight.
"I can't figure out how they think they're going to pull this off,"
Altschuler said. "It would be incredible to think that we're going to
accept a letter saying, 'Thank you. Withdraw the suits.'"
"[Real] scientists are *fiercely* independent. That's the good
news."-- NIH's Top Fool, Anthony Fauci