Will the Nigerian charges against Pfizer change how drug companies conduct clinical trials in developing countries? I don’t think so. The Nigerian authorities seem to be more interested in sensationalizing the charges and catering to their own disgruntled populace. (And can we really expect the Nigerian government and an American company to come clean about what happened during that mengingitis epidemic in 1996? Evidence suggests that the Nigerian authorities were complicit in some way, just as they’ve been complicit for decades in Western oil companies’ exploitation of their citizenry in the Niger delta.)
What’s really needed is greater transparency, but the Nigerian authorities are not asking for that. They’re asking for payback. The bad PR that Pfizer will inevitably get may very well make drug companies more secretive about their activities in poor countries–which will make clinical trials more dangerous for trial subjects everywhere.
