FW: At Least 12 Babies Die in Glaxo Vaccine Trials in Argentina

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ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION

Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability

http://www.ahrp.org and http://ahrp.blogspot.com

FYI

Trading Markets provides news of interest to investors. On July 10 it

reported that at least 12 babies who were test subjects in a clinical trial

testing GlaxKline's pneumonia vaccine in Argentina died. (see below)

According to the Argentine Federation of Health Professionals, or Fesprosa,

the pharmaceutical giant uses children from poor families, who are

" pressured and forced into signing consent forms. This occurs without any

type of state control " and " does not comply with minimum ethical

requirements. "

Pediatrician Ana Marchese, who works at the children's hospital in the

provincial capital where the studies are being conducted, was highly

critical: " because they can't experiment in Europe or the United States,

they come to do it in third-world countries. "

Indeed, " Colombia and Panama were also chosen by GSK as staging grounds for

trials of the vaccine against the pneumococcal bacteria. "

But one of the lead Glaxo-paid investigators, pediatrician Enrique , is

quoted stating:

" Only 12 have died throughout the country, which is a very low figure if we

compare it with the deaths produced by respiratory illnesses caused by the

pneumococcal bacteria. " Since 2007, 15,000 babies have been subjects of the

trial, so the death rate in the trial is 1 in 1,250.

Question is, would they have died had they received antibiotics and not been

in the trial?

Fesprosa complained that the parents are pressured, and trial " occurs

without any type of control... "

If " the trials were authorized when Enrique's brother, ,

was provincial health minister " the legitimacy of the trial is questionable,

at best.

The world is bearing witness to the moral dissolution of corporate

influenced medicine--a pediatrician is sanguine about the death of 12 babies

in a clinical trial, claiming it is " a very low figure... "

This profit-driven culture has derailed medicine from its traditional

ethical principles, rapidly converting into a ruthless commercial

enterprise.

This medical tragedy is widely disseminated on internet blogs but ignored

by the press--

Why ?????????????????????

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav

veracare@... <mailto:veracare%40ahrp.org>

212-595-8974

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/1750553/

12 Babies die during vaccine trials in Argentina

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Buenos Aires, Jul 10, 2008 (EFE via COMTEX)

-- At least 12 babies who were part of a clinical study to test the

effectiveness of a vaccine against pneumonia have died over the past year in

Argentina, the local press reported Thursday.

The study was sponsored by global drug giant GlaxoKline and uses

children from poor families, who are " pressured and forced into signing

consent forms, " the Argentine Federation of Health Professionals, or

Fesprosa, said.

" This occurs without any type of state control " and " does not comply with

minimum ethical requirements, " Fesprosa said.

The vaccine trial is still ongoing despite the denunciations, and those in

charge of the study were cited by the Critica newspaper as saying that the

procedures are being carried out in a lawful manner.

Colombian and Panama were also chosen by GSK as staging grounds for trials

of the vaccine against the pneumococcal bacteria.

Since 2007, 15,000 children under the age of one from the Argentine

provinces of Mendoza, San and Santiago del Estero have been included in

the research protocol, a statement of what the study is trying to achieve.

" Only 12 have died throughout the country, which is a very low figure if we

compare it with the deaths produced by respiratory illnesses caused by the

pneumococcal bacteria, " pediatrician Enrique , one of the lead

investigators, said.

In Santiago del Estero, one of the country's poorest provinces, the trials

were authorized when Enrique's brother, , was provincial

health minister.

According to pediatrician Ana Marchese, who works at the children's

hospital in the provincial capital where the studies are being conducted,

" because they can't experiment in Europe or the United States, they come to

do it in third-world countries. "

" 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, " said ta Ovejero, great aunt of one of the six babies

who died in Santiago del Estero.

Fesprosa's Palomares said that " in most cases these are

underprivileged individuals, many of them unable to read or write, who are

pressured into including their children " in the trials.

According to Fesprosa, " the laboratory pays $8,000 for each child included

in the study, but none (of that money) remains in the province that lends

the public facilities and the health personnel for the private research. "

EFE