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[color:"brown"]Pfizer Executive Gets Bail in Nigeria Trial Over Drug Test[/color]

KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) - A Nigerian court granted bail on Tuesday to a former executive of the local arm of pharmaceuticals firm Pfizer in a protracted legal battle over a 1996 drug test that Nigeria says killed 11 children.

The government of northern Kano state has filed a lawsuit claiming $2 billion in damages and is pressing criminal charges against Pfizer over the testing of the antibiotic Trovan, which it says also left many children with permanent disabilities.

Pfizer denies all the charges. It says the children were killed or hurt by meningitis, which killed 12,000 children in six months that year.

Sam Ohuabunwa was one of three former executives of the Nigerian arm of Pfizer who were ordered arrested by a Kano High Court in December after they failed to appear for hearings.

Ohuabunwa was never actually detained, and was present in court on Tuesday when he was granted bail.

"I will simply comply with the normal procedure by granting him bail, which includes (guarantees of) 5 million naira and two sureties," said Judge Shehu Atiku.

The federal government has also filed separate civil and criminal lawsuits against Pfizer in the capital Abuja, claiming an additional $6.5 billion in damages.

The civil and criminal cases were launched by the state and federal governments in May 2007, but court hearings have remained stuck on technicalities, dragging on from one adjournment to the next. No substantive issue has been tackled.

Atiku had granted bail in January to another former member of Pfizer staff, Segun Dogunro, on health grounds.

On Tuesday, the court adjourned the case to April 28 when it would hear preliminary arguments, including a request for the extradition of three Americans involved in the clinical trial.

Source: www.africa.reuters.com

Comment: From previous reports, this trial was not approved by Nigerian Government, there was no written informed consent for enrolling children and even babies in these trials and it violated several other international laws of conducting clinical trials. Having committed such harsh crimes, Pfizer executives are released over a bail of what comes to be just under $43,000! Of course, Pfizer denies all the charges and says the children were killed by meningitis, which incidentally killed 12,000 children in six months that year. The drug in question was later approved for use in adults, with strong restrictions. It was tested, not in adults but in children, causing serious side effects and deaths. This is outrageous when even children are not spared and the drug companies get away with it.