For the record, I’m for vaccines. We chose to vaccinate our kids against a myriad of childhood diseases, most of which are no longer an issue — primarily because of vaccinations. I also don’t believe that there is a link between the vaccines and autism. However, I’m not a big fan of the pharmaceutical industry or the medical system in general. But this post is not about the vaccine controversy or what’s wrong with modern medicine. It is to report on something that recently came to light that confirms that Big Pharma is heartless. It actually took me a while to formulate this post without the inclusion of a few swear words.
In 2007 GlaxoSmith Kline conducted vaccine trials in Argentina. The vaccine was called Synflorix and it was to protect against bacterial pneumonia and meningitis. The vaccine was administered to 15,000 babies under the age of one, the babies were mostly from economically disadvantaged families. The trials gained attention when it was reported by an Argentinian newspaper that 14 babies had died.
Last week GlaxoSmithKline and two doctors were fined around $240,000 for irregularities in connection with the recruitment of the babies for the trials. The fine was issued by a Buenos Aires court after a report by the National Administration of Medicine, Food and Tech-nology (ANMAT), accused the drug maker of experimenting with humans and falsifying parental authorisation documents so that babies could be part of the vaccine trials conducted by the laboratory between 2007 and 2008. The judge found that the consent forms were signed by parents who were illiterate and therefore did not understand the ramifications of what they were signing or were signed by individuals who did not have legal custody of the child! Pediatrician Ana Marchese told FOREXPROS, “These doctors took advantage of many illiterate parents who take their children [to hospital] for treatment by pressuring and forcing them into signing these 28-page consent forms and getting them involved in the trials.” To make matters worse, when children experienced adverse reactions to the vaccines, worried parents were left in the dark, “in various cases, the doctors who had conducted the trials did not answer the calls made by the worried parents after witnessing their babies’ reactions to the vaccines.”
I understand that testing is necessary in order to ensure the safety of vaccines and drugs. However, there are policies and procedures that must be followed. The fact that someone at GlaxoSmith Kline thought that it was okay to bypass these rules and outsource the testing to impoverished infants in other countries just so parents of babies born in the US would buy their stocks just sickens me. GlaxoSmith Kline is currently appealing the decision stating that the infant deaths were not a result of the vaccine trials. The death of these babies is a tragedy and I can’t even imagine the fear and despair that the parents felt. The company is obviously missing the bigger picture if they’re bothering to argue that it isn’t their fault the babies died. The problem is that GlaxoSmith Kline thinks that this is an acceptable practice in the first place.
Seriously, what is wrong with people?
