GSK tested HIV drugs on orphans. The story of the Guinea kid pigs

Has GSK tested HIV drugs on orphans?

GlaxoSmithKline ended up in a scandal in which children and teenagers, taken from the Incarnation Children’s Centre in New York, were used as “laboratory guinea pigs”. Orphan children from three months upwards have been used as mice in the testing of potentially toxic drugs sponsored by the pharmaceutical company, thanks to an investigation by the Observer. Children were either born to HIV-positive mothers or HIV was inoculated! Their parents were dead, untraceable, or considered unable to manage their child.

According to documents obtained from The Observer, Glaxo has sponsored at least 4 clinical trials since 1995 using Hispanic and black children of the Incarnation. These documents explain in detail how these tests were conducted and revealed that these trials were designed to test the “safety and tolerance” of AIDS drugs, some of which were potentially very dangerous. Glaxo produced several drugs to treat HIV, such as AZT, a hepatotoxic drug, and in a normal situation, parental consent would have been required. But as they were in direct care of the hospital, it was up to them to play this role.

More than 100 children took part in the trials, at least 4 of them sponsored by Glaxo, and this was also confirmed. Adding, of course, that he did not know how the children were recruited. PS. Social Services (ACS) are also partly sponsored by Glaxo, and most of these children are in the hands of Social Services.
Let’s tell some people: in one, 4-year-old children were given high doses of a cocktail of seven different drugs at the same time. Another monitored the reaction in six-month-old children with a double dose of measles vaccine. A 1997 experiment co-sponsored by Glaxo involved the use of children to “understand tolerance, study safety and pharmacokinetics” on Herpes drugs. In a more recent one, the children were subjected to the use of AZT. The third experiment sponsored by Glaxo and Pfizer investigated the “long-term safety” of antibacterial agents in 3-month-old children.

What could those who conducted these trials on behalf of the Incarnation, the Columbia University Medical Centre, say?
There are many security points on the informed consent system, with a team of doctors and lawyers. HIV can also be a life-threatening disease, but thanks to medicines, the lives of the sick have lengthened. At the state of the art, these children are receiving treatment that they would not otherwise have received for life-threatening illnesses.

What could the Social Services, the ACS, answer?
“The children for the tests were selected after careful checks, and no force was ever used to subject them to these treatments.”

What could GSK respond to?
“These studies are encouraged by the FDA. Therefore, clinical trials that include children and orphans are legal and entirely normal.”

These are the words of Vera Sharav, President of the Alliance for Human Research Protection:
There is a big difference between offering new drugs and testing them on you. Many of those experiments are to be considered as “Trial phase 1 clinicians”, practically the most risky, and among other things the tests to diagnose HIV in children are not a reliable indicator of disease, so these drugs may have been given to healthy children. The drugs used to treat HIV are very similar to those for chemotherapy, with many side effects. If we look at the history of medical research, we have seen abuses of patients, of mentally disabled people, and now we see them in children, who are treated like laboratory animals.”

According to a documentary published by the BBC, Guinea Pig Kids, the Social Services forced the children to take part in these trials, removing them from their family homes if their caregivers stopped giving them medicines, and making them physically and forcibly take the medicines. The program interviews the family of Garfield Momodu, an HIV-positive child removed from his family, from his grandmother, and taken to hospital at the time when she stopped giving him the medicines as per the trial.
A child was also interviewed who told about how he and others were forced to take medicines through a tube inserted in their stomach.
For Dr. Resnick, these drugs are lethal.
These are the words of Jacklyn, a nurse who attended those tests:
“Initially it seemed normal to me, also because the doctors told us that these were the steps to take for these children suffering from HIV. I’ve worked in this environment for many years, so I simply trusted the medications that were to be given. If they were sick, vomited, diarrhea, or died… it was because of the disease, HIV. And we had to wait for him, but we did our best to prevent him.”

 

 

BigPharma still does not exist, and pharmaceutical companies think about our health.
And Glaxo will invest €1 billion in Italy.
Why do we need to trust these companies when faced with such facts?

It is not pleasant to rebound the pharmaceutical companies, but it is right to do so.
Criticism of a system that does not necessarily have to be abolished, but at least let us improve it.

 

 

 

Commenta

Autore dell'articolo: GG

Lascia un commento

Il tuo indirizzo email non sarà pubblicato. I campi obbligatori sono contrassegnati *