SUNDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2010
KLMNO
EZ RE
The World A17 Cable: Pfizer hired investigators to press Nigeria to drop suit BY JOE STEPHENS Pfizer hired investigators to
dig up dirt on Nigeria’s then-at- torney general early last year in an effort to pressure himto drop a $6 billion lawsuit against the company, according to a classi- fied U.S. diplomatic cable. The high-profile litigation,
which stemmed from a 1996 drug experiment conducted on perilously ill children, was set- tled privately after the meeting that led to the April 20, 2009, cable. The cable was released last
week by the anti-secrecyWeb site WikiLeaks and represents just the latest twist in the case’s
Md. officials set up shop
in Moscow State to promote business ties with Russia
BY KATHY LALLY
moscow — Snow had been fall- ing heavily and steadily since morning, but if that would be a deterrence at home, it did not stop the state of Maryland from planting its flag in Russia the other day, the first state to open its own trade office here. Robert L. Walker, the state’s
assistant secretary for business and enterprise development, pro- vided the Calvert coat of arms flag, which stood between U.S. and Russian flags in the grand chandelier room of Spaso House, the early 20th-century Russian neoclassical home of the Ameri- can ambassador. There, JohnMc- Caslin, minister counselor for commercial affairs at the embas- sy, Boris Kornilov, the newMary- land representative, and Walker told a gathering of officials, busi- nessmen and reporters why Maryland deserved their busi- ness: universities galore, the Na- tional Institutes of Health, Na- tional Institute of Standards and Technology, an airport, highways, railroads, a large port, biotech and a welcoming attitude toward foreign investment. “Russia is one of the BRIC
nations, where the economies are expected to show fast growth,” Walker said, referring to Brazil, Russia, India and China. “This seemed like a good place to open.” And, he said, only 1 percent of
all U.S. trade now is with Russia. When it comes to doing busi-
ness inRussia, snow is the least of the problems. The new office is intended to help Maryland com- panies navigate what can be a slippery landscape, while helping Russian businesses invest in Maryland. “Business is always a question
of risk,” Walker said, “but when you invest in the United States, the only risk is associated with the business venture. You don’t have to worry about political uncertainty.” Maryland, he said, has tried to
nurture foreign relationships through an “incubator” exclu- sively for foreign-owned compa- nies in a joint venture with the University ofMaryland in College Park. “That was budgeted for three years,” he said. “The goal is to make it self-sustaining through renting space and part- nerships.” To open a Russian office at the
same time budgets are being pared back,Maryland hired, on a contingency basis, a local busi- nessman who has lived in the United States. He’ll get paid if he channels investments and jobs to the state. Maryland has had an office in
China since the mid-1990s and also has a European office in Paris, both of which are financed by the budget. It also has 10 contingency offices like the one in Moscow — which is expected to serve all of the former Soviet Union — in other countries, in- cluding India, South Korea, Viet- nam and South America. Maryland has about 500 for- eign-owned businesses employ- ing about 100,000Marylanders— approximately 3.5 percent of the workforce. Russia’s Severstal owns the former Bethlehem Steel at Sparrows Point, for example, and the French company Sodexo has its U.S. headquarters in Gaithersburg. The relationships go the other
way, too. Walker stayed in a Marriott hotel inMoscow, a com- pany based, of course, in Mary- land.
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14-year saga. In a statement, Pfizer called the new allegations “simply preposterous.” The Pfizer drug trial, whose
tale has been compared to the plot of the Academy Award-win- ning movie “The Constant Gar- dener,” has become notorious since its details were first made public in a 2000 investigative series in The Washington Post, and in a follow-up investigation in 2006 that led to homicide charges against the company. In 1996, Pfizer’s researchers
selected 200 children at an epi- demic hospital in Nigeria, then gave about half of them an untested oral version of the anti- biotic Trovan. The other children were given a comparison drug.
Researchers did not obtain signed consent forms, and medi- cal personnel said Pfizer did not tell parents their children were getting an experimental drug. Pfizer’s lead investigator later acknowledged that he personally created and backdated a key ethics approval document. Eleven children died during
the trial and others suffered disabling injuries. Pfizer said it broke no laws and that the deaths and other problems re- sulted frommeningitis. Nigerian officials brought
criminal and civil charges in 2007, one set filed by state offi- cials and the other $7 billion case brought by federal authorities. The 2009 cable, classified as
“confidential,” says that Pfizer’s countrymanager, Enrico Liggeri, metwithU.S. officials inAbuja to discuss the cases. “According to Liggeri,” the ca-
ble says, “Pfizer had hired inves- tigators to uncover corruption links to federal attorney general Michael Aondoakaa to expose him and put pressure on him to drop the federal cases. He said Pfizer’s investigators were pass- ing this information to local media. “A series of damaging articles
detailing Aondoakaa’s ‘alleged’ corruption ties were published in February and March. Liggeri contended that Pfizer had much more damaging information on Aondoakaa and that Aondoa-
kaa’s cronies were pressuring him to drop the suit for fear of further negative articles.” Aondoakaa told the Guardian,
the British newspaper that first reported on the cable, that he knew nothing about Pfizer’s at- tempts to investigate him. The Nigerian state of Kano
settled with Pfizer for $75 mil- lion in July 2009. Details of the federal settlement were never reported. A Pfizer representative in a
phone interview Friday declined to discuss specifics of the cable or Liggeri’s alleged comments. In its written statement last week, Pfizer said it negotiated the con- fidential settlementwith the fed- eral government “in good faith
and its conduct in reaching that agreement was proper.” Pfizer said it had agreed to pay the legal fees and expenses incurred by the federal government in the litigation and no payment was made to the federal government of Nigeria itself. According to the cable, Liggeri
also told U.S. officials that the lawsuitswere “wholly political in nature,” and that the humanitari- an group Doctors Without Bor- ders also gave children Trovan. Officials with the organization said that is not the case, and other records suggest that only Pfizer would have had access to Trovan at the time.
stephensj@washpost.com
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