In 1996 during a meningitis outbreak in Nigeria, a US drug firm, Pfizer, tested 200 sick children in a hospital in Kano with an antibiotic called Trovan. The article reports that the result of the tested antibiotic was 11 children's deaths and 181 other injured children even though Pfizer denies the claims that the antibiotic was the cause of the death and instead the deaths were just a result of the outbreak. Pfizer maintains that they formally informed the parents of the children being tested, but the parents claim that they never gave consent which led to the families along with the Kano State government suing Pfizer in the US. The case, fortunately, is reportedly coming close to an end with a multi-million dollar settlement out of court. The sides are not yet allowed to disclose the amounts until the final court hearing on May 15th but reportedly Nigeria's federal government additionally sued for $6.5bn in 2007 but will withdraw it's claim if the Nano government reaches a settlement.
The article relates to what we have been learning in class with demonstrating state and federal governments in addition to the right of the people to sue a foreign company. Both the state and federal government has sued Pfizer which displays a sort of unitary between the levels of the government and the people that it serves but supporting and uniting against the company to which they are holding the deaths accountable for.
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