Judge slams psychologist’s evidence for being out of touch with reality.

Another psychologist who seems to be in a world all their own. Report from South Africa.

A judge trashed the testimony of a psychologist during pre-sentencing evidence of a man convicted of murdering a former senior official in the Premier’s office.

Judge Yusuf Ebrahim lashed out at East London-based psychologist Luyanda Mapekula in the Bhisho High Court yesterday for failing to read his judgment.

Mapekula was testifying during mitigation of sentence of Bonisile Grey, convicted last year of the premeditated murder of Siphiwe Mgoduso. Mgoduso was stabbed at a family member’s funeral in Mdantsane in July 2005.

Ebrahim said he was trying to establish the actual status of Grey’s mental condition after Mapekula testified his “psychology” had diminished prior, during and after the incident. “All I have been asking since (Tuesday) is (whether) the accused is suffering from mental illness or defect,” said Ebrahim.

Mapekula replied that Grey was under severe stress and depressed because of the disintegration of his family. “It is my view that his psychological state was compromised ... there should have been intervention in the form of psychiatric evaluation to return him into a normal state.”


Ebrahim said he could not understand why Mapekula was giving the court such an assessment because it did not seem to link with Grey’s argument that he acted in self-defence.

“Did you read the court’s judgment? Because you are relying on the accused’s version, which by the way this court has rejected. I have difficulty with the way you are speculating about (his mental state). You are acting solely on what the accused has told you.

“You have not read the court judgment and what other witnesses have told the court about the events that happened on the day.”

Mapekula admitted to Ebrahim that she did not interview Qaga – whom Grey regards as his wife – because the psychologist thought she would be hostile.

Sentencing will resume today.

Pfizer Nigeria Vice President , Managing Directors on the run, Medical Director arrested in Nigeria

Nigeria has sued Pfizer for over $8.5 billion, alleging the U.S. drug company caused the death of Nigerian children when it conducted a clinical trial in the country. As Reported by BrandWeek N RX. Apparently the Nigerian government is also going after the executives of the psych drug maker Pfizer, who apparently decided that using Nigerian children as experiment subjects for drug tests was a good idea. The Nigerian Government has decided that this is a Bad Idea^(tm). You know that what you did was bad when the Nigerian government is coming after you, especially since they have become sensitive to internet scams originating form their country.

According to All Africa, Dr. Dogunro, a former medical director of Pfizer Inc, has been arrested by the police and the managing director for Pfizer Nigeria, Ms. Ngozi Oluwatoyin Edozien is on the run.

A federal High Court in Abuja, Nigeria issued the warrant for the arrest of eight former directors of Pfizer Nigeria.

Those affected were directors on the board of Pfizer Nigeria when the controversial Trovan clinical trial took place in Kano in which over 200 persons, mostly children, died allegedly as a result of the unapproved trial.

Among the eight directors are former Pfizer CEO William Steere, Samuel Ohuabunwa, A.Dogunro, Isa Dutse , Scott Hopkins, Mike Dunne, Debra Williams and Robert Buhl.

It is common among multinational corporations for the CEO to also be a director of each foreign subsidiary, which also results in certain legal responsibilities, and this is how the high-profile Mr. Steere was pulled into this criminal matter.

NgoryPfizer's Managing Director Ngozi, who is now on the run, is also Regional Director East, Central, and Anglo-lusophone (ECAWA) in Africa. She was born in Nigeria but grew up in the U.S. and went to Harvard Business School.

She then became a McKinsey consultant and worked in the UK and France. After McKinsey she spent about five years as a Pfizer Vice President in New York, responsible for planning and business development.

Here is the All Africa report:

A federal High Court in Abuja yesterday issued a warrant of arrest for eight former directors of a pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer Specialties Ltd.

Those affected were directors who were on the board of the company when a controversial Trovan clinical trial took place in Kano in which over 200 persons, mostly children, died allegedly as a result of the unapproved trial.

Already, a former medical director of the company, Dr. Dogunro, has been arrested by the police.

Others affected by the warrant of arrest, including the immediate past managing director, Ngozi Edozien, are said to be on the run.

LEADERSHIP checks revealed that the corporate headquarters of Pfizer in Lagos was padlocked throughout yesterday, while most of its management staff refused to turn up at their duty post, apparently to avoid being picked up by security agents.

Both the federal and Kano State governments had instituted criminal charges against Pfizer over its alleged role in the deaths of the children who received the drug during a meningitis epidemic in 1996.

They are claiming $700 million in damages and restitution from Pfizer.

On its own side, the government had alleged Pfizer researchers selected 200 children and infants from crowds in Kano and gave about half of the group an untested anti-biotic, Trovan, without any approval from any authority.

The criminal charges had also named Pfizer Nigeria subsidiary and the eight former senior staff.

Trovan came to public disclosure in 2000 when The Washington Post published the result of a year-long investigation into pharmaceutical testing in the developing world.

And Nigerians who were confronted with the shocking views went to the streets demonstrating and demanding for investigation.

The families of the children who Pfizer used allegedly as laboratory guinea pigs were led to believe and in fact understood that the defendants were providing their children with voluntary relief, clearly focused humanitarian medical intervention and nothing more, the suit had said.

Although Pfizer is currently contesting the case, but the investigating committee into Pfizer drug trial in Kano earlier raised by then minister of health, Dr. Tim Menakaya, and headed by Dr. Abdulsalam Nasidi had indicted Pfizer, which instituted a legal case at the Federal High Court to quash the investigation committee's report.

Pfizer's insistence that it is innocent has not prevented accusation and counter-accusation from flowing.

The company has consistently maintained that all necessary approvals were sought and obtained from relevant federal and state agencies before administering the drug in Kano State.

"We did the right thing and we answered the country's call," the then managing director, Ms. Ngozi Edozien, told LEADERSHIP recently.

But the Federal Ministry of Health, Kano State Ministry of Health and NAFDAC have denied approving the administration of the drug in Kano.

The case comes up today.

Nigeria sues Pfizer for $7bn over 'illegal' tests on children

As reported in the Guardian

The Nigerian government is suing the world's largest drug manufacturer, Pfizer, for allegedly carrying out illegal trials of an anti-meningitis drug that killed or disabled children.

Nigeria is demanding 7 billion dollars in damages from the US company for the families of children it says died or suffered serious side effects when the antibiotic Trovan was administered in the northern state of Kano during a meningitis outbreak in 1996. The Kano state government also has civil and criminal cases pending against Pfizer.

The Nigerian authorities say that 200 children were part of the Trovan experiment without the approval of local regulatory authorities. They allege that as many as 11 died as a result of the treatment and others developed conditions including brain damage and paralysis.

Trovan was approved in the US in 1997 for use by adults but not children. Two years later the US Food and Drug Administration warned that the drug could cause liver damage and it has since been discontinued.

In court papers filed in Abuja yesterday, the government accuses Pfizer of conducting illegal tests on children.

"The plaintiff contends that the defendant never obtained approval of the relevant regulatory agencies ... nor did the defendant seek or receive approval to conduct any clinical trial at any time before their illegal conduct," it said.

A Pfizer spokesman in New York, Bryant Haskins, said in a statement that the drug was administered in accordance with Nigerian law.

"These allegations against Pfizer, which are not new, are highly inflammatory and not based on all the facts. We continue to maintain, in the strongest terms, that the Nigerian government was fully informed in advance of the clinical trial; that the trial was conducted appropriately, ethically and with the best interests of patients in mind; and that it helped save lives," he said.

Pfizer has previously said that it obtained "verbal consent" from the parents of the affected children, and that the drugs were administered in a way that was "sound from medical, scientific, regulatory and ethical standpoints".

Two years ago, a US court dismissed a lawsuit by several Nigerian families who allege that they were not sufficiently warned that their children could be affected by the antibiotic.

A civil and criminal suit by the Kano state government against Pfizer was postponed yesterday until next month. It is seeking $2bn in damages.

The Nigerian government is looking for compensation for the cost of treatment of the victims of the drug test and their families. It is also seeking $450m for what it says is the suspicion of western medicines created by the case.

The country's health authorities say that the Pfizer controversy is partly responsible for many families in northern Nigeria refusing to allow their children to be vaccinated against polio. That in turn has been blamed for an outbreak that spread across parts of Africa. The Kano authorities also refused to distribute the polio vaccine.

Pfizer is well known as a manufacturer of a wide variety of drugs, including a number of psychiatric concoctions.