12 Babies die during vaccine trials in Argentina

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Buenos Aires, Jul 10, 2008 (EFE via COMTEX) --

-- At least 12 babies who were part of a clinical study to test the

effectiveness of a vaccine against pneumonia have died over the past

year in

Argentina, the local press reported Thursday.

The study was sponsored by global drug giant GlaxoKline and uses

children from poor families, who are " pressured and forced into signing

consent forms, " the Argentine Federation of Health Professionals, or

Fesprosa, said.

" This occurs without any type of state control " and " does not comply

with

minimum ethical requirements, " Fesprosa said.

The vaccine trial is still ongoing despite the denunciations, and

those in

charge of the study were cited by the Critica newspaper as saying

that the

procedures are being carried out in a lawful manner.

Colombian and Panama were also chosen by GSK as staging grounds for

trials

of the vaccine against the pneumococcal bacteria.

Since 2007, 15,000 children under the age of one from the Argentine

provinces of Mendoza, San and Santiago del Estero have been

included in

the research protocol, a statement of what the study is trying to

achieve.

" Only 12 have died throughout the country, which is a very low figure

if we

compare it with the deaths produced by respiratory illnesses caused

by the

pneumococcal bacteria, " pediatrician Enrique , one of the lead

investigators, said.

In Santiago del Estero, one of the country's poorest provinces, the

trials

were authorized when Enrique's brother, , was

provincial

health minister.

According to pediatrician Ana Marchese, who works at the

children's

hospital in the provincial capital where the studies are being

conducted,

" because they can't experiment in Europe or the United States, they

come to

do it in third-world countries. "

" A lot of people want to leave the protocol but aren't allowed; they

force

them to continue under the threat that if they leave they won't

receive any

other vaccine, " said ta Ovejero, great aunt of one of the six

babies

who died in Santiago del Estero.

Fesprosa's Palomares said that " in most cases these are

underprivileged individuals, many of them unable to read or write,

who are

pressured into including their children " in the trials.

According to Fesprosa, " the laboratory pays $8,000 for each child

included

in the study, but none (of that money) remains in the province that

lends

the public facilities and the health personnel

<http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/1750553/> for the

private research. " EFE

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Casey

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