Freakazoid (my feline companion), music (shoegaze/dreampop, a list of bands a million miles long), veganism/vegetarianism, animal rights, peace, environmentalism/recycling, media reform, independent media, college radio, politics (very left), Democracy Now! (democracynow.org), public television (pbs.org, wgbh.org), public radio (npr.org), biodiesel (greengreasemonkey.com), Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary (woodstockfas.org), Maple Farm Sanctuary (maplefarmsanctuary.org), Farm Sanctuary (farmsanctuary.org), WZBC Boston College Radio (wzbc.org), WMBR M.I.T. Radio (wmbr.org), The Boston Independent Media Center (boston.indymedia.org), video editing, Photoshop, Media Composer, Final Cut, Mac computers, digital photography, Boston Vegetarian Society (bostonveg.org), Humane Society of the United States (hsus.org), Post Punk Kitchen (theppk.com), organic foods, radicalendar.org (lectures and progressive events), Best Friends Animal Sanctuary (bestfriends.org), Food Not Bombs (foodnotbombs.org), volunteerism/activism/making the world a better place
Music
WZBC 90.3FM http://wzbc.org
shoegaze/dreampop
Stina Nordenstam, Poor Rich Ones, Kent, Depeche Mode, Tracy Shedd, Bel Canto, Ride, My Bloody Valentine, Imogen Heap, Frou Frou, Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Maria Taylor, Sufjan Stevens, Neko Case, Nick Cave, !!!, Bexar Bexar, Colder, Curtain Society, A Northern Chorus, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Cure, New Order, Big Monster Fish Hook, Emilie Simon, Diamanda Galas, Einsturzende Neubauten, Kings of Convenience, Gang of Four, Mission of Burma, His Name Is Alive, Stars, Frames, Martin Finke, Lamb, Lanterna, Malory, My Bloody Valentine, Slipstream, Metric, Ulrich Schnauss, Minotaur Shock, M83, Orange Peels, Outhud, The Smiths, Psychedelic Furs, Skywave, Charlene, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Mistle Thrush, Syrian, Trespassers William, Tears for Fears, Disco Inferno, Comsat Angels, Cranes, Curve, Puressence, AR Kane, For Against, Abecedarians, The Field Mice, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Barzin, Sciflyer, Seefeel, The Album Leaf, Air, Even Johansen, The Wedding Present, Superchunk, The Dirty Three, Th' Faith Healers, Jesus & Mary Chain, The Sundays, Chimera, Faith Over Reason, Lamb, Mouse On Mars, The Chins, Boy In Static, Hot Chip, PJ Harvey, Explosions in the Sky, Low, The Verve, Moose, Slowdive, Sonic Youth, Chapterhouse, OMD, Pale Saints, Yo La Tengo, Magnetic Fields, Mojave 3, Love and Rockets, Bauhaus, Peter Murphy, Joy Division, The Clientele, Mazzy Star, Bleach, Eggs, Voyager One, Nightblooms, Ivy, Sigur Ros, Bjork, Sianspheric, Rachels, Cat Power, Asobi Seksu, Prolapse, Swans, Belle and Sebastian, Trembling Blue Stars, Joanna Newsom, The Go-Betweens, Heavenly, Majesty Crush, The Ex, Young Gods, Fourtet, Bailter Space, Broken Social Scene, Red House Painters, Lush, The Jam, The Chameleons, Quickspace, Sparks, Babybird, many more
Heroes
Vegans! Jenny Brown & Doug Abel, Dr. Michael Greger, Paul Watson, Dennis Kucinich, all my vegan activist friends
Boston College
Chestnut Hill, MA
Graduated: 1992
Student status: Alumni
Major: Elementary Education
Minor: History
Clubs: WZBC 90.3FM Radio http://www.wzbc.org
1988 to 1992
Gloucester High
Gloucester, MA
Graduated: 1988
Student status: Alumni
Degree: High School Diploma
Clubs: Track and Field, Cheerleading, Yearbook, NHS
1986 to 1988
PetrinaVegan's Companies
WGBH TV Boston, MA US Assistant Director Creative Services
2000-present
Massachusetts General Hospital Boston, MA US Manuscript Editor Gastroenterology Unit
1997-2000
Newbury Comics Cambridge, MA US Assistant Manager Music and Comics
1993-1996
Harmonix Music Systems Cambridge, MA US Office Manager
1996-1997
Middle East Rock Club Cambridge, MA US Promotions
1993-1994
PetrinaVegan said yes! Posted at 2:58 PM Feb 16 view more
About me:
activist/volunteer/liberal/artsy/npr/pbs/collegeradio/music-lovin'/vegan/recyclin'/biodiesel/funky/earthday/yoga/films/digital photography/macs
i am very dedicated to working hard to make the world a better place through activitism and volunteer work and having fun doing it!
veganism = peace
Who I'd like to meet: People who want to make the world a better place for all!!!
Petrina!! This is going to sound really weird but I was literally JUST thinking about you YESTERDAY! I got a message from BVS and wondered what you were up to. Thanks for the add hon!
Join us at bostonvegan.org, subscribe to the newsletter to stay in the loop, and enjoy our very first meetup the second weekend in September. We'll probably have our first official members meeting (non-members invited, too) the fourth weekend of September, FYI.
Hey, thanks for the add! Keep fighting the good fight! Here's some important info you might be interested in:
Pfizer Tests On Animals And African Children
________________________________________
The Washington Post. 7 May 2006.
Panel Faults Pfizer in '96 Clinical Trial In Nigeria.
Unapproved Drug Tested on Children.
By Joe Stephens Washington Post Staff Writer
A panel of Nigerian medical experts has concluded that Pfizer
Inc. violated international law during a 1996 epidemic by
testing an unapproved drug on children with brain infections
at a field hospital.
That finding is detailed in a lengthy Nigerian government
report that has remained unreleased for five years, despite
inquiries from the children's attorneys and from the media.
The Washington Post recently obtained a copy of the
confidential report, which is attracting congressional
interest. It was provided by a source who asked to remain
anonymous because of personal safety concerns.
The report concludes that Pfizer never obtained authorization
from the Nigerian government to give the unproven drug to
nearly 100 children and infants. Pfizer selected the patients
at a field hospital in the city of Kano, where the children
had been taken to be treated for an often deadly strain of
meningitis. At the time, Doctors Without Borders was
dispensing approved antibiotics at the hospital.
Pfizer's experiment was "an illegal trial of an unregistered
drug," the Nigerian panel concluded, and a "clear case of
exploitation of the ignorant."
The test came to public attention in December 2000, when The
Post published the results of a year-long investigation into
overseas pharmaceutical testing. The news was met in Nigeria
with street demonstrations, lawsuits and demands for reform.
Pfizer contended that its researchers traveled to Kano with a
purely philanthropic motive, to help fight the epidemic,
which ultimately killed more than 15,000 Africans. The
committee rejected that explanation, pointing out that Pfizer
physicians completed their trial and left while "the epidemic
was still raging."
The panel said an oral form of Trovan, the Pfizer drug used
in the test, had apparently never been given to children with
meningitis. There are no records documenting that Pfizer told
the children or their parents that they were part of an
experiment, it said. An approval letter from a Nigerian
ethics committee, which Pfizer used to justify its actions
had been concocted and backdated by the company's lead
researcher in Kano, the report said. The panel concluded that
the experiment violated Nigerian law, the international
Declaration of Helsinki that governs ethical medical research
and the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Five children died after being treated with the experimental
antibiotic and others showed signs of arthritis, although
there is no evidence the drug played a part. Six children
died while taking a comparison drug. The panel recommended
that Pfizer be "sanctioned appropriately" and directed to
issue "an unreserved apology to the government and people of
Nigeria." The company should also pay an unspecified amount
of restitution, the report said. The panel recommended that
Nigeria enact reforms to prevent a recurrence.
Aspects of the affair remain mysterious, such as why the
report remains confidential. The head of the investigative
panel, Abdulsalami Nasidi, said in a brief telephone
conversation from Nigeria, "I don't really know myself" why
the report was never released. "I did my job as a civil
servant," said Nasidi, who is quoted in the report as saying
he has been the target of unspecified death threats.
A New York City attorney for the families of the children,
Elaine Kusel of Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman, said her
firm had spent years looking for the report, of which they
believed there were only three copies. They tracked one to a
Nigerian government safe, but it was reported stolen, she
said. Another copy was reported to have been held by an
official who died.
"It sounds like a mystery novel here, like John le Carré,"
Kusel said.
The current Nigerian health minister, Eyitayo Lambo, did not
respond to calls and e-mail messages from a reporter. Dora
Akunyili, director of the Nigerian drug control agency, said
she did not know why the report remained confidential but
added that her agency had independently concluded that "these
people did not have authority to conduct the trial."
Executives at Pfizer, the world's biggest drug company, said
they had not seen the report. After reviewing a copy, they
responded in a two-page statement:
"The Nigerian government has neither contacted Pfizer about
any of the committee's findings nor are we aware that the
committee has approved a final report. Therefore it would be
inappropriate for the company to respond to specific points
in the document. "However, as we have stated repeatedly over
the past several years, Pfizer conducted this trial with the
full knowledge of the Nigerian government and in a
responsible way consistent with Nigerian law and Pfizer's
abiding commitment to patient safety."
Pfizer said it had previously tested the drug in thousands of
patients and found it effective. Local nurses explained the
experiment to Nigerian parents, it added, and obtained their
"verbal" consent. The company said that Trovan demonstrated
the highest survival rate of any treatment at the hospital.
"Trovan unquestionably saved lives, and Pfizer strongly
disagrees with any suggestion that the company conducted its
study in an unethical manner," the statement said.
At the time of the Nigerian experiment, Pfizer was developing
Trovan for release in the United States, where it was
expected to gross up to $1 billion a year. The FDA never
approved Trovan for use in treating American children. After
being cleared for adult use in 1997, the drug quickly became
one of the most prescribed antibiotics in the United States.
But Trovan was later associated with reports of liver damage
and deaths, leading the FDA to severely restrict its use in
1999. European regulators banned the drug.
After The Post published its report, Nigeria's health
minister at the time, Tim Menakaya, appointed a blue-ribbon
panel of medical experts to look into Pfizer's actions,
saying, "Let me assure you that my ministry will take all
necessary steps to obtain details of this incident and make
them known to the general public." The committee collected
hundreds of documents and interviewed at least 26 people.
Pfizer had told authorities that a Nigerian doctor directed
the experiment. The committee, however, found that
researchers from Pfizer's U.S. office controlled the trial,
and the inexperienced Kano doctor, Abdulhamid Isa Dutse, was
the principal investigator "only by name." Publications
listed Dutse as the lead author of articles on Trovan, but
the committee found that depiction "did not sufficiently
reflect his role." Dutse indicated he was kept in the dark
about the experiment's results and said he did not see at
least one publication until the committee showed it to him.
"He was shocked that Pfizer could publish such data without
showing him or intimating him with details," the report said,
concluding that Dutse was "naive and exploited."
The report quoted Dutse as saying that Pfizer's motive was
far from philanthropic. "I have trusted people and am
disappointed," Dutse told the committee. "I regret this whole
exercise, I wonder why on earth I did this." Dutse admitted
that he created a letter after the experiment purporting to
show that the test had been approved in advance by a Nigerian
hospital's ethics committee. He then backdated the letter to
March 28, 1996 -- a week before Pfizer's experiment began.
Pfizer used the letter as a key justification for the trial
in discussions with reporters and submitted it to the FDA.
U.S. regulations require the sponsors of foreign medical
research seeking FDA approval to show that the tests have
been reviewed in advance by an ethics committee. The Post
previously reported that the hospital had no ethics committee
in March 1996 and that the letterhead stationery used was not
created until months after the experiment's conclusion. In a
statement last week, Pfizer said that after that article
appeared, the company investigated and found that the letter
was "incorrect."
"Obviously this should not have occurred and the company very
much regrets that it did," the statement said. "It is
important to point out, though, that Pfizer thought proper
procedure had been followed at the time of the clinical
study." The former director of Nigeria's version of the FDA
said the agency had been unaware of the experiment. He told
the panel that he "viewed the conduct of the trial by Pfizer
as an act of deception and misuse of privilege."
The report said the treatment of two children during the
experiment represented unspecified "serious deviations" from
the trial's protocol and concluded that those deviations
compromised their care. One was a 10-year-old girl identified
only as Patient No. 0069, who was given the experimental
antibiotic for three days as her condition deteriorated. She
died without receiving any other antibiotic.
Last week, Rep. Tom Lantos of California, the senior Democrat
on the International Relations Committee, described the
report's findings as "absolutely appalling" and called on
Pfizer to open its records.
"I think it borders on the criminal that the large
pharmaceutical companies, both here and in Europe, are using
these poor, illiterate and uninformed people as guinea pigs,"
Lantos said.
Lantos said he expected to introduce a bill requiring U.S.
researchers to give regulators details of tests they plan in
developing countries. "It's the only ethical thing to do,"
Lantos said. The bill is similar to one his committee
approved in 2001 that did not make it out of the House.
"There should be a lot of bipartisan support for it. This
outrages people." The report's findings also breathe new life
into a lawsuit against Pfizer, according to Kusel, who
represents 30 Nigerian families. "It's great news, I'm very
excited," she said when told of the committee's conclusions.
The families sued Pfizer in federal court in New York in
2001, alleging that the company had exposed the children to
"cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment." A U.S. judge
dismissed the suit last summer, saying U.S. courts lacked
jurisdiction. Kusel is appealing. "A report like this does
not get suppressed without someone high up being involved,"
she said.
Thank you for honoring me with the gift of your friendship. Compassion is the answer; vegan is the way. Until all creatures are free...hugs to you, PLV
