Pfizer Pays Compensation to Drug Trial Victims

The company has paid $175,000 to four families in the first of a series of payments as part of an out-of-court settlement reached in 2009.

Pharmaceutical company Pfizer has begun paying compensation to Nigerian families affected by a controversial meningitis drug trial 15 years ago that left 11 children dead and dozens disabled.

During a trial in 1996 conducted by Pfizer of experimental anti-meningitis drug, Trovan, 200 children were given the drug and 11 children died and dozens more were left disabled after the trial. But for years Pfizer has maintained that the deaths and disabilities were cause by meningitis and not the drug.

The company has paid $175,000 to four families in the first of a series of payments as part of an out-of-court settlement reached in 2009.