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Abdullahi v. Pfizer, Inc. article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
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Reasons for maintaining article status:
1. This article is merely a summary of four judicial opinions.
2. It is not clear why a summary of one judicial opinion, with discussion of the procedural history would be acceptable, but a discussion of four related opinions would violate wikipedia.
3. The only original sources quoted are case law. I also quote a newspaper article, that has, to my knowledge, been quoted twice by wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Timsmyth ( talk • contribs)
First of all the "summary" is too long. We need a summary of the summary, preferably outlining the main points. Secondly the pictures don't seem to have much to do with the actual case. Adding in a picture of the different courts of appeals in the US should be removed for something more pivotal to this case. Also Jimmy Carter shouldn't have his picture in there just for "getting involved". This article is very poorly done as of right now. Fatrb38 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:23, 28 February 2009 (UTC).
A trial litigation should involve the information for the both sides. However, this article is not giving much information about the Pfizer side of the lawsuit.-- Gultepe.e ( talk) 15:35, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Is the 1996 incident notable enough to warrant a wikipaedia page of its own. If it is then the ongoing litigation could become a section in that new page. Litigation as a page in itself seems unusual. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.6.94.47 ( talk) 03:11, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
Just tagged 2009 settlement section as requiring update. The section states: "An out-of-court settlement was reached and will be put in writing at a meeting scheduled to take place in Rome, Italy in March 2009" and we're passed 2009 (the tag propoclol suggests a comment on the talk page if it's used) Icarusgeek ( talk) 15:36, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
I removed the quote from Tom Lantos because it does not add factual material to the article and promotes a non-neutral point of view. The problem with quotes of this type is that they become "back door" approaches to introducing the opinions and non-neutral POV of editors into articles. One merely picks a prominent political figure whose opinion is similar to one's own, and by quoting that third party, is free to inject their own opinions into the article.
The person who added the Tom Lantos quote to this article may see Mr. Lantos as someone whose opinion he values. Would you be equally comfortable with someone adding value-laden quotes from Rush Limbaugh, Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, or Newt Gingrich? Perhaps a quote about Bill Clinton's character from Newt Gingrich in the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article on Clinton?
I think this is something we want to stay away from.
Respectfully,
Alfred Bertheim ( talk) 07:48, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
The issue is not Lantos' impartiality but the notability of his remarks. It's hard to find out their context because the reference seems to now be behind a pay-wall, but the word "panel" in the headline is suggestive. Far from being "just a guy like you or me" who is "emotionaly biased" by the Holocaust, Lantos spoke as a member of the House International Relations Committee as well as Congressional Human Rights Caucus (now renamed in his honor) and was in a far better position to participate in events than Rush Lindbaugh. The next step should be to clarify what "the report" in the removed sentence refers to. Sparafucil ( talk) 09:27, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
In May 2006, however, at least one member of the United States Congress, Representative Tom Lantos of California, the senior Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, described the report’s findings as “absolutely appalling” and called for Pfizer to open its records. [1]
The report reviewed by Lantos was the one generated by the Nigerian Medical review panel. http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/06/news/companies/pfizer_reut0506/index.htm Alfred Bertheim ( talk) 13:11, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I note that Mr ADHD has now added a reference to court documents in support of the claim that Pfizer used a "dramatically substandard" dose of cephatrioxone in the control arm. The reference is to a court document that I am unable to find online. Could you provide a link? As no US court ever ruled on the issues in this case, I suspect you are citing the plantiff's allegations, rather than a court ruling. This cannot be considered a reliable source. Furthermore, such claims seem to be contradicted by the observation that the death rate in the control arm was similar to the Trovafloxacin arm. Alfred Bertheim ( talk) 13:39, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Regards and thanks for the stimulating discussion. Alfred Bertheim ( talk) 04:50, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
P.S. I'd be very interested to see the informed consent document used by Doctors Without Borders for their clinical trial, which was designed to demonstrate that a 90% reduction in antibiotic dose would be equally effective. EVen if the rationale is excellent, how exactly does one ask permission from a mother of a child with meningitis, "oh by the way, we're going to use the same antibiotic we usually use in these cases, but at 10% the normal dose."? Alfred Bertheim ( talk) 04:57, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
References
The intro states that Pfizer used a 33 mg/kg dose of ceftriaxone in the control arm. A search of the PDF verison of the source cited for the 33 mg dose in the text ("The Politics of Polio in Northern Nigeria") shows that this book discusses the Pfizer trial solely in terms of whether the use of Trovan was ethical, and does not discuss the dose of ceftriaxone or even mention the name of the drug. Pfizer's "Statement of defense", linked at the bottom of the page, states that they used a 100 mg/kg dose, followed by daily 33 mg/kg doses. Thus, unless there are other sources, the only source we have for the Pfizer dose of ceftriaxone is Pfizer's statement that they used 100 mg/kg with follow-up doses of 33 mg. The 33 mg/kg single dose claim is unsourced.
The intro also states that the standard dose recommended by Medicins Sans Frontiers is 100 mg. THe official recommendation by the World Health Organization at that time was not 100 mg/kg but 50-80 mg per kg. It is cited in the same document used as a source for the Medicins Sans Frontier's recommendation. Since the document is a request by MSF to WHO to change the recommended dosing regimen, it would seem that WHO is the more authoritative source and the correct one to cite.
Lastly, whether the "less than the FDA recommended dose..." claim is true is ambiguous. The FDA prescribing information for ceftriaxone recommends a dose of 100 mg/kg per day, but does not specify the number of days of therapy. The difference between the Pfizer and the FDA regimens does not seem clear cut enough to highlight in the intro, especially given that it exceeded the WHO recommended dose that was extant at that time.
So not to beat the drum too hard, but the article appears to conflict with the best/only available sources in claiming that Pfizer underdosed ceftriaxone. It appears that they used doses in excess of the WHO recommended dose.
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Abdullahi v. Pfizer, Inc. article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
![]() | A news item involving Abdullahi v. Pfizer, Inc. was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on 28 February 2009. | ![]() |
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Reasons for maintaining article status:
1. This article is merely a summary of four judicial opinions.
2. It is not clear why a summary of one judicial opinion, with discussion of the procedural history would be acceptable, but a discussion of four related opinions would violate wikipedia.
3. The only original sources quoted are case law. I also quote a newspaper article, that has, to my knowledge, been quoted twice by wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Timsmyth ( talk • contribs)
First of all the "summary" is too long. We need a summary of the summary, preferably outlining the main points. Secondly the pictures don't seem to have much to do with the actual case. Adding in a picture of the different courts of appeals in the US should be removed for something more pivotal to this case. Also Jimmy Carter shouldn't have his picture in there just for "getting involved". This article is very poorly done as of right now. Fatrb38 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:23, 28 February 2009 (UTC).
A trial litigation should involve the information for the both sides. However, this article is not giving much information about the Pfizer side of the lawsuit.-- Gultepe.e ( talk) 15:35, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Is the 1996 incident notable enough to warrant a wikipaedia page of its own. If it is then the ongoing litigation could become a section in that new page. Litigation as a page in itself seems unusual. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.6.94.47 ( talk) 03:11, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
Just tagged 2009 settlement section as requiring update. The section states: "An out-of-court settlement was reached and will be put in writing at a meeting scheduled to take place in Rome, Italy in March 2009" and we're passed 2009 (the tag propoclol suggests a comment on the talk page if it's used) Icarusgeek ( talk) 15:36, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
I removed the quote from Tom Lantos because it does not add factual material to the article and promotes a non-neutral point of view. The problem with quotes of this type is that they become "back door" approaches to introducing the opinions and non-neutral POV of editors into articles. One merely picks a prominent political figure whose opinion is similar to one's own, and by quoting that third party, is free to inject their own opinions into the article.
The person who added the Tom Lantos quote to this article may see Mr. Lantos as someone whose opinion he values. Would you be equally comfortable with someone adding value-laden quotes from Rush Limbaugh, Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, or Newt Gingrich? Perhaps a quote about Bill Clinton's character from Newt Gingrich in the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article on Clinton?
I think this is something we want to stay away from.
Respectfully,
Alfred Bertheim ( talk) 07:48, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
The issue is not Lantos' impartiality but the notability of his remarks. It's hard to find out their context because the reference seems to now be behind a pay-wall, but the word "panel" in the headline is suggestive. Far from being "just a guy like you or me" who is "emotionaly biased" by the Holocaust, Lantos spoke as a member of the House International Relations Committee as well as Congressional Human Rights Caucus (now renamed in his honor) and was in a far better position to participate in events than Rush Lindbaugh. The next step should be to clarify what "the report" in the removed sentence refers to. Sparafucil ( talk) 09:27, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
In May 2006, however, at least one member of the United States Congress, Representative Tom Lantos of California, the senior Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, described the report’s findings as “absolutely appalling” and called for Pfizer to open its records. [1]
The report reviewed by Lantos was the one generated by the Nigerian Medical review panel. http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/06/news/companies/pfizer_reut0506/index.htm Alfred Bertheim ( talk) 13:11, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I note that Mr ADHD has now added a reference to court documents in support of the claim that Pfizer used a "dramatically substandard" dose of cephatrioxone in the control arm. The reference is to a court document that I am unable to find online. Could you provide a link? As no US court ever ruled on the issues in this case, I suspect you are citing the plantiff's allegations, rather than a court ruling. This cannot be considered a reliable source. Furthermore, such claims seem to be contradicted by the observation that the death rate in the control arm was similar to the Trovafloxacin arm. Alfred Bertheim ( talk) 13:39, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Regards and thanks for the stimulating discussion. Alfred Bertheim ( talk) 04:50, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
P.S. I'd be very interested to see the informed consent document used by Doctors Without Borders for their clinical trial, which was designed to demonstrate that a 90% reduction in antibiotic dose would be equally effective. EVen if the rationale is excellent, how exactly does one ask permission from a mother of a child with meningitis, "oh by the way, we're going to use the same antibiotic we usually use in these cases, but at 10% the normal dose."? Alfred Bertheim ( talk) 04:57, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
References
The intro states that Pfizer used a 33 mg/kg dose of ceftriaxone in the control arm. A search of the PDF verison of the source cited for the 33 mg dose in the text ("The Politics of Polio in Northern Nigeria") shows that this book discusses the Pfizer trial solely in terms of whether the use of Trovan was ethical, and does not discuss the dose of ceftriaxone or even mention the name of the drug. Pfizer's "Statement of defense", linked at the bottom of the page, states that they used a 100 mg/kg dose, followed by daily 33 mg/kg doses. Thus, unless there are other sources, the only source we have for the Pfizer dose of ceftriaxone is Pfizer's statement that they used 100 mg/kg with follow-up doses of 33 mg. The 33 mg/kg single dose claim is unsourced.
The intro also states that the standard dose recommended by Medicins Sans Frontiers is 100 mg. THe official recommendation by the World Health Organization at that time was not 100 mg/kg but 50-80 mg per kg. It is cited in the same document used as a source for the Medicins Sans Frontier's recommendation. Since the document is a request by MSF to WHO to change the recommended dosing regimen, it would seem that WHO is the more authoritative source and the correct one to cite.
Lastly, whether the "less than the FDA recommended dose..." claim is true is ambiguous. The FDA prescribing information for ceftriaxone recommends a dose of 100 mg/kg per day, but does not specify the number of days of therapy. The difference between the Pfizer and the FDA regimens does not seem clear cut enough to highlight in the intro, especially given that it exceeded the WHO recommended dose that was extant at that time.
So not to beat the drum too hard, but the article appears to conflict with the best/only available sources in claiming that Pfizer underdosed ceftriaxone. It appears that they used doses in excess of the WHO recommended dose.