It is a rare instance in which the people of one nation get to see the judiciary of another in action up close. That happened here on the University campus Friday, as the Navajo Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of Nelson v. Pfizer, a lawsuit stemming from the failure of Pfizer’s Rezulin anti-diabetes drug in some patients.
The suit came about after 16 Navajo tribe members came forward, claiming liver damage and other injuries resulted from the use of Rezulin.
We do not buy the argument of Pfizer that it is somehow immune to the Navajo Court’s jurisdiction. Pfizer said it had “no relationship” with the Navajo, but this is absurd. The company was selling its product on Navajo land. According to the plaintiffs, there were direct marketing attempts on Navajo reservations to sell the medication.
This lawsuit is no different than if a German or Kenyan or Japanese citizen were to sue Pfizer. This argument almost smacks to us of a “We’re an American company, we don’t recognize this court” argument. Wrong.
There is a bigger issue at play here, however. While we sympathize with the need to quickly bring out medicines that can save lives, there has to be a process in which these medicines are tested so they pose the least risk to human life possible, rather than being rubber-stamped out to suit the drug companies.
According to an article published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a full 20 percent of prescription medicines may pose an unacceptable risk to patients. Many of these medicines don’t receive a thorough-enough testing regimen, and the Food and Drug Administration sometimes relies on the companies’ own data, which can be biased in favor of approval.
Of the 1.9 million who have taken Rezulin, there have been 66 certified instances of liver failure resulting in death. Some researchers say the number of all instances of damage could reach as high as 2,000.
Similarly, drugs such as Baycol and phen-fen, touted as medicinal panaceas, have seriously jeopardized patients’ bodies after approval, their risks swept under the rug.
This is intolerable. Perhaps more lawsuits, such as the Navajo case against Pfizer, will force drug companies into some sort of responsibility. But we doubt it. It is time that the FDA take action, test drugs thoroughly and force drug manufacturers, under pain of permanent rejection of a drug, to present every shred of test data on a drug up for approval.