Dying for drugs.

How far are drug companies prepared to go to get their products approved and how can we be sure that the right drugs are reaching the right people? This programme investigates how on one hand pharmaceutical companies using developing world to test new drugs, yet deny them access to the drugs later when the drug is approved by making them too expensive. We hear how Pfizer used an untested drug for meningitis (Trovan) on children in Kano, Nigeria, and the effects on children afterwards. The programme also examines the cavalier way in which Apotex Inc. conducted a trial for a thalassaemia drug at the Toronto Hospiral for Sick Children which they abruptly terminated when the possibility arose that the drug might be dangerous, and the doctor conducting the trial was forbidden from giving any explanation to the patients who had participated. Finally we visit a 12-year-old boy in Honduras whose family can't afford medicines to help him with his HIV / AIDS. The boy dies and the doctor who attempted to help him is found shot dead in his office.