Over 600 Claimants for Pfizer Settlement Funds?

Although 200 patients participated in the Trovan trials in 1996 when 100 of them were placed on the gold standard drug and the other 100 were given Trovan, more than 600 people have already filled and submitted their application forms claiming to be ‘victims’ of the Trovan trials.
In a typically Nigerian scenario, queuing up in front of the headquarters of the Trust Fund set up to administer the funds has become a full time occupation for the claimants. It had been speculated for a long time that all sorts of claimants would be coming out of the woodwork as soon as there was indication that the Trovan cases would be settled out of court. Unfortunately, those who raised alarm at that time were demonized and called unprintable names by the so-called Trovan Victims’ Forum. Now that the worst fears of those who care about the image of Nigeria have materialized, the Board of Trustees is saddled with the unenviable task of sifting out the liars and crooks among the claimants. It is now clear to the whole nation why some of the more noisy self-appointed ‘stakeholders’ were campaigning against the use of DNA tests to determine the veracity of claims. At a stage, one of the grandmasters actually said the use of DNA was unislamic. He kept repeating that line until the Emir of Kano, a wise man who saw through the schemes and posturing, declared that the use of DNA and other parameters would help ensure that only the right beneficiaries accessed the funds.
Many analysts and close watchers of goings on in Kano since the announcement of the settlement are now wondering what would become of the new industry of ‘victimhood’ which developed around the settlement issue. There were allegations of people going round families and hiring their disabled members to come and pose as Pfizer victims. It will be interesting to see how many of those in the pictures distributed all over the media in the heat of the litigation eventually turn out to be genuine claimants. But for now it is clear that those who were hoping that money would just be handed over to anyone with any form of disability even where that individual was born disabled are living in a fool’s paradise.
One thing that none of the nay Sayers has been able to challenge is the integrity of the Board. It is generally conceded that the Board is made up of men and women of high integrity. It would be difficult for the crooks to blackmail the Board, but they are already giving blackmail a try, if feelers coming out of the grapevine are anything to go by. What the unscrupulous crowd thought was that once they demonize the Board and further cast aspersions on the integrity of Pfizer, fat cheques would be dropped on their laps like hot potato. They didn’t reckon that for once some people are going to insist on absolute transparency. Now their camp is in disarray. But nobody is fooled by the lull in their open campaign because reports indicate that they have gone underground to avoid a direct collision with the traditional authorities.
The important thing is that finally transparency is going to be the guiding principle of the entire exercise and all those who participated in the Trovan trials of 1996 will be compensated under the principle of more money for more verifiable health problem, that is a patient without any form of impairment will receive far less than one with verifiable disability. That sounds fair.
What is frightening is that some people could have it in their mind to take advantage of a tragic situation which resulted from a tragic epidemic to plot a diabolical scheme to make false claims and deprive the real patients their just due.
It is hoped that the Board will stay the course and not allow itself to be distracted by the plots and sub-plots of 419ers posing as ‘victims’.
Judging from the caliber of the men and women on that Board, one can rest assured that they will rise up to the challenge.