DISINFO: Western pharma tested drugs on Mariupol residents
SUMMARY
Western pharmaceutical companies were testing drugs on patients at a Mariupol hospital for years with the assistance of Ukrainian officials. Documents about it were found in the basement of the hospital. Drugs had only numbers without names. A drug codenamed GLPG0634-CL-203 was found in white envelopes. The goal of the study was to evaluate the efficacy of drugs. The documents mentioned several big pharmaceutical companies from the US, the UK, Switzerland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and South Korea.
RESPONSE
Recurring disinformation narrative from pro-Kremlin outlets about biological laboratories in Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries. While the article does not contain any obvious disinformation about the procedure of clinical trials, it is written in a misleading manner and has a clear manipulative slant because it implies that international pharmaceutical companies deliberately try to harm people by conducting clinical trials. This claim was made in the context of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Documents spread by Kremlin media fail again to prove dangerous experiments in Ukraine - See the full debunk at mythdetector.ge.
It is common practice for pharmaceutical companies to carry out clinical trials on humans. The European regulation of clinical trials aims to ensure that the rights, safety and well-being of trial participants are protected and the results of clinical trials are credible. In the European Union and the European Economic Area, approximately 2,800 clinical trials are authorised each year. Pharmaceutical companies conduct drug tests in Russia as well.
In Ukraine, this practice is strictly regulated by the Health Ministry (Order 690). Clinical trials are conducted according to protocols approved by both Ukrainian and international healthcare authorities. They are all controlled by the companies themselves, Health Ministry officials and hospitals' ethics committees. Participation in clinical trials is voluntary. Patients mandatorily sign an informed consent form in which all possible risks are enlisted. Patients involved in clinical tests are insured and receive compensation in case of an adverse reaction. If a patient's safety is jeopardised, the company and the Health Ministry consider termination of the study. If a trial causes the death of a patient, which is usually a rare occasion, a thorough investigation is conducted and their relatives receive compensation. All adverse effects are followed up and scrutinised.
The fact that drugs have codes and numbers instead of names means that one group of participants takes the study drug and the other group takes a placebo, which helps evaluate the drug’s efficacy in an unbiased manner. GLPG0634-CL-203, mentioned in the disinformation article, is the number of a protocol for testing a drug for musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders. The fact that this code name was written on white envelopes did not pose a threat to the health of participants in the study.
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