Pictured: Vaccine and vial. Photo courtesy of TweakTown
The COVID-19 pandemic requires global solidarity and cooperation to ensure effective response measures around the world, but blatant racism is unfortunately still front and center on the global stage.
Two French doctors recently proposed that clinical trials for a COVID-19 vaccine be conducted in Africa. The doctors justified this comment by claiming that African people, “like prostitutes are highly exposed and don’t protect themselves.” These doctors are insinuating that African people are disposable, which is utterly unacceptable.
Not only is this language horribly inappropriate coming from healthcare providers, but this is racist and indicative of the “colonial mentality” that Black and African lives are expendable. This language also perpetuates the false narrative that people living in Africa are unable or unwilling to protect themselves from this virus.
Let’s set the record straight. One of the primary reasons for the struggling health systems across the continent is colonization and the centuries of exploitation that came with it. So, to justify racist remarks by saying that “African people don’t protect themselves” is to ignore the history that has made it nearly impossible for various African health systems to develop to their full potential.
Pictured: A photo that has been circulated on Facebook that says “Africains, nous ne sommes pas des cobayes,” which translates to “Africans, we are not guinea pigs!”
In fact, the West’s exploitation of Black lives is an atrocious theme throughout history. A prime example is any of the medical experiments on African people during the colonial era that were forcibly conducted to devastating effect. For example, French studies in Cameroon to understand sleeping sickness forced people at gunpoint to undergo medical examinations and experiments that left about 20 percent of patients with partial or total blindness.
Or consider the 1931 Tuskegee Syphilis Study in the United States, which aimed to understand the natural history of syphilis. The Black men enrolled in the study were not informed of the study’s true aims, and once a treatment for syphilis was discovered they were not given proper treatment. This exploitation was unethical and has no place in today’s world.
Overall, combatting COVID-19 is a global problem that must be met with global solutions. Testing should not be conducted on a certain group of people because of antiquated, unjust ideas. Instead clinical trials should span the globe, and we must ensure that no group is treated as expendable guinea pigs.
