editorial comment FOR several decades, medical experts and scientists from the developed world have used Africans as guinea pigs, where they test the efficacy of their drugs or engage in any other medical experiment without being challenged. It would appear the practice is still rampant and we believe it’s time African leaders stand by their people and avoid accepting anything Western without carrying out due diligence. By now Africa should have its own pool of experts to counter such practices. Last week, we carried a rather disturbing report where medical experts from the United Kingdom, United States, Cameroon, South Africa and Zimbabwe questioned the veracity of a World Health Organisation (WHO)-led campaign to circumcise millions of African boys and men as an effective means to reduce HIV transmission. Published in the Developing World Bioethics, the study examined the history and politics of these circumcision campaigns in the context of race and colonialism, and found that they were hastily adopted without sufficient contextual research. Without robust scientific evidence, WHO and UNAids in 2007 recommended voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) as critical, claiming that it could reduce the risk of sexual transmission of HIV from females to males by 60%. However, it’s now emerging that the decision to implement the circumcision campaign in southern and eastern Africa was not based on robust scientific evidence, but just assumed that the results from clinical trials would safely “scale” to the real world without thinking through the cultural implications. It also emerged that Africans were underrepresented in the decision-making process and the continent was deliberately targeted for the experiment just because we have a gullible leadership which believes anything Western is well-intended. As if not to be outdone, Zimbabwe blindly adopted the medical intervention in its formative stages and foisted it on its citizens without realising that the campaign was mere systemic racism and “neo-colonialism” than sound scientific research. Just five months ago, two French doctors courted controversy over another racially-motivated suggestion to test a potential COVID-19 vaccine on people in Africa. Rights groups were quick to dismiss the proposal as racist, but worryingly not a single regulatory authority has come out to publicly denounce these statements. We strongly believe Africa, though desperate for aid, is not the laboratory of Europe. Africans are not rats and should never be treated as guinea pigs.
