Jennifer Riera on "Inventing 'African' AIDS"

In her piece, “Inventing ‘African’ AIDS,” the author, Cindy Patton, explores how the racist and colonialist discourse of “African AIDS” was both created and used to justify unethical medical exploitation of African individuals on behalf of the West. However, for this blog, I would like to focus on this idea of “catastrophic rights” and how it facilitated the implementation of unethical vaccine trials amongst the African population by the West due to the popular misconception that Africa had already been disproportionately and catastrophically affected by HIV/AIDS.

As was explained in the reading, this concept of “catastrophic rights” can be best defined as the “…trials which don’t quite pass ethical muster [but] should be allowed as ‘compassionate’” (380). In other words, while the “compassionate” portion of this working definition may sound like a sympathetic gesture from the West, in reality, these “rights” essentially provide the West with the legal backing to exploit African bodies due to the popular belief that the country and its inhabitants are already (or soon will be) in a catastrophic state and, thus, in dire need of intervention from the West, even if it means ignoring ethical standards and guidelines to ensure the safety of those receiving the trial vaccine. Moreover, the author also adds that by framing the situation in catastrophic and epidemic proportions, it helps portray this idea that the deadly fate of most, if not all, African individuals has already been decided and, thus, would make great test “subjects” for the benefit of the greater good.

Essentially, this idea that the test subjects—that is, HIV/AIDS infected African individuals—aren’t worthy of a proper implementation of ethical provisions and guidelines clearly highlights this reoccurring theme of racism on behalf of the west. For example, the fact that the trials had three phases, two of which would simply test the affects of the vaccine on non-infected US and British individuals while the third phase would test the vaccine on actual infected Africans, suggests that while white bodies are kept far from the risk of death, black bodies, on the contrary, are viewed as dispensable and less worthy, thus, marking them as prime subjects to test the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the vaccine in maintaining the already infected individual alive.

Seeing how this article explores unethical medical trials and its relation to racism, I would like to connect this back to the Tuskegee trials. Although I am aware that the article already briefly touched upon this topic, I still believe that it is a prime contemporary example worth discussing as it showcases how racial ideologies can have an impact on medicine, science, and the worthiness of ethical provisions and guidelines. As was already briefly explained, the Tuskegee trials were a set of medical trials aimed to test the effects of syphilis on individuals if left untreated. However, it is also important to note that the test subjects who were left untreated were also not told they were given syphilis and, thus, were never given the opportunity to provide consent, much less an informed consent. While that already crosses the line into unethical territory, the racial aspect comes into play when you consider the fact that the test subjects under observation were all Black males. Again, the fact that those who were infected with syphilis and left untreated were Black men strongly reveals whose lives are considered worthy and those who are considered dispensable and less worthy of being kept alive and healthy.

On a similar note, the same argument can be made about Latinas in California who were either coerced or manipulated into sterilization. In a time where the eugenics movement was in full fledge, those who were considered “unfit” for reproduction, such as racial minorities, were forced into sterilization, often times without knowledge or consent. Going back to this racialized idea of who is worthy of living can be seen in this example in the sense that Latinas, due to their racial identity, were thought of as inferior and unfit and, thus, were sterilized in order to prevent them from reproducing and passing on their “faulty” genes.

Because the eugenics movement relied heavily on racial and class ideologies, I would like to further discuss the eugenics movement and its impact in class, especially as it relates to women.