I know there have been a lot of beautiful moments of humanity during this trying time but unfortunately, there are also people trying to take advantage of this world crisis. In regard to the latter, there are two top French doctors who are currently under fire for suggesting that new coronavirus vaccines be tested on the poor in Africa. To add insult to injury, the whole conversation was captured on live TV.
The doctors, Jean-Paul Mira and Camille Locht, were speaking on the French TV channel LCI, according to Business Insider. “If I can be provocative,” Mira said, “shouldn’t we do this study in Africa where there are no masks, no treatment, no intensive care? A bit like we did in some studies on AIDS. We tried things on prostitutes because they are highly exposed and do not protect themselves.”
Locht agreed with Mira, saying: “You are right. We are actually thinking of a parallel study in Africa to use with the same kind of approach with BCG placebos.”
Locht was referring to a vaccination against tuberculosis that Inserm says has appeared to protect children against infections, particularly respiratory ones.
Mira is head of the intensive-care department at the Cochin Hospital in Paris and Locht is the research director at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, known as Inserm.
The footage, which was broadcast Wednesday, has sparked outrage across the globe, with many accusing the doctors of white colonial attitudes.
A few of Africa’s leading soccer players, including the former Chelsea star Didier Drogba and the former Barcelona striker Samuel Eto’o, responded to the clip.
Drogba, who is from Ivory Coast, tweeted: “It is totally inconceivable we keep on cautioning this. Africa isn’t a testing lab. I would like to vividly denounce those demeaning, false and most of all deeply racists words.”
Inserm, ranked as the world’s second-best research institution in the health sector, issued an official statement on Twitter saying the doctors’ conversation was “wrongly interpreted” and included the hashtag “#FakeNews.”
What are your thoughts on this one? Let us know.
