Since September 2004, an American laboratory called Gilead has been testing a preventive medication for HIV/AIDS called Viread (or Viread DF) in Cameroon. They hired and paid a man 800,000 dollars to recruit young and uninformed Cameroonian girls to serve as laboratory rats. They promised to pay 4 Euros -approximately 5 dollars- per month to every girl who will be infected.
Officially, 400 young and uneducated girls were recruited. After being contaminated by the virus, they were simply abandoned by the laboratory officials who promised to take care of them.
An officer of the Ministry of Health unabashedly said that his position has been created because of the existence of that American Lab, therefore, there was nothing he could do to remedy the situation.
Currently, more cases of such experiments are taking place in many developing countries.
Should life be sacrificed for science?
Ebede, this is really interesting. I keep reading about new experiments with gels, etc, but the local media always seems very vague about how these tests are performed.
ReplyDeleteNo, human lives should not be sacrificed for science. This is complete corruption & exploitation of these young girls.
ReplyDeleteI would like to know how aware is the UN & other local NGOs that such injustice is taking place. Would they be able to intervene on a human rights level, or is this so hidden underground it is not possible.
The American Lab should be held accountable on the highest federal offense level for infecting, shortening the lives, and ultimately murdering these girls.
This story, on its face, defies logic and sense. It's not probable that an organization would pay such an exorbitant salary to an individual who would gladly accept $800.00 to perform the same task. If true, the perpetrators are despicable murderers without regard for human life and should be sentenced to the same fate as their subjects. It's an atrocity to gather healthy human subjects and inject them with a deadly poison. The burning question is: why can't they gather subjects that already have the virus? These will be willing subjects! The fatal nature of the disease will cause anyone to seek any remedy available.
ReplyDeleteIf the Cameroonian government has actual knowledge of this evil, and consented to it, then it's further evidence that colonialism still exists. A country's progress is directly linked to how much the leadership cares about its people. It can be argued that scientific breakthroughs preserve life, enrich our communications, speed up our mobility, and give us countless future options. However, sacrificing human life for science, especially when other options are available, should be considered a crime.
Sam
California
Wow. Ebede,
ReplyDeleteI've just read your blog post and have come away shocked, incensed and deeply saddened. No, I do not believe that life should be sacrificed for science; to do so either against one's will or without their direct knowledge is criminal and tragically immoral.
I'm curious to learn more through your story. Why were the girls abandoned? Was the remedy proven to be ineffective and so they wanted to bail on the project? Or, was it due to a political battle over licensing and funding between governments?
The reason doesn't change the fact that this is an atrocity, however, it may lend a deeper understanding towards how these situations can arise and perhaps facilitate action to hamper, if not altogether stop these kinds of brutal practices.
Respectfully,
Marie
Olga, the local media can't tell you how those tests are performed; the reason is simple: they don't know. Nobody really knows what to expect from those experiments, not even the researchers, that is why they are called experiments. Sometimes, when an experiment goes wrong, we end up with worse case scenarios.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, I understand your point of view, but what can the UN or local NGOs do when the local government supports it? It is not hidden, it's been on national TVs in France. It is a shame that the Cameroonian Government can't learn from what other governments have done. The same thing happened in Cambodia and the Government there put a stop to such experiments.
Sam,LOGIC and SENSE are not the words I would use when it comes to some African governments, and in this case; the Cameroonian government. PROBABILITY becomes CERTAINTY when it is applied to a corrupt system. I understand that it is a little hard to believe that somebody is paid $800,000 dollars when they can accept much less. Look at it this way: do you think an organization would be stupid enough to pay that much money to an individual? It is a system, and a system is the combination of many elements. One element is as important as the other. In this case, one element has been scapegoated to cover the dirty deal of the system. In one word; the organization paid the government and the person was the mediator.
For your burning question: why can't they gather subjects that already have the virus? I would simply say that we are talking about experiment, and to do an experiment you need at least two groups: one would be control group and the other would be experiment group. One group would be healthy and the other infected, then you can control the healthy group by manipulating (or infecting)it and compute the changes. It is called manipulating variables.
Furthermore, I hate to blame everything evil that happens in Africa on the back of colonialism. Neo-colonialism is still there, but I am not sure if the French or British were the ones who took the $800,000 to allow pure and innocent girls to undergo this horrible treatment.
The argument of the Lab officials is that if you can sacrifice 400 people to save 4000,000 people, it is definitely a risk to take. I don't know about that.
Marie, you are rightfully shocked and I understand that. Nevertheless, the girls -even though uninformed and uneducated- were willing to be exposed to the experiments on the promise that they would be paid about $5 per month which they thought was enough to make a living. I don't justify the odious act of the Lab, I simply feel sorry for these ignorant girls who think they have nothing to offer in life.
They were abandoned because the experiment didn't work the way they expected and the Lab didn't want to pick the costly tab of people living with HIV. There was no political battle, it was simply the ineffectiveness of the experiment.
I sincerly appreciate your comments, they are very helpful in reflecting on this absurdity.
First of all we need to look at the truth of the so called experiments, I do not dispute I just question it??? Sources please... First lets get the facts right, the company is called Gilead and the drug is VIREAD DF also known as Tenofovir...
ReplyDeleteI might not have the facts right and not to sound like I am on the side of biopharma, I do not believe they actually said that the girls would be encouraged to have multiple partners. If I can reacall correctly theu samples high risk women who are known at some point to engage with multiple sex partners. This was a chance experiment and yes its not right to use humans as guinea pigs for emerging drugs still undergoing development. However, they did not inject the girls with the live virus...please note... they used an analog which targets the polymerase enzyme that is vital to the replication of both HIV and HBV. Thus it is like the other vaccines, which are usually the attenuated form of the disease, and slightly different as this is an analog of the specific target enzyme not the virus......Having said that it is not right to use "innocent girls" to do these tests, however I believe they picked high risk groups.......
Human rights forever!!!
peace
Ebede, it appears your paraphrasing of this story lacked some key elements which one of the responders carefully pointed out. She said “they did not inject the girls with the live virus” but used a mild version of the disease. The scientific analogy she used escapes me but it’s clear that this was a subdued, albeit dangerous, experiment. That said, this particular story does not hold any significance nor worthy of much debate. African nations, and to some degree, South American and Asian nations, have and will continue to be prime targets of so-called experiments by Europeans and Americans. This type of thing has been going on for a very long time. Why? There are many reasons. One is a nation without an established legal system and the enforcement of laws of that system cannot protect its citizens. The “experiment”, in this case Aids testing, is used as a rouse to gain something more valuable. In the late 20th century the Italians purchased tracks of land in Eritrea as a guise to settlement when in essence their ultimate goal was to plot and topple the Ethiopian Empire. The Ethiopians gave them a beating to remember. Today, the international community is intolerant of human rights abuses, wherever they are committed. What occurred in Iran during their recent “democratic” elections is a good example. Perpetrators penetrate foreign lands for pure imperialistic and capitalistic purposes. They have traded in their guns for needles and their military uniforms for lab coats to appear humanitarian. Aids is an epidemic is it not? People die of it every day. It is not difficult for a well-funded group of “scientists” to approach a foreign government with a plan to rid its citizens of the Aids virus. This cleaver approach gets the cooperation of everyone, including the greed-infested government officials who readily accept brides so they can go to Europe and buy English and Italian suits. Let’s put on our thinking hats. This thing is bigger than some experiment.
ReplyDeleteI'm not surprise by this case but i am shocked by the girls behaviour because even though your uneducated a human being can use his good sense to distinguish what is good or bad for him.In another way, i don't share your point of view about information on HIV in Cameroon;if the girls are uninformed according to me,they don't live in Cameroon because all of us know that in Cameroon HIV/AIDS the only disease on which most sensibilisation campaigns are organized even my grand mum who is in the village is informes about that disease how young girls who are not surly teen could be uninforemed? To sum up,instead to be uninforemed they are simply ignorant.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely, not.
ReplyDeleteThe US government continues to exploit vulnerable peoples. It's shameful--there are no words to describe how completely evil an act like this is.
ReplyDelete