Western Medicine Reaping What It Has Sowed in Sub-Saharan Africa

Not even 2% of the world's doctor's practice in sub-Saharan Africa. So, then, why is it that Africans, who are in desperate need of medical care and attention, distrust Western medicine that is, ostensibly, coming to their side?

Harriet Washington chronicles several injustices that Western medicine has reaped throughout the continent and makes clear that these tragic injustices--from biological weapons in South Africa to the tens of thousands infected with HIV via reused and contaminated needles--become highly publicized across the continent. Thus, a backlash against Western medicine. Washington:

Certainly, the vast majority of beneficent Western medical workers in Africa are to be thanked, not censured. But the canon of "silence equals death" applies here: We are ignoring a responsibility to defend the mass of innocent Western doctors against the belief that they are not treating disease, but intentionally spreading it. We should approach Africans' suspicions with respect, realizing that they are born of the acts of a few monsters and of the deadly constraints on medical care in difficult conditions. By continuing to dismiss their reasonable fears, we raise the risk of even more needless illness and death.