Message-ID: <m11qcIP-0003mIC@fwd06.btx.dtag.de> Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 14:16:56 +0100 From: Christian Labadie <mailto:CLabadie@T-ONLINE.DE> Subject: Re: another development perspective To: mailto:DEVEL-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
The questions raised by Nicole are more than thought stimulating. Is it possible for Western countries to undertake anything towards helping Africa without undergoing a more generalised reflection on the role that they have had over many centuries in taking valuable resources away from Africa? Two years ago France started to reflect on its slavery past with some publications, what happen with this reflection?Here is an example that could help us ponder:
When I think of development, I always remember the research on the AIDS-vaccine that were started by Dr. Luruma-Zirimwa Bagabo (sorry for the misspelling) at the clinique of Kinshasa and Daniel Zagury at the University of Paris-VII. Dr. Bagabo - who had studied in Belgium - enjoyed direct contacts with Dr. Gallo of the National Institute of Cancer (Maryland, USA) and had asked him for research funding to be given to his clinique of Kinshasa. Gallo denied the aid but proposed to Bagabo to join his research team in the US.
Then Daniel Zagury published with Dr. Bagabo in 1986 in the journal Nature the first human trial of a human vaccine; it was heavily criticised as non-ethical. Dr. Gallo responded in 1987 with the start of a firm (in Connecticut if I well recall) that marketed a vaccine (at that time everyone was investing stocks on former Interferon firms in Wall Street) and with a human-trial program for homosexual volunteers (with a toll-free 800 number to register to volunteer). But if you compare the splicing of Bagabo-Zagury versus that of Gallo (see the respective articles in Nature), IMHO, Dr. Gallo had employed a position in the HIV virus genes that included a small part of the region which at that time was considered as the region responsible for the virulence.
5 years later Gallo recognised that science had learned a lot from the Bagabo-Zagury human trials (Dr. Zagury had been the first to test the vaccine on himself), namely that the virus mutates so fast that standard vaccine production would not be enough. In fact the Bagabo-Zagury experiments could have been of serious help to investors should Wall-Street take more seriously research performed in African countries (namely don't get excited about big returns on an AIDS-vaccine, this kind of research is too difficult to be performed competitively using standard market incentives - such research belongs to serious public funding programs).
In 1991, the chief MD of the Kinshasa hospital told on Radio South Africa that they were running out of kits to test blood and that they were starting to make transfusions without testing. This year the pharmaceutical industries opposed a project to wave patent fees on AIDS drugs for the countries that need them most in Africa. South Africa has taken a lead in opposing parmaceuticals.
Today we are still denying the most important resource to African countries: donations for local research investments! We still prefer to grant a fellowship for some bright students and to invite them to immigrate outside Africa. It isn't slavery but it will have the same effect as slavery has had. One can only show respect to scientists such as Dr. Bagabo who chose to return at the expense of his own scientific career.
Thanks Nicole for raising this question:-)
(C) Christian written exclusively for DEVEL-L, please do not forward, thanks:-)