The Chant of Savant

Wednesday 27 May 2009

Gene Study: Are Africans Guinea Pigs?



When I read the article: “Huge genes study shines new light on African history,” I was baffled and appalled altogether. To this moment, I don’t know what the real motive is. Why Africa but not Asia with such bigger diversity than Africa if indeed the reason is diversity?


Is it because Africans are a minute population thus easier to ‘fix’ and ‘deal’ if need be? Is it because Africans are the most exploited, vulnerable and looked down upon earth thanks to historical evils perpetrated by the West? Is it because stupid, greedy and myopic Africa potentates allow whatever nonsense to be conducted on her people by their heartless masters? Is it because Africa is the only major source of raw materials the West dies for so manning her is the safest way of assuring an easier and steady supply ? Is it because of advancing the history of brutality others committed to Africans?

Why is the West bent on studying Africans but not other people? This is the major question this charade called scientific-break through poses. To me, it does not make any sense despite the sexed up connotations the so-called research is given.

Everybody knows how Africa is demonized. Africa is presented as a continent with nothing good to offer except poverty, internal wars, diseases, backwardness, guinea pigs---- you name it. Looking at how endangered spices especially animals are manned and researched on, chances are Africans will soon fall in this category if this megalomania is not thwarted. Does someone somewhere want to finish Africans?

The West has always tried to keep an eye on Africa to see to it that it manipulates and exploits it for ever. It wants to know whatever Africans do and think. How on earth can one collect people’s DNAs without feeling any guilty of turning them into beasts of burden or stealing their livelihood? Isn’t this turning innocent Africans into guinea pigs for pharmaceutical companies to print and mint money at cheaper expenses? Isn’t this gross violation of Africans? Are we repeating what transpired in Boer South African where the West supported racism openly, or what is going on in Palestine?

Athough Africans are referred to as human beings, in this case, practically, they are but animals. Do those whose DNAs were collected know what is to come from it? Even the explanations given by the sample collectors do not cross mind so to speak.

Look at this. "By knowing the population structure, we can use this information to facilitate our search for rare variants," says Scott Williams of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, who worked on the new study and is investigating the genetics of hypertension in a population in Ghana.

They talk of variants. Nonetheless, in the end, their hidden agenda surfaces! Williams is said to have worked on new study and is investigating genetics of hypertensions in a population in Ghana.

Is this true love for solving Africans’ problems? Why should they be interested in tackling diseases Africans suffer just like any other people but pay a blind eye on poverty and corruption promoted and supported by rich countries? Does Africa have more diseases than other continents? Africa seems to outshine others when it comes to diseases thanks to western media and NGO using her to solicit money from their population that knows nothing about Africa but diseases and evils.

For over two decades, lies have been advanced that HIV/AIDS will soon wipe Africans out. But why is the population of African countries ever swelling so as to become a time-ticking bomb if this is true? Let the truth be told. African governments and foreign NGOs like to inflate HIV/AIDS statistics so as to attract donors.

I am living in Canada. I once wrote about this. I don’t see degrading and uncultured adverts pertaining HIV/AIDS. Even when I look at sexual activities here compared to Africa, I found that African cultures and environment do not support and enhance sexual activities easily as it is here. While sex is a taboo for unmarried young people in Africa, it is a human right here. Though Africa be said to be intolerant when it comes to some sexual orientations like homosexuality, it makes immorality and promiscuity more impossible than it is in the West.. Let us face it.

Going back to turning our people into guinea pigs, there is a living example in what happened in DR Congo (then Zaire.) British journalist Edward Hooper publicized a hypothesis that AIDS was inadvertently caused in the late 1950s in the Belgian Congo (now DRC) by Dr. Hilary Koprowski’s research into a polio vaccine.

He’s quoted thus: "The earliest cases of AIDS occurred in central Africa, in the same regions where Koprowski's vaccine was given to over a million people in 1957-1960. I think that what we have here is the route whereby this chimpanzee virus arrived in humans."

Koprowski rejected the claim but declined to sue Hooper. In a separate case, he won a clarification and money in a defamation action against Rolling Stone which had published an article making similar allegations. A concurrent defamation lawsuit that Koprowski brought against the Associated Press was settled several years later, but the terms were not publicly disclosed.

Why such a famous person did not defend his name if what Hooper alleged was trash raises eyebrows. Is it the same saga just like Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq and George W Bush or how British authorities made Uganda’s Idi Amin and other tin pot dictators but do not accept liability for the calamities they caused?

Though pharmaceuticals have always denied this, they've never given an understandable thesis to dislodge this. What is clear is, African monkeys were used ,on top of Africans, to enhance Koprowski’s success.

Another living example to allow as cast doubts on this ‘love’ is the fact that whilst the US and other western countries ruin Africa’s resources, the super profits they make out of Africa is spent on outer spaces in their quest to know if there are extraterrestrial creatures whereas the same Africans are dying of treatable diseases worth just a fraction of what they spend in this mad experiments! Can we trust such brutal beings really? Can we trust those who downgrade, devalue and boycott our produces not to mention selling us guns so that we can finish each other?

For how long will Africa be an experimental laboratory? We need to muse on this question shall we aspire to put records straight and water down being referred as the race with less intelligence as racist James Watson recently put it. Ironically, Watson’s Nobel Prize was not struck off and declared null and void! To prove how conspiracy against Africa is and promoted, Watson’s poisonous and blimpish views were highly publicized by almost all international media! Nonetheless, Watson forgot one thing: that Barack Obama, despite being black, commands higher intelligence than white George W. Bush.

We’re taught to curse and abhor Adolph Hitler for killing Jews but not afraid of doing the same to those that sold and used us during slave trade just because they came with the lie that Africans were selling Africans! Records vividly show Arabs, Europeans and Americans conspired and traded Africans. To add insults to injuries, some European countries banned some people they think advocate hatred and racism against others without including Watson! It is time to tell the West to stop preying on Africa. Enough is enough!
Source: The African Executive Magazine May 27, 2009.

6 comments:

laBiscuitnapper said...

I actually see this new survey in a completely opposite light. For me, it is a sign that scientists are finally seeing Africa as a land with a history. Similar gene surveys have been done throughout Europe (I hail from the UK) and have often discovered very interesting things about the origin and movement of peoples across the land. I think doing a similar thing for Africa can only be a good thing seeing a)how frequently African history is portrayed a snon-existent pre-slave trade and b)We know more than enough about the hominids who left the 'birthplace of humanity'. It is time we learnt about the ones who travelled in the opposite direction.

Rainer Brandl - Corruption, Korruption, Africa, Afrika, Kirche, Church said...

Hi, I am a physician from Europe having worked in Tanzania several years and I have many African friends and I am in contact with the bloger since a while. I often agree with him but somtimes completely disagree - like in this case.
I can just underline your comment, I see it in the same way and especially when it comes to genetic studies in Africa. Many have been done in Europeans and Americans and increasingly in Asian cohorts and it is hight time to recognise Africa in that sense. Nowadays genetics is an important tool in medicine and already saves lives. High time to do so for Africa and to be awar abotu differences in factor for increased blood pressure not only in the "westener".
As an HIV/AIDS docotor I also disagree about to ongoing story of HIV as a product out of laboratories. HIV is much older and cases in humans occured probably in the 19th century already. There is no blame here! Viruses occur and dissappear during the entire history of life and allover the world and at any time thousands and thousands years back. Viruses are also driving evolution and are not only seen bad, some make sick and some kill. Why should this not happen in Africa?
By the way, nowadays nobody needs to die from HIV/AIDS, nowhere in the world, there is very good treatment. Fact is that African and international corruption, missmanagement and focusing on the wrong spots and having made a humanitarian business out of AIDS and other diesease does not facilitate that everyone gets treated. This is a shame! Anywhere in the world, especially if you are poor - not only in Africa - you will die, likely!

Anonymous said...

Dr. Rainer and Labiscuitnapper,
Many thanks for your contribution. I must admit. I am not a know-all-lot like corrupt politicians. I shall go back to the drawing board to see where and how I saw red.
Thanks for visiting my blog.
As for Dr. Rainer, though Tanzanian thieves in cloaks and power have ignored you, one day truth will put them on shame.
Thanks again for your time and contributions.
Nkwazi

Ndugu Nkwazi N Mhango said...

Dr. Rainer and Labiscuitnapper,
Many thanks for your contribution. I must admit. I am not a know-all-lot like corrupt politicians. I shall go back to the drawing board to see where and how I saw red.
Thanks for visiting my blog.
As for Dr. Rainer, though Tanzanian thieves in cloaks and power have ignored you, one day truth will put them on shame.
Thanks again for your time and contributions.
Nkwazi

14 June 2009 14:22

laBiscuitnapper said...

Mhango,

It is very easy to see red when it comes to things like this because so often it proves to be little more than the usual imperialistic condescension that we are used to. One does get cynical after a while.

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