Evil Western Medicine Man

In an op-ed in the New York Times, race-hustler Harriet Washington attempts to excuse Libya's prosecution of 6 Bulgarian nurses by answering the question "Why Africa Fears Western Medicine." The Tripoli Six, as they became known, were accused of deliberately infecting Libyan children with HIV and sentenced to death, but finally released to Bulgaria last week. To explain this paranoia in Libya, she points to actual cases of Western doctors murdering patients in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Zambie. The cases she cites aren't particularly bizarre, and sociopathic health-care workers are not exactly unknown in Western countries. She'd have done better to cite irrational Western fears such as the thimerasol/autism myth to show that baseless fear of medical care is not limited to the Third World.

But she's not interested in painting these fears as irrational - she wants us to "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." Ah yes, the old r-e-s-p-e-c-t solution. Works every time.

First off, she's delusional if she thinks anyone in Libya gives a rat's ass about what happens south of the Sahara. Second, what the mob thinks is not the issue - the African governments must be responsible for the execution of their justice system, if not for their own people then for foreigners working to help their people. The solution is simple - we let each government know that if any of our people are prosecuted without our permission, we will withdraw all medical care - people, drugs, equipment - and perhaps more, to boot. Of course, another such incident and there won't be anyone going over there to help - never mind showing "respect."