Jean-Paul Mira, head of intensive care at Cochin Hospital in Paris, reflects: “If I can be provocative, shouldn't we be doing this [vaccine] study in Africa, where there are no masks, no treatments, no resuscitation? A bit like as it is done elsewhere for some studies on AIDS. In prostitutes, we try things because we know that they are highly exposed and that they do not protect themselves" (BBC, 2020).

Mira's remarks are not new; they exist within a long legacy of testing new medicines and procedures on African, Black, and Global South communities from the period of chattel slavery to today.