← Back to Vol. 03 Issue No. 02 — March
Abstract
Scholarly discussions have long been gathering steam on the topic of cultural diversity in global bioethics. This essay joins forces with the momentum aimed at forging an appropriate rubric for practice particularly regarding Africa. It argues for a careful adoption and adaptation of Eurocentric bioethics principles, and indigenizing them in the Africa context using ‘Afrocentrism’. Here, the placeholder test case is the 1996 Trovan experimentation in Kano Nigeria by Pfizer, Inc., which fallouts have continued to fester. Pfizer aimed to try out a drug for meningitis amid an outbreak. It was an attempt that was blamed for the death of 11 children, etc.; and for flouting local and international mores. As efforts have been converging on the specifics of retooling core bioethics principles and values to reflect the local color in various cultural climes, events such as the Pfizer-Nigeria crisis (with 20-year old ongoing effects) seem to have turned the clock backwards. Nevertheless, it unwittingly serves to stress the burning need to smith out some sort of blueprint for bioethics practices which recognize multiplicity of cultures worldwide.