It's not like the US intentionally infected a bunch of people in a foreign country with a disease because they were curious about it, then waited 65 years to apologize for their crimes.[1]
And certainly the US government would never lie about treating people for a disease in a government program, and then just watch them die instead of actually helping them.[2]
Snark aside, have you ever considered that maybe there's a reason people don't trust the US government to act ethically or in their interests?
You're referring to things that happened 60 or 70 years ago as a reference basis for trust, for a government who has as its President a man born 53 years ago.
There's a long list of warranted criticism to throw at the US Government, but I don't see how your examples are valid criticism of today's government. The US Government of 1950 no longer exists. Yet you're referring to it as though it does.
I guess Angela Merkel is not to be trusted because of what happened 70 years ago? Or Shinzo Abe?
Well, 60-70 years is about the horizon over which previously secret programs become revealed. The US has been continually caught performing unethical actions in secret which either involve human testing (occasionally on their own citizens) or subverting medical programs for ulterior motives.
There was drug testing that the US got caught at 50 years ago, and only halted 40 years ago.[1] And in the past few years, they subverted a vaccination program in to being a tool of a spy agency.[2]
Had the Nazi regime merely "reformed" rather than been completely replaced following a war, apologized 60-70 years after the fact for their genocide during WW2 which they'd attempted to keep secret, and been caught at least once a decade running similar covert programs, I'd think citing a well documented historic case of their misdeeds would actually be a pretty good way to show exactly why people don't think highly of them.
You always here about this stuff 60-70 years afterwards unless it was leaked. This is because the people involved are long buried and everyone alive can deny involvement...
Whether it's rational to not trust either the US or German government because of what happened in the past, the actual situation is that such actions are not easily forgotten. There are plenty of people who still carry suspicions against Germany for what happened 70 years ago.
What's the international crime statute of limitations these days? Maybe Africans don't want U.S. or European help because those countries used to steal Africans and turn them into slaves.
Or--maybe Africans actually do want U.S. and European help, and have repeatedly asked for it, and have expressed thanks that it is now being mobilized.
I was trying to shed some light on why it was a tough battle to get people to trust Western medical teams, which is entirely relevant to the ebola crisis as this distrust is one of the main barriers to arresting the spread of ebola in Africa.
This is a really important point to consider. We have already had health teams killed by people in the affected countries out of fear. If we were going to start implementing an effective quarantine and treatment process then we are going to need a large amount of security and enforcement resources to support the health care teams. This is going to have to come from outside as the countries affected don’t have the resources.
Thank you for the link about one health team killed in one village in one country. (The comment to which I was replying, not posted by you, mentioned "health teams," plural, that were killed, without specifying a place.) The link you kindly shared reports,
"Eight members of a team trying to raise awareness about Ebola have been killed by villagers using machetes and clubs in Guinea, officials say.
"Some of the bodies - of health workers, local officials and journalists - were found in a septic tank in a village school near the city of Nzerekore."
Reading this, I'm not entirely sure whether or not any Western people were part of the group who visited the village. The participant here to whom I was replying referred specifically to
a tough battle to get people to trust Western medical teams
after previously writing
have you ever considered that maybe there's a reason people don't trust the US government to act ethically or in their interests?
I have considered that possibility, and that is why I am looking for evidence. Where is the evidence that people in west Africa specifically distrust the United States as a source of medical aid more than they distrust their own local officials or modernity in general? (The west Africans I know locally, by definition people who have traveled to the United States to settle and work here, don't seem to have a general attitude of distrust of the United States government. Many of the health care workers who cared for my late dad in the years he was paralyzed after a spinal cord injury were nurses and nursing aids from Liberia.)
I appreciate your follow-up to my question. I'd like to see more on-point journalistic sources from other people who have commented in this thread.
AFTER EDIT: I was aware of the news story from National Public Radio[1] submitted to open this thread (of course!) about one area in Liberia that has enjoyed success in stopping spread of ebola as I asked the questions above in the thread. Fear of Westerners does not appear to be general in west Africa, not even in areas infected by ebola. That's why I think some of the comments here seem so off-topic. They refer to nothing in the article.
You had me until I read the article. Then I came back to the link and saw that the article is from the Mirror, widely known to be a completely unreliable tabloid newspaper dealing in sensationalism rather than careful field-based reporting.
And certainly the US government would never lie about treating people for a disease in a government program, and then just watch them die instead of actually helping them.[2]
Snark aside, have you ever considered that maybe there's a reason people don't trust the US government to act ethically or in their interests?
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_syphilis_experiment
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment