Comment on Nearly 20% of cancer drugs defective in 4 African nations
hellinkilla@hexbear.net 1 month ago
I know it’s just a third party photo on a summary article but the photographer “Barbara Debout/AFP/Getty Images” is seriously fucked in the head. The idea that anyone would ever break up a bunch of blister packs of random medications and put them in a colander like some sort of chronic disease salad is insane. For context, we see the dark skin and bold printed clothing. Is there any explanation for this which isn’t wildly racist?
There’s a perfect non-racist image included in the actual paper:
SnortsGarlicPowder@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
She is/was a Central African Republic correspondant. A lot of her photos are going to have Africans in them.
I dug a bit: CAFRICA-HEALTH-POVERTY Stephen Hyppolite Liosso Pivara Bembe, a former medical student who was never able to finish his studies, sifts though medicines in the small street pharmacy he owns in Bangui, on 21 February 2022. Informal pharmacies are vital for the poorest population of this Central African country, the second least developed in the world according to the UN and in civil war for 10 years. But there is a flip side to the coin: proliferation of poor quality or fake drugs, resistance to antibiotics, illegal practice of medicine. (Photo by Barbara DEBOUT / AFP) (Photo by BARBARA DEBOUT/AFP via Getty Images)
She has quite a few of Stephen doing tasks in his Pharmacy.
hellinkilla@hexbear.net 1 month ago
I commend your web search skills!
With that info we can post a better photo taken within moments of the above:
Image
Which shows medications being stored in a normal way in boxes which are neatly stacked and organized on shelves.
The med salad colander thing still completely inexplicable. It doesn’t play any role in the workflow according to the photos I saw. It is a chaotic and dangerous way of storing medication. I hypothesize it is staged for the benefit of the photographer, likely with some art direction from her.
SnortsGarlicPowder@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
I think it was supposed to portray second hand/dubious origin medications being sorted through rather than a pick n mix.
Undoubtedly there was art direction but I expect that from pretty much every photo ever taken.
Either way I think it would be on the articles author for the picture choice rather than the photographer. I don’t think Getty lets you deny who gets to use your photos.
hellinkilla@hexbear.net 1 month ago
When Oxford was about to liberate its covid vaccine recipe to enable local production in the global south, bill gates swooped in to talk them down. One of his arguments that ultimately won the day is that global south people are too stupid and irresponsible to be in charge of important medicine like that.
This photo is staged to reinforced that kind of stereotype.