JONATHAN JANSEN: Evidence of the persistence of racial science is all around us
'The absence of discriminatory laws does not mean the absence of discrimination when it comes to race and medicine'
One of the most moving moments in a graduation ceremony is when the newly minted medical doctors rise to take their solemn oath. They promise to be ethical in the conduct of medicine and to act with the highest integrity demanded of the profession. And then they might say something like this, as at a Wits graduation ceremony: “That I will not permit consideration of religion, nationality, race, politics, or social standing to intervene between my duty and my patient.” Even as I sat moved by these oath-taking ceremonies year after year, I often said to myself: If only this were always true.Last Sunday night I found myself deeply disturbed by the travelling exhibition brought to South Africa by the South African Holocaust & Genocide Foundation. It is called Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race which reminds us of the Nazi regime’s so-called science of race. Their pursuit of “racial hygiene” included gross experimentation on Jewish bodies to controlling reproduction to the extermi...
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