[Anthropology of medical research in developing countries: a Senegalese experience]

Abstract

Medical research is an essential tool of biomedicine that raises many social and ethical questions especially in resource-poor countries where the number of clinical trials has increased significantly over the past two decades. This article presents the way anthropology of medical research critically examines medical research in non-western countries without questioning its strategic importance for advances in scientific knowledge and in public health improvement. This article draws on observations conducted in Senegal in 2007 during a vaccine trial against meningitis and discusses, more broadly, medical research in non western-countries related to: the presence and management of medical research sites, the impact of medical research benefits on its representations and the questions raised by blood-stealing rumours regarding medical research practice itself.