In the 1980s, as the growing AIDS epidemic crystallized post-colonial tensions in the Central African Republic, a secret research project was set up in Bangui, at the crossroads of epidemiological surveillance of Central African military personnel and the scientific and industrial anticipations of French vaccine research. Several thousand Central African soldiers found themselves included in a secret research project codenamed Opération Bangui.

Through a historical anthropology, Pierre-Marie David analyzes the scientific and political driving forces behind a process of biomedical extractivism, i.e. an unequal and asymmetrical system of exploitation of biological resources linked to a scientific and industrial infrastructure. Opération Bangui is therefore not only the extraordinary story of biomedical research in the past, it is also a present-day questioning of the colonial legacy of “global health” and its biomedical research, a way of questioning its persistent practices and logics.

PIERRE-MARIE DAVID is a sociologist, pharmacist, and professor in the Faculty of Pharmacy at the Université de Montréal. His research questions the ambiguities of pharmaceutical policies and global health logics.