Article ID: CBB697529039

Race, Kidney Transplants, Immunosuppression Research, and White Supremacy under Apartheid, 1960–80 (2020)

unapi

This paper uses the history of kidney transplantation in South Africa as a lens through which to write a racialized, micro history that illustrates the politics of medical discoveries and medical research at one of South Africa’s most prestigious medical research universities, the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg. Between 1966 and the 1980s, the Wits team became the most advanced and prolific kidney transplant unit in the country. Yet the racist, oppressive Apartheid system fundamentally shaped these developments. Transplantation, as this paper shows, became an elite medical procedure, performed by a select group of white doctors on mostly white patients. For these doctors, transplantation showed their medical prowess and displayed the technical advancements they were able to make in research and clinical practice as they strove to position South Africa as a significant international player in medical research, despite academic boycotts and increasing sanctions. Transplantation became a symbol of white supremacy in a country where the black majority were excluded from anything but the most basic health care.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB697529039/

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Authors & Contributors
Horwitz, Simonne
Digby, Anne
Natali Valdez
Armstrong, Melissa Diane
Koretzky, Maya Overby
Glenn, Jason E.
Concepts
Medicine and race
Medicine and politics
Apartheid
Organ transplantation
Medicine
Health care
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
20th century
20th century, early
19th century
Places
South Africa
United States
Argentina
Germany
Great Britain
Institutions
African National Congress
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