Experiment Must Continue

Melissa Graboyes, a historian, examines topics related to global health, ethics, and biomedicine in East Africa. She is the author of The Experiment Must Continue: Medical Research and Ethics in East Africa, 1940–2014. She teaches in the Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon.

"Graboyes' arguments are critical for contemporary researchers who must understand how the 'residue' of each experiment alters the course of the next. … [Her] book, which does not presume knowledge of the history and ethnography of medical research in Africa, is written in engaging and jargon-free prose. …[It] is certain to prompt lively classroom discussions about global health, African medical research in colonial and postcolonial times, and the history of medicine." (Journal of Interdisciplinary History) "[The Experiment Must Continue] will be of great interest to medical historians and anthropologists, East African historians, and global health researchers and bioethicists engaged in research in the Global South today … [The book] is to be applauded as a pathbreaking, engaging historical analysis of the practices, ethics, and implications of experimental medical research in one African postcolony." (African Studies Review) "This is a remarkable contribution—scrupulously researched, innovatively organized, engagingly written, and passionately argued. To my knowledge, there is nothing published that can match the scope, temporal depth, or ethnographic finesse of this work. The manuscript is a superb example of how rigorous historical research opens up reflections on the unresolved ethical problems of contemporary global health research." "Graboyes's book reads like a mystery, elegantly weaving history, science, bioethics and public health into a compelling story. A profoundly important contribution to the challenges of conducting medical research in the developing world." "Graboyes' innovative approach pushes boundaries of conventional medical history, adds badly needed historical depth to ethnographies of medical research, and revitalizes bioethics thinking in an entertaining and accessible way. Her investigation of the ways medical research lingers in East Africa will contribute to historical and anthropological scholarship for years to come, and one hopes it will be read by ethicists and scientists as well." "Graboyes has the gift of drawing the reader into small stories and then showing how these relateto wider practical and ethical dilemmas… [The Experiment Must Continue] has a strong centralmessage and is beautifully crafted: a model of how to make the local stories come alive in a waythat contributes to the painting of a much broader picture."(Isis) "A beautiful ethnographic history of medical experiments in East Africa from the colonial period to the present. …Graboyes doesn't just caution us to look to the past; she also persuades us to think about the future." (Washington Post online) "With its grounded and spirited engagement with the practical ethics of research science, this book is a welcome contribution to the literature on the history and ethics of medical research.… [Graboyes] never allows the analysis to rest in the easy moral high ground of damning critique.…This is responsible and meaningful scholarship." (Medical Anthropology Quarterly)