COVID 19 Vaccine Trials Guinea Pigs?

A friend shared this article

The article is very positive, yet somehow many are taking it as a negative and spouting conspiracy theories such as

 "You know why I’ll tell you why because black lives don’t matter"

 "Bill gates and Fauci have a goal to delete the world population by a lot so they go to Africans first"

"They test shit out in Africa because they don't give a shit about them."

 and

"Why didn't they use this on the Americans first? No, no let's test it on the Africans first...see if it doesn't make you go blind and have your toenails fall off ."

Do these concerns and assertions hold any weight?

No not at all.

First off, I think people misread the headline in thinking this is the first vaccine trial for COVID-19.  It is not.

They are doing trials in various countries around the world. There are various different types of vaccine potentials going to trial in England, South Africa, USA, China, UAE, Canada and so on ( I can find 36 potentials as of writing this). Each one is currently in different phases.

The US government is choosing three vaccine candidates to fund for Phase 3 trials under Operation Warp Speed: Moderna’s mRNA-1273 in July, The University of Oxford and AstraZeneca’s AZD1222 in August, and Pfizer and BioNTech's BNT162 in September. 

The South Africa one is a phase 3 (UAE, Brazil, England and China also have phase 3 trials launching). To understand the basic idea of the stages of testing: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/basics/test-approve.html
Also understand that each country may have different time periods in approving the fast-tracking of vaccines right now.    So this is helping the lives of POC (People of Colour) and not the opposite as some would suggest.

In the ABC article it actually explains "African leaders have been outspoken about the continent being elbowed out in the intense global competition for medical supplies in this pandemic..."  So hence this is a good thing that they are doing one of the trials in South Africa.  Also consider "WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged that the supply of any COVID-19 vaccine be deployed where it’s most needed, rather than based on the “ability to pay.”   With some African countries starting to rise quickly, after loosening lockdown restrictions, these countries could become hotspots very soon.

In regards to the Bill Gates depopulation statement  see:
http://scambusting101.blogspot.com/2010/10/bill-gates-says-vaccines-can-help.html

One Facebook post I saw said this (another one trying to state fallacious info about Bill Gates and vaccines):

"I swear I was reading an article about this when they came around with malaria vax. And they went straight for Africa. Although the vax did eliminate malaria. It had a huge side effect of making women sterile and unable to bear children." 

Well one would hope they would go to the area of the world most affected by Malaria.  So I don't understand the person's problem with that rationale.  As for the claim of making women sterile, I'll just let Snopes handle that:  https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tetanus-vaccine-sterilization/
Whatever vaccine is used, the sterilization claim always seems to be tagged on.

Misinformation about vaccines can have devastating consequences (as we saw in Samoa 2019 with anti-vaccine proponents causing considerable harm by convincing a large portion of the population to not get vaccinated).  It is important to think rationally and to seek out qualified expert advice and not that of cranks. Being anti-vaccine is hurtful and dangerous to POC in Africa.