Competitive Cooperation and Public Health: VD Control in the British Colony of Trinidad and Tobago During WWII

Abstract

ABSTRACT The landscape of scientific and medical help for the Global South in the late colonial period was a complex one in which technical assistance provided by nations such as America, and the work of new agencies such as the WHO, sat alongside European colonial interventions. This paper explores the tensions that could exist between British and American experts working together in Britain’s colonies after 1940. It shows how a venereal disease control programme in the British colony of Trinidad and Tobago was a space in which competition between Britain and the US was enacted. This public health programme aimed to address the high rates of venereal disease amongst members of the American armed forces stationed on the island of Trinidad by reducing the incidence of syphilis in the wider population. It was jointly funded by Britain and America through the newly formed Anglo-American Caribbean Commission (AACC) with American personnel undertaking most of the work of the programme in its initial years. This paper shows how a spirit of ‘competitive cooperation’ informed the relationship between American medical personnel and their British counterparts. It explores the function of medical expertise in the bigger struggle over which nation had the greater claim to determine the political and economic future of the Caribbean region.