Conviction: the making and unmaking of the violent brain

the cost of reproducing debilitating falsehoods about the true source of most disease threats. The material and rhetorical risks in this strategy became evident as COVID-19 spread across from a prosperous China into Europe and North America. PPE was stockpiled and vaccines pre-emptively bought up for their own populations by the wealthy states. The iron lock of global patent law remained in place. Moreover, since the threat was internal to the northern hemisphere, the south was initially ignored, then favoured with sporadic charitable donations all made with an eye to geopolitical advantage. In the face of the indifference of the global north and the failure of global health, attention has been directed to south-south solutions, including negotiating coalitions in international organisations, the creation of local vaccine manufacturing capacity, and the development of continental multilateralism in health, for example through the African Union. Of course, it is important not to romanticise the nation state or to overlook its historical failings, and indeed D’Arcangelis is careful not to do so. Nonetheless, as she suggests, within the current situation it offers a space of ‘ethical exception’ from which to resist the injustices of health imperialism.