AFRO-NETS> South Africa officials question cause of AIDS

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South Africa officials question cause of AIDS
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by S. Predrag 
Bay Area Reporter
March 23, 2000
http://www.ebar.com 

Source: Intaids <intaids@hivnet.ch>

South Africa, a country with the fastest growing number of HIV-
positive cases (estimated at 1,600 a day), has shocked many scien-
tists and other concerned people by questioning the cause of AIDS. 

It is hard to believe, but South African President Thabo Mbeki re-
cently called David Rasnick, a San-Francisco-based microbiologist, 
already discredited among many in the scientific community for up-
holding a dissident view of AIDS. 

Rasnick, Peter Duesberg and a few others are reportedly claiming that 
there is no scientific proof that the HIV virus causes AIDS, and that 
many people in Africa and other underdeveloped countries are in fact 
dying because of malnutrition and a lack of sanitation. Finally, 
these scientists are warning people not to use anti-HIV drugs as they 
are harmful and may lead to AIDS. 

At first, it seems that Mbeki sent a few written questions to Rasnick 
and later personally telephoned him. The two apparently spent about 
10 minutes in deep conversation, alarming both local and world scien-
tists, and - understandably - many AIDS activists. 

Raising doubts about the cause of AIDS and, in effect, calling for a 
reappraisal of the link between HIV and AIDS as some high government 
officials in South Africa have done, has resulted in a sharp rebuke 
from leading South African and international scientists. Their con-
cern is all the more greater as the 13th International AIDS Confer-
ence is scheduled to be held in Durban, South Africa, this July. 

"HIV was discovered in 1983, 17 years ago ... we have accumulated so 
much evidence of the link with AIDS - it is nonsense to try to sepa-
rate the virus and the disease," said the HIV discoverer and co-
discoverer of AIDS, Professor Francoise Barre-Sinoussi. 
"Certainly, people are not killed by the virus itself. But there is 
no doubt that HIV initiates the process of immune deficiency," ac-
cording to Barre-Sinoussi of the French Pasteur Institute. She was 
speaking to the press in Johannesburg where many leading researchers 
have gathered to discuss the agenda for the upcoming AIDS conference. 

Dr. Helene Gayle, a director with the U.S. Centers for Disease Con-
trol and Prevention in Atlanta, was also baffled by the calls of some 
South African politicians and doctors for a "re-examination" of the 
causes of AIDS.  She found "no merit in questioning conventional wis-
dom" and warned that "this virus moves quickly - the damage in pro-
longed questioning and debating issues that have long ago been dis-
cussed and refuted is enormous." 

"It's a national scandal," the president of the Medical Research 
Council of South Africa, Malegapuru Makgoba, said of Mbeki's phone 
call to Rasnick. Makgoba attacked the AIDS dissidents, calling them 
"failures in their own countries" and warning that South Africa is 
becoming "fertile ground for pseudo-science." Describing Mbeki's 
questions as "trivial" and mind-boggling, Makgoba was quoted in the 
influential South African weekly, the Sunday Independent, as saying 
that the issue - what causes AIDS - has become "political rather than 
scientific."  He warned that, "if politicians are seeking consensus 
among scientists, that's the wrong approach. One of the things that 
distinguishes politics from science is that in science we never seek 
consensus ... in science you are either right or wrong."  Makgoba re-
minded the media that in September 1995, the U.S. National Institutes 
of Health published a 61-page document refuting the dissident theo-
ries point by point. 

The Sunday Independent also quoted U.S. researcher, Dr. John Moore of 
the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York, as saying that 
"Mbeki has given lifeblood to a dead cause." In a telephone inter-
view, Moore said that he was "flabbergasted" and that the matter 
would be brought to the attention of "very serious levels in the US 
government ... because [Mbeki] needs to get proper advice, from his 
peers.  "To see these questions [the link between HIV and AIDS] re-
surging in a country where the AIDS problem is so much more serious 
[than in the U.S.] is shocking and frightening; and to see the presi-
dent of a nation taking this seriously is a very shocking thing," 
warned Moore.  He compared the calls for a "re-examination" of what 
causes AIDS as "tantamount to Holocaust denial because the implica-
tions are so serious ...

You should not try to steer government policy on a path that could 
lead to the genocide of a nation."  When asked by a journalist about 
Mbeki's "democratic right" to seek further information, Moore re-
sponded, "It's the South African government's right to reinvent the 
wheel if they want, but these debates have been held and settled in 
America and Europe 10 years ago." 

Dr. Ruth Nduati, a pediatrician at the University of Nairobi, the 
capital of Kenya, described Mbeki's actions as "unfortunate."  "It's 
taking us backwards, and it is our worry that such discussions may 
unravel our significant gains in terms of managing the disease." She 
concluded that, "there is no doubt in my mind that HIV causes AIDS." 

The head of the AIDS unit at the National Institute for Virology of 
South Africa, Lynn Morris, commented that "there is no debate amongst 
scientists that HIV causes AIDS. This debate is being generated by 
people on the fringe, in the lay press, and not by people who are ac-
tively involved in HIV research." 

The South African media have also published an e-mail sent by Dr. Art 
Amman, a pediatrician and head of the US-based Global Strategies for 
HIV Prevention, to his international colleagues this week: "After re-
viewing the volumes of communication having to do with the Duesberg 
disciples, personally listening in court for two days to these indi-
viduals, and surveying the damage they are invoking, I am trying to 
reach some conclusions and think about a rational approach to limit-
ing their future damage and influence."  Amman called on the scien-
tific community to publish "a denunciation of these individuals and 
their theories as not credible, dangerous, and analogous to other 
pseudo-scientific theories in the past which are taken up by despots 
for nefarious intent, such as theories of eugenics and racial superi-
ority." "I find it curious there has been so little objection from 
black African or U.S. leadership about a white-dominated movement 
like the Duesberg disciples, which is perpetuating a theory that is 
resulting in the death of so many Africans," Amman stated. 

Some AIDS activists continue to express a profound sense of dismay at 
the news that the South African government is convening an interna-
tional panel to reappraise the scientific evidence that the HIV virus 
leads to AIDS.  Millions of HIV-positive people in South Africa are 
concerned about the present AIDS polemics, especially when even top 
government officials are raising doubts about AZT and other antiviral 
drugs; claiming that they are harmful in fact. 

Mbeki's government has already refused to provide free AZT to preg-
nant mothers and rape victims, claiming that the drug's "toxicity 
could even exacerbate the symptoms of AIDS." 

South African Judge Edwin Cameron, who recently declared that he was
HIV-positive, criticized his government's AIDS policy.  Addressing 
the National Conference for People Living with Aids in Durban, he 
said, "We are told that funding constraints limit the power of the 
government to intervene and assist non-governmental organizations' 
efforts. How then can it be that public funds, allocated to AIDS, are 
not spent?"  Cameron pointed out that, "it was disturbing that 40 
million rands [more than $8.5 million U.S.] of the funds allocated to 
the department of health for spending on AIDS has not been used." 

Cameron also attacked Dr. Ian Roberts, the special adviser to the na-
tional minister of health, for holding "the brutal and cynical view 
that it is not worth spending money on saving babies from AIDS be-
cause they will soon die anyway." 
Most local and foreign analysts agree on one thing though - the ques-
tions on the cause of AIDS need to be settled once and for all before 
the 13th International AIDS Conference in Durban.

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