24 March 2000
The Presidency spent considerable time the past week searching frantically for a passage in the President's speeches, which said an HIV positive condition, does not lead to AIDS. Neither his private correspondence nor a reconstruction of all the discussions with either his Ministers or any other authority on the question of HIV and AIDS could produce any evidence of this. So the President has never said that HIV does not cause AIDS.
We then wondered why the President is said to have come to the conclusion that HIV does not lead to AIDS, leading to the South African government embarking on a 'bewildering change of policy' on this very critical matter.
It turns out the President's cardinal sin was making contact with someone by the name of David Rasnick who does not share the commonly held view that HIV leads to AIDS. It is said that it is wrong for him to talk to such people. They are even called dissidents. If he spoke to these people he would undermine the work done over the many years and he would cause South Africans and other people who live with HIV and AIDS to lower their guard.
Now many people have spoken to Dr Rasnick and other so-called dissidents and no one is saying that they believe that the causal connection between AIDS and HIV does not exist. Many journalists have even published the views of Rasnick and his companions but no such opprobrium has been visited upon them.
Assailants of the President therefore argue that the President must not question the accepted hypothesis on HIV / AIDS. He must then give AZT to HIV pregnant women and those who have been victims of rape. He must tell his people to use condoms and practice safe sex. He must not listen to anyone that disagrees with the accepted line of thinking and the problem of HIV and AIDS will come to an end.
A cursory examination of the President's public pronouncements will show the President is actively campaigning for the use of condoms and safe sex. In fact, it is policy in each government department, and more especially the Presidency, to make condoms easily available to all those who wish to use them. Each and every hallway or public amenity in the Union Buildings in Pretoria and Tuynhuys in Cape Town has a dispensary for condoms. This practice has been particularly promoted during the Presidency of Mbeki. Having done all these things, reality still stares Mbeki in the face that the spread of AIDS continues unabated.
Mbeki's dilemma is compounded by the fact that he does not have the option to dispense AZT to people because it is simply unaffordable. Not only is AZT not a cure for HIV/AIDS, but also it has been proven to be ineffective unless it is used together with other drugs. This regime costs at least R4 000,00 a month.
Given that the government will not afford the cocktails that are prescribed for the treatment of HIV/AIDS, our response to the pandemic must be the distribution of condoms and an unwavering belief that HIV is the sole cause of AIDS. This approach says we must sit back and do nothing about HIV and AIDS. It says that the problem is beyond our comprehension and therefore impossible to resolve. We definitely cannot accept this approach.
Mbeki says this approach is inadequate. We cannot be content with knowing what the cause of the illness is. We must eradicate the sickness from the face of the earth. Because there is no cure for HIV/ AIDS and because people continue to die from AIDS the search for a solution must continue. This is all President Thabo Mbeki is advocating.
Humanity is faced with a difficult problem that in the remarkable advances that have been made in science and technology notwithstanding, we are faced with a complex disease that is threatening to destroy the whole of humanity. The propensity to self-destruct and search for non-existent adversaries is common when people find themselves under siege.
In any case why are we told a lie that AZT is a panacea to the problem of AIDS. It simply is not. And why are critics of Mbeki creating the impression that it is when they know it isn't? In fact it is Mbeki's critics that are in denial about HIV/AIDS because they advocate a false sense of hope that a certain drug will intervene in the problem. This is not the case.
There is a raging debate in scientific circles that antibiotics are harmful to health. We have been using these wonder drugs for decades. Many can rightfully claim their livelihood to these drugs. And yet no one is accusing those who initiated these questions about antibiotics of being 'scientifically naive and foolish'. But then why is it that what we know about HIV and AIDS should not be questioned, the glaring inadequacies in humanity's response to the problem notwithstanding?
In the effort to find a solution to the perennial problem of poverty and inequality, all of humankind is revising the conventionally accepted theories about development and economic policies that need to be implemented to make the world a better place to live in. Suddenly there is talk of adopting a 'third way'. The World Bank and many other institutions are revising their prescriptions about how the difficulties that confront us should be tackled. And no one is accusing them of being 'scientifically naive and foolish'.
The search for an answer to the problem of HIV / AIDS must be re-invigorated. That is why we are putting an international panel together to re-evaluate what we know and which is clearly not complete and therefore not the answer. Someone must explain the different strains of the virus and why it seems to take different forms depending on one's geographic location on the map of the globe. Frankly we cannot satisfy ourselves with the definition that the foreskins of the Zulu are the explanation for the rapid spread of the disease in one section of the country.
Government is strong in its resolve that we cannot confine our response to the problem of HIV/AIDS to an injunction not to speak to David Rasnick or telling people how to think. Whether we speak to Rasnick or not, whether there are thought police to monitor what others think, human beings will continue to die from AIDS.
A disturbing trend in the response to the current debate has been the rabid intolerance to different viewpoints that has been displayed in the South African media. One prominent commentator even brandished the President a criminal because he spoke to Rasnick and also because he dared think beyond what is accepted wisdom. Surely we do not want to return to the days of Stoffel Botha and the total onslaught. As far as we know all efforts to prescribe how other people should think have failed all over the world, both under capitalism and erstwhile socialism. Even dictatorships and fascism failed to suppress the freedom of the human mind to wonder in search of solutions to the intractable problems that face us.
Government advocates safe sex and the use of condoms as one of the elementary responses to the problem of HIV / AIDS. The President is going to continue to mobilise public awareness about the dreadful nature of the disease.
Furthermore President Mbeki is going to intensify the fight for the end of discrimination against and exploitation of people who live with HIV/AIDS, both by insurance and medical schemes and the pharmaceutical giants who are the sole beneficiaries in the dogged defence of AZT by large sections of the media. Yes they buy a lot of advertising space and are therefore a strong ally of publishing and broadcasting houses, to the detriment of the millions that live with HIV and AIDS.
Issued by: Office of the Presidency