Bay Area Reporter - Janaury 11, 2001
S. Predrag

South African President Thabo Mbeki, who had earlier said that he would not publicly discuss the cause of AIDS, claims that there was no agreement among a panel of scientists "that the thing that is being tested is a virus".

According to Mbeki, it was unclear whether HIV tests gave an indication of the presence of a virus or whether "they measure antibodies to something to which the immune system is responding."

During his recent visit to Brazil, Mbeki told a local newspaper in Brasilia that he had set up a panel of scientific advisers to try to find an answer to all the "unresolved" issues surrounding HIV/AIDS.

In that interview, Mbeki not only questioned the validity of the HIV tests, but once again expressed his doubts about the existence of a specific AIDS virus.

His advisory panel consisted of 33 scientists and other experts from 14 countries. The panel was scheduled to deliver its final report last November. However, it has been reported that the document will be released this month.

Well-informed sources claim that this report will probably contain an overview of the various panel reports without allying itself to either side of the debate.

If this proves to be the case, Mbeki's government, which financed the controversial panel of mainstream and dissident scientists, will probably try to calm its critics by claiming that so many issues remain unresolved.

Mainstream scientists categorically insist that they have never had any doubts that HIV causes AIDS. They feel that their debate with the AIDS dissidents, a vocal minority, ended almost two decades ago.

President Mbeki, known for "flirting" with U.S. dissident AIDS scientists such as Peter Duesberg and David Rasnick as well as those from other countries, is claiming that a single virus (such as HIV) cannot cause a syndrome or, in this case, the acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

He was heavily criticized last July in Durban, South Africa, during the 13th International Conference on AIDS for insisting that, "We cannot blame everything on a single virus à poverty is the underlying cause of reduced life expectancy."

These are precisely the arguments frequently cited by dissidents who prefer to blame poverty, malnutrition, poor hygiene and, even, the use of drugs for the AIDS epidemic in Africa.

At one point, Mbeki even accused the U.S., its Central Intelligence Agency, and some multinational drug companies, of allegedly conspiring to impose the view that HIV causes AIDS.

In particular, he insisted that questioning the link between HIV and AIDS was harming the interests of big pharmaceutical companies and warned that criticism of his AIDS viewpoint was "a foretaste of foreign attempts to undermine [his] government."

However, his predecessor, Nelson Mandela, maintains that he favors the "dominant opinion that prevails throughout the world" that HIV is the cause of AIDS.

Mandela even advised Mbeki that, "I would like to be careful because for people in our position, when you take a stand, you might find that established principles are undermined, sometimes without scientific backing."

Former Zambian president, Kenneth Kaunda, has also criticized Mbeki's viewpoint. Recently he said that this type of controversial stance was undermining African efforts to stop the disease which is killing 6,000 people daily on this continent.

Mbeki's advisory panel, which has an almost equal number of mainstream and dissident scientists, has met twice, once in May and once in July last year, in South Africa.

While it is possible that Mbeki and his government may use the advisory panel's report in a desperate attempt to improve their public relations rating in the domestic scene, the harsh reality for South Africa is that this "flirting" with the "flat-earthists" has already harmed the AIDS awareness campaign, some activists claim. Not only in South Africa, a country which has 4.2 million HIV-positive people (a figure which is increasing daily by 1,600 new cases), but also in other countries on this continent.

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