Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) - December 17, 1997
Olga Visser is so surprisingly ordinary she easily fits the stereotype of home-maker. But that would be far from the truth. For one thing, this mother of six does not cook, and her husband Zigi swears she is a hopeless slob.
THERE is a local link to the Alcor Life Extension Foundation - researcher Olga Visser, who recently announced she had a treatment for Aids, has received funding from the organisation for her work in the field of cryonics.
Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) - February 14, 1997
Jim Day
THERE are people with Aids in South Africa who want to take Virodene now - and they want no part of what they see as bureaucratic meddling by the Medicines Control Council.
IT is with foreboding that we watch the unfolding of the latest Aids saga - the excited discovery by the Cabinet of a cure for the disease which ranks, at least in the popular imagination, as the world's public enemy number one. The sense of deja vu - Sarafina II and all that - is overwhelming.
IN 1960, a new drug meant to ease morning sickness for pregnant women hit the market. It was called Thalidomide and it gave its name to the babies who were damaged by it in the womb. This pharmacological disaster still haunts the medical profession.
AS reports of a possible cure for Aids broke in South Africa last week, at the other end of the world about 2 300 HIV research-ers were hearing news about another potent new drug that could eradicate HIV, the virus that causes Aids.
THE scientific community in South Africa and internationally are speculating that the active ingredient of Virodene is an industrial solvent called dimethylformamide (DMF). DMF is used in laboratories to "denature" DNA, a process that releases it from its double strand shape.
THREE Pretoria scientists broke every rule of scientific method this week when they took their research to a Cabinet meeting, saying they might have a cure for Aids. But the man representing them says they did this because they had been "blocked" by the Aids research establishment, who refused to collaborate with them when they wouldn't share their patent rights.
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