Sunday Times, South Africa - Sunday, January 31, 1999
Laurice Taitz
The threats have been contained in anonymous e-mails sent to convenors of the 13th World AIDS Conference.
They coincide with an editorial this month in a leading UK scientific journal, Nature Medicine. Under the heading "South Africa - Setting the wrong example", it says: "The meeting organisers and financial backers must be aware that worldwide concern for Zuma's AZT decision is so great that talk of a boycott is emerging."
Minister of Health Dr Nkosazana Zuma justified withholding AZT, which can help block transmission of the virus to babies, on the grounds that it was not cost-effective. But doctors who treat those with HIV disagree, arguing that it is cheaper to give AZT to mothers, than it is to care for babies if they contract the disease.
South African AIDS activists and researchers support handing out AZT but are opposed to a boycott.
The Medical Research Council's Professor Salim Abdool-Karim, who is chairman of the scientific committee convening the conference, said: "We are not taken aback by this. We expected politics to feature but we are taken aback by it happening so early. We have just started organising the conference."
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