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June 28, 2005
Fighting AIDS in South Africa
Fighting AIDS is a noble goal. President Bush has made it a crucial part of his African policy, but he doesn't go far enough. Democrats can and should go further. Donate here.
Let's start in South Africa, which has more HIV cases than any other country on earth, and where one of the most depressing, appalling stories of AIDS-incompetence continues to unfold. To wit, the government is telling people not to take antiretrovirals. As the South African health minister put it, you can skip the antiretrovirals, because garlic is just as good at fighting AIDS.
After years of AIDS-denialism, in 2003 President Mbeki's ANC government finally saw the light on antiretroviral treatment. It agreed that antiretrovirals were needed and began a national rollout of the medication. Because these drugs are administered only when a patient develops full-blown AIDs, failure to administer the drugs swiftly can be a death sentence.
Enter Mathias Rath. Doctor Rath is a snake-oil salesman and a scoundrel, a character right out of Huck Finn. From his perch in the United States, he is encouraging South African AIDS patients not to take the antiretrovirals and instead to take his specially packaged, highly priced vitamin regime.
Rath, for his part, claims that the antiretrovirals are a bogus scam cooked up by the pharamceutical industry's captialist world conspiracy in order to take your money. You should, he insits, buy his vitamins instead. He even has an AIDS-conspiracy flow chart.
Now, vitaimins and nutrition are crucial components in maintaining and AIDS patient's good health, and no doctor would recommend that the antiretrovirals without also taking vitaimins and maintaining a health diet and exercise routine. But vitamins without antiretrovirals? I'm no doctor, but if you can cure AIDS with cold remedies, why is it still killing?
Worse, South Africa's health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, has endorsed Rath. Manto is openly against rolling out the antiretrovirals quickly (she once opined to the press that she didn't know why her own ministry had administered drugs to an "excessive" 42,000 AIDS patients. 5.3 million South Africans have HIV). She condons the Rath Foundation's ongoing disinformation campaign, which includes leafleting in South Africa against antiretrovirals and for Rath's own vitamins. Capitalist world conspiracy, indeed.
Manto has couched her position in classic ANC language, claiming that she is simply helping the poor, for whom the cleaper "alternative" of garlic (though she has also suggest olive oil) is more accessible than antiretrovirals.
Indeed, most South Africa AIDS patients and most South Africans are poor, uneducated, and marginalized. The fall of apartheid has not made the nation's blacks into a bourgeoisie overnight. Most AIDS patients are black, and most go to a traditional healer before they seek medical attention. The most marginialized of black adults, who were on the butt end of apartheid-era "education" policies, are illiterate and unable to sort through the claims and counter claims on antiretroviral treatment. Word of mouth or the opinion of someone they trust matters more than the truth printed in a newspaper they can't even read. These people are especially vulnerable to misinformation. It is especially important that South Africans receive a single, accurate message on AIDS: take your antiretrovirals, eat well, exercise, and take vitamins.
Instead, they receive two: take these drugs, but if you're poor, garlic will do. Thus the ANC's policy hurts the most marginalized blacks the very people they struggled so mightily and for so long to represent. Meanwhile white South Africans with AIDS take the antiretrovirals.
This is a lethal misstep in a government steeped in AIDS-denialism an an inability to admit and correct its mistakes. Thousands of the poorest will die because of this lie.
I do not know why the FDA and the AMA are permitting Rath to advocate not taking antiretrovirals. His medical license should be revoked, and he and his organization should be be prosecuted for fraud and criminally negligent homocide. Health minister Manto should be sacked. And antiretrovirals, along with generic vitaimins, should be given to every AIDS patient in South Africa. You can help by donating to an AIDS charity, like AVERT.
There are even sicker twists in the Rath/Manto story. I will elaborate in further posts.
Posted by James Fichter at June 28, 2005 11:12 AM
