Guest guest Posted October 1, 2005 Report Share Posted October 1, 2005 Sat, 1 Oct 2005 20:18:29 +0200 " Sepp Hasslberger " <sepp Fwd: A Frightening Degree of Fanaticism For information - a good article in Red Flags Daily on the Aids debate in Africa. Kind regards Sepp > http://www.redflagsdaily.com/allen/2005_sep16.html > > > 33f748.jpg > Anita Allen has written extensively on the AIDS debate and the scientific fields in which it is embedded since 1999. > > > A Frightening Degree of Fanaticism > > By Red Flags Columnist, Anita Allen > > The headline that really got to me this week was " AIDS-drug drive on track, says Mseleku. " (1) Let me explain why. > > Here we have a president, Thabo Mbeki, who stood up in Parliament in October 1999 and said that he had serious misgivings about antiretroviral (ARV) drugs used in the treatment of AIDS. (2) He added that he had requested a report from his health minister on the issue. If such a report was ever compiled, it has not been made public. Instead, the president sent a letter to world leaders notifying them that he intended to conduct a review of HIV/AIDS so as to better understand how to manage it. (3) What we know about how this letter was received is from Mbeki himself. Answering a question in Parliament on the reception he got from world leaders, he said it would be best to ask them, but he could say that the responses were generally positive and supportive. > > The exception was U.S. President Bill Clinton, who leaked his letter to TheWashington Post, along with anonymous White House sources expressing " dismay. " So much dismay, in fact, that Clinton not only requested that four of his own handpicked experts be members of Mbeki's AIDS panel, he also declared HIV/AIDS a national security issue four days before the panel met for the first time in May 2000. > > In his opening address to the panel, President Mbeki quoted from Irish poet Patrick Henry Pearse's poem " The Fool. " > > " Since the wise men have not spoken, I speak that I am only a fool; > > A fool that hath loved his folly, > > Yea, more than the wise men their books or their counting houses or their > > quiet homes, > > Or their fame in men's mouths; > > A fool that in all his days hath never done a prudent thing, > > " I have squandered the splendid years that the Lord God gave to my youth > > In attempting impossible things, deeming them alone worth the toil. > > Was it folly or grace? " > > He concluded: " When eminent scientists said, 'You have spoken out of turn,' it was difficult not to think that one was, indeed, a fool. But I am no longer so sure about that, given that so many eminent people responded to the invitation of a fool to come to this important meeting. " > > Mbeki's panel of experts included the Who's Who of HIV/AIDS: Andrew Herxheimer, founder of the United Kingdom Cochrane Centre, which monitors drugs across the globe, Clifford Lane of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Helene Gayle of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and French scientist Luc Montagnier. American scientist Robert Gallo rudely declined an invitation. A panel report showed a crisp divide on AIDS drugs: Half the members believed highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) was miraculous; the other half believed it could only kill. Nothing in between. > > Thus was the battle for the heart versus HAART of South Africa enjoined. It raged on for two years with 2001 being notable for Mbeki taking on all comers in Parliament and in interviews, local and abroad. Pro-ARV activists and lobbyists threw every epithet into the fray to portray the president as " off his rocker " in their efforts to get ARV drugs supplied free through the public health system. " Genocide " was another favourite term. > > After momentous agonizing, South Africa's Cabinet on April 17, 2002 issued a statement that noted " antiretroviral drugs can improve the quality of life of people living with AIDS if administered at certain stages in the progression of the condition … and can cause harm if incorrectly used. " > > What data had been supplied to persuade Cabinet to this view? I had searched for such data. I couldn't find any. Similar searches by others had turned up the same negative result. I did everything I could possibly do to get references to published research justifying these Cabinet statements. I was treated with the utmost contempt by Joel Netshitenzhe, CEO of the government communication and information services, who issued the Cabinet statement, Jacob Zuma, then deputy president of South Africa and government spokesperson on HIV/AIDS, as well as Ayanda Ntsaluba, director general of the department of health, and his communication head, Joanne Collinge. > > I noted that the April 17 Cabinet statement marked the start of silence from President Mbeki on all things HIV and AIDS. > > Pro-ARVs were jubilant. They thought it was all over and an ARV rollout was just days away. But it took a further 18 months, interspersed with court injunctions, before, in August 2003, Ntsaluba presented to Cabinet a draft of the Comprehensive Plan for Care and Treatment of HIV and AIDS. (4) On the same day, he resigned only to be re-deployed as director general of the foreign affairs department. For me, this confirmed HIV/AIDS was solidly in the sphere of foreign relations diplomacy as dictated by Clinton, when he declared it a national security issue. > > The main reason it took so long to compile a draft plan was that the team working on it couldn't agree on acceptable wording. It was months of toing and froing, workshops and seminars before participants came up with a satisfactory document. Since the team included representatives of the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation, led by chairperson Ira Magaziner, I knew after reading the plan that here was proof of a real absence of evidence for a " premise that HIV causes AIDS, " which, according to the Cabinet statement, was government's starting point. > > It took another six months before antiretrovirals started to be rolled out in the public health system on April 1, 2004 °© an April Fools' irony. In the interim, headlines demanded the " life-prolonging " and " life-saving " drugs daily. A commonly quoted statistic was that 6,000 people were dying every day in South Africa because of the non-supply of ARVs. Completely ignored was the fact that the plan gave equal importance to alternate treatments, proper nutrition and traditional medicines. No one has ever collated or quoted estimates of how many people die because of chronic malnutrition. > > It was left to our health minister, the redoubtable Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, MD, to fill the gap. Though pilloried as " Dr. No " for her stubborn refusal to unequivocally endorse ARVs and to state that " HIV causes AIDS, " she went out of her way to identify lemons, garlic, olive oil and beetroot as components of good nutrition, to promote the need for healthy lifestyles and to confirm the place of traditional remedies. (5) She was a lone voice emphasizing what everyone had agreed to in the Comprehensive Plan: People must have the freedom to choose their own course of treatment. Activists promoting the ARVs-only approach remained °© and still remain °© the only ones quoted and interviewed by the media. In fact, no report on ARVs misses the opportunity to editorialize with " life prolonging " and/or " life saving " references. > > Despite calls for Tshabalala-Msimang to be axed from the Cabinet, President Mbeki re-appointed her as health minister after the 2004 elections. > > One would think that six years of abundant free advertising for ARVs would have drummed up massive demand for these " life-saving and " life-prolonging " drugs. If indeed they did save or prolong lives, surely the good news would spread from the estimated 60,000 people on ARVs in the private sector. It is commonly said that South Africa has 6.8 million people infected with HIV of which at least 750,000 have reached the stage of full-blown AIDS and desperately need these " life-saving " and " life-prolonging " medications. Along with everyone else, I waited for the ARV floodgates to open. > > But there were no queues. The April Fools' launch brought a trickle even at the biggest hospitals. " Too few outlets, " screamed activists. " Inefficiency, lack of leadership, mixed signals to a confused populace, " they said, calling repeatedly for President Mbeki to simply say, " HIV causes AIDS. " Despite a steady media diet of happy HAART patients, the number who signed up for ARVs remained low, gradually creeping up to 48,000 by July this year. > > More than a year after the rollout started, and 20 years since ARVs were first licensed, South Africa has two people who have so far survived ARV treatment °© Judge Edwin Cameron, who started ARVs in 2000 and is now skeletal with a noticeable tummy, and Treatment Action Campaign leader Zackie Achmat, who began in 2003 and has since suffered a heart attack. All the others whose lives have been prolonged and saved remain faceless. When celebrity deaths from AIDS have been reported, it has never been mentioned that they were on ARVs. (6) > > For 18 months, I have championed the need for close monitoring of people on ARVs in the public health system. I have written numerous letters to editors, but lately my letters and similar letters from like-minded people have been censored. I still telephone all and sundry, and speak out on radio talk shows when the opportunity arises. I have done everything I can to get data from the department of health, so far with no success. My latest failed efforts coincided with the headline this week °© " AIDS-drug drive on track, says Mseleku " °© that so distressed me. > > The article quoted the recently appointed director general of health, Thami Mseleku, as confirming that the number of people on ARVs stood at 61,000 but gave no further information. We were not told how many of this number were, in fact, still taking their " life-saving " and " life-prolonging " drugs or even if they were still alive. Nothing is known about these patients, Mseleku said. > > Surely this was the vital fact that should have been reflected in the headline? > > Go to the department of health Web site and you will find detailed documents on what kind of monitoring is required but, in practice, isn't happening. (7) There are three centres set up to collate data but, so far, no data to collate. Or, if there is, no one is telling the Mseleku about it. More to the point, no one is saying this is unacceptable. > > Some 61,000 people and an equivalent number in the private sector °© 120,000 in all °© and so far not a scrap of evidence that ARVs have prolonged or saved a single life. But let's keep rolling it out °© one million by year-end is the UNAIDS goal for South Africa. Millions more around the globe and no evidence for " life prolonging " and " life saving " beyond anecdotal news reports quoting pro-ARV health professionals. > > How are pro-ARVs allowed to get away with this? Does anyone, anywhere in all these HIV/AIDS forums, local and abroad, care? Does the collective South African Cabinet care? Does our minister of health care? Does the U.S. national security authority and its foreign relations sector care? Clearly not. Just keep funding and rolling out the " life-prolonging " and " life-saving " drugs. No need to supply data, just make sure big business keeps those funds coming in and that the toyi-toying mobs wearing T-shirts and carrying posters courtesy of Treatment Action Campaign are happy, especially as local elections loom. > > Let's all forget that we have a president who raised major questions on HIV and AIDS and treatments. Though some of his pronouncements are still available via his political party Web site, (8) every word he spoke on HIV and AIDS prior to April 17, 2002 has been expunged from the government Web site. It is just too embarrassing, especially since only a small band of loonies, quacks and snake oil believers ever supported him. > > To quote President Mbeki's letter to world leaders: " Scientists, in the name of science, are demanding that we should co-operate with them to freeze scientific discourse on HIV-AIDS at the specific point this discourse had reached in the West in 1984. > > " People who otherwise would fight very hard to defend the critically important rights of freedom of thought and speech occupy, with regard to the HIV-AIDS issue, the frontline in the campaign of intellectual intimidation and terrorism which argues that the only freedom we have is to agree with what they decree to be established scientific truths. > > " Some agitate for these extraordinary propositions with a religious fervour born by a degree of fanaticism, which is truly frightening. > > " The day may not be far off when we will, once again, see books burnt and their authors immolated by fire by those who believe that they have a duty to conduct a holy crusade against the infidels. > > " It is most strange that all of us seem ready to serve the cause of the fanatics by deciding to stand and wait. " > > > > References > > 1. http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/TarkArticle.aspx?ID=1612415 > > 2. http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mbeki/1999/tm1028.html > > 3. Complete text of President Thabo Mbeki's letter to world leaders > > 4. http://www.info.gov.za/otherdocs/2003/aidsplan.pdf > > 5. " AIDS does not mean death °© 45 hours on film proves it. " Anita Allen's " Letter from South Africa, " May 2005, www.redflagsdaily.com > > 6. " The Great Aids Debate moves to battle of the icons. " Anita Allen's " Letter from South Africa, " Jan. 2005, www.redflagsdaily.com. > > 7. http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/hivaids-progressrep.html > > 8. http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mbeki > > > > > Complete text of President Thabo Mbeki's letter to world leaders > April 3, 2000 > > I am honoured to convey to you the compliments of our government as well as my own, and to inform you about some work we are doing to respond to the HIV-AIDS epidemic. > > As you are aware, international organizations such as UNAIDS have been reporting that Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for two-thirds of the world incidence of HIV-AIDS. These reports indicate that our own country is among the worst affected. > > Responding to these reports, in 1998, our government decided radically to step up its own efforts to combat AIDS, this fight having, up to this point, been left largely to our Ministry and Department of Health. > > Among other things, we set up a Ministerial Task Force against HIV-AIDS chaired by the Deputy President of the Republic, which position I was privileged to occupy at the time. > > Our current Deputy President, the Hon. Jacob Zuma, now leads this task force. > > We also established Partnerships against AIDS, with many major sectors of our society, including the youth, women, business, labour unions and the religious communities. > > We have now also established a National AIDS Council, again chaired by the Deputy President and bringing together the government and civil society. An important part of the campaign that we are conducting seeks to encourage safe sex and the use of condoms. > > At the same time, as an essential part of our campaign against HIV/AIDS, we are working to ensure that we focus properly and urgently on the elimination of poverty among the millions of our people. > > Similarly, we are doing everything we can, within our very limited possibilities, to provide the necessary medicaments and care to deal with what are described as 'opportunistic diseases' that attach to acquired immune deficiency. > > As a government and a people, we are trying to organize ourselves to ensure that we take care of the children affected and orphaned to AIDS. > > We work also to ensure that no section of our society, whether public or private, discriminates against people suffering from HIV-AIDS. > > In our current budget, we have included a dedicated fund to finance our activities against HIV-AIDS. This is in addition to funds that the central government departments as well as the provincial and local administrations will spend on this campaign. > > We have also contributed to our Medical Research Council such funds as we can, for the development of an AIDS vaccine. Demands are being made within the country for the public health system to provide antiretroviral drugs for various indications, including mother-to-child transmission. > > We are discussing this matter, among others with our statutory licensing authority for medicines and drugs, the Medicines Control Council (MCC). > > Toward the end of last year, speaking in our national parliament, I said that I had asked our Minister of Health to look into various controversies taking place among scientists on HIV-AIDS and the toxicity of a particular anti-retroviral drug. > > In response to this, among other things, the Minister is working to put together an international panel of scientists to discuss all these issues in as transparent a setting as possible. > > As you know, AIDS in the United States and other developed Western countries has remained largely confined to a section of the male homosexual population. > > For example, the cumulative heterosexual contact U.S. percentage for AIDS cases among adults/adolescents through June 1999 is given as 10 percent. (HIV-AIDS Surveillance Report: Midyear edition. Vol 11, No 1, 1999. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). > > The cumulative absolute total for this age group is reported as being 702,748. > > U.S. AIDS deaths for the period January 1996 to June 1997 were stated by the U.S. CDC as amounting to 32,750. (Trends in the HIV and AIDS Epidemic: 1998. CDC.) > > On May 13, 1999, a SAFA-AFP report datelined Paris stated that 1998 UNAIDS and WHO reports had said that AIDS was responsible for one death in five in Africa or about two million people. > > It quoted a Dr. Awa Coll Seck of UNAIDS as saying that there are 23 million carriers in Africa of HIV. > > This SAFA-AFP report quotes Dr. Coll Seck as saying: " In Southern Africa, the prevalence of the (HIV) infection has increased so much in five years that this region could, if the epidemic continues to spread at this rate, see its life expectancy decline to 47 by 2005. " > > (Interestingly, the five years to which Dr. Coil Seck refers coincide closely with the period since our liberation from apartheid, white minority rule in 1994.) > > The report went on to say that almost 1,500 people are infected in South Africa every day and that, at that point, the equivalent of 3 million people in our country carried the virus. > > Again as you are aware, whereas in the West HIV-AIDS is said to be largely homosexually transmitted, it is reported that in Africa, including our country, it is transmitted heterosexually. > > Accordingly, as Africans, we have to deal with this uniquely African catastrophe that: contrary to the West, HIV-AIDS in Africa is heterosexually transmitted; contrary to the West, where relatively few people have died from AIDS, itself a matter of serious concern, millions are said to have died in Africa; and, contrary to the West, where AIDS deaths are declining, even greater numbers of Africans are destined to die. > > It is obvious that whatever lessons we have to and may draw from the West about the grave issue of HIV-AIDS, a simple superimposition of Western experience on African reality would be absurd and illogical. > > Such proceeding would constitute a criminal betrayal of our responsibility to our own people. It was for this reason that I spoke as I did in our parliament, in the manner in which I have indicated. > > I am convinced that our urgent task is to respond to the specific threat that faces us as Africans. We will not eschew this obligation in favour of the comfort of the recitation of a catechism that may very well be a correct response to the specific manifestation of AIDS in the West. > > We will not, ourselves, condemn our own people to death by giving up the search for specific and targeted responses to the specifically African incidence of HIV-AIDS. > > I make these comments because our search for these specific and targeted responses is being stridently condemned by some in our country and the rest of the world as constituting a criminal abandonment of the fight against HIV-AIDS. > > Some elements of this orchestrated campaign of condemnation worry me very deeply. > > It is suggested, for instance, that there are some scientists who are " dangerous and discredited " with whom nobody, including ourselves, should communicate or interact. > > In an earlier period in human history, these would be heretics that would be burnt at the stake! > > Not long ago, in our own country, people were killed, tortured, imprisoned and prohibited from being quoted in private and in public because the established authority believed that their views were dangerous and discredited. > > We are now being asked to do precisely the same thing that the racist apartheid tyranny we opposed did, because, it is said, there exists a scientific view that is supported by the majority, against which dissent is prohibited. > > The scientists we are supposed to put into scientific quarantine include Nobel Prize winners, members of Academies of Science and Emeritus Professors of various disciplines of medicine! > > Scientists, in the name of science, are demanding that we should co-operate with them to freeze scientific discourse on HIV-AIDS at the specific point this discourse had reached in the West in 1984. > > People who otherwise would fight very hard to defend the critically important rights of freedom of thought and speech occupy, with regard to the HIV-AIDS issue, the frontline in the campaign of intellectual intimidation and terrorism which argues that the only freedom we have is to agree with what they decree to be established scientific truths. > > Some agitate for these extraordinary propositions with a religious fervour born by a degree of fanaticism, which is truly frightening. > > The day may not be far off when we will, once again, see books burnt and their authors immolated by fire by those who believe that they have a duty to conduct a holy crusade against the infidels. > > It is most strange that all of us seem ready to serve the cause of the fanatics by deciding to stand and wait. > > It may be that these comments are extravagant. If they are, it is because in the very recent past, we had to fix our own eyes on the very face of tyranny. I am greatly encouraged that all of us, as Africans, can count on your unwavering support in the common fight to save our continent and its peoples from death from AIDS. Please accept, Your Excellency, the assurance of my response. > > Thabo Mbeki. -- The individual is supreme and finds its way through intuition. Sepp Hasslberger My page on physics, new energy, economy: http://www.hasslberger.com/ Critical perspective on Health: http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/ Freedom of choice - La Leva di Archimede: http://www.laleva.cc/ La Leva's news: http://www.laleva.org/ Robin Good - http://www.masternewmedia.org/ Trash Your Television! http://www.tvturnoff.org/ http://www.tvnewslies.org/ Not satisfied with news from the tube and other controlled media? Search the net! There are thousands of information sources out there. 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