Comments on: What drove the Aids holocaust?

By: Pat

Pat — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:19:25 +0000

This is a very infuriating debate as far as I am aware I have never read anywhere that the Former President Mbeki was involved in the invention of HIV all that I am aware of is that like all of us he read what was already available in the public domain, now when was it ever a crime to ask a question that was already asked by the scientists anyway? Why is it that the writer of this article does not say anything about the people made AIDS and HIV in the first place? Why do we pretend like this is not already in the public domain? Now why should the people that did not make this virus have their reputaions damaged when real culprits are smiling with lots and lots of millions if not bilions of dollars in their bank accounts? Is this not sad?

By: Clay

Clay — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:47:00 +0000

Has any one ever investigated what role pharmaceutical companies played in this whole AIDS debate? OIne thing i have noticed in this world is if you ask a question you are not supposed to ask you get crucified, we just have to go with what we are told and dare not raise an eyebrow. Honestly pharmaceutical have money to make in the continent even if it means they give us medicine that dont work. Reminds me of this story http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/157405.php

Makes you wonder what we really know as ordinary people.

By: Sello

Sello — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:32:38 +0000

Great article!! Write more!

By: Phizar

Phizar — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:52:18 +0000

All of a sudden Adolf Hilter has been given a promotion, whatever dude. Not a day in hell is Hilter anyway better than anyone or any disease.

By: Michael Francis

Michael Francis — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:07:55 +0000

@John Blanckenberg –

You just triggered a memory for me from my fieldwork in the Drakensberg Mountains. You say the proper/histrocial meaning of holocaust is “a whole burnt offering”. I recall sitting with a dying man in a shack in the Berg. We washed and dressed his sores, two days later he passed away. We burnt imphephu in the back of the hut to help send his spirit on its journey to the next world. 10 months later his family did the same. All across Southern Africa people are offering up little burnt offerings for their recently departed. If they came together it would be one huge burnt offering. And what have they been offered up for?

Hubris? Vanity? How many more burnt offerings must be done? How many are enough?

By: Michael Francis

Michael Francis — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:56:47 +0000

Davhana – The point is not about abrogating individual responsibility for sexual behaviour. The point being made is that Thabo and Manto actively halted programmes and treatment. Controversy was ignited by Mbeki’s speech to Parliament in October 1999 where he questioned the safety of AZT treatment. This was soon followed by a directive from the Minister for Health to the Medical Control Council to re-examine the safety of AZT before it could be used in Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission. Mbeki went even further with his wild claims as he ‘raised concerns’ about what he saw as a capitalist plot by the pharmaceutical companies producing ARVs to peddle them to poor Africans. He polarised and racialised the debate and in doing so stopped treatment.

The debate here is about willful neglect of the poor and ill by refusing them treatment – a different debate than prevention.

The cruel irony of Mbeki’s position is that by racialising the debate he allowed poor Africans to die.

By: peppi

peppi — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:28:42 +0000

@robin – which dictionary?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_%28disambiguation%29

sorry but AIDS is not a holocaust and i don’t like the inflationary use of the word on this blog.

By: Rory Short

Rory Short — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:21:20 +0000

When Apartheid itself was laid to rest in 1994 no one who struggled against Apartheid envisaged being saddled with an even bigger social problem than Apartheid, namely HIV/AIDS. This was, I think, particularly true of the comrades who were looking forward to being able to devote themselves to the perks of office and the legacy problems spawned by Apartheid. The reality of HIV/AIDS cut right across this prospect so it was psychologically convenient to deny the existence of the burgeoning pandemic.

By: Hugh Robinson

Hugh Robinson — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:14:19 +0000

If you believe it is a Halocast. We all know who was the most to Blame Manto shabalala and the entire ANC cadre who did not stand for what was right. Not that I care a damn either, but then what does my voice count?

By: mundundu

mundundu — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:32:26 +0000

um, una? that “best campaign” in south africa? mbeki had nothing to do with it. his government actively countered it and had to be SUED to make it happen.

unlike in many other countries, the government actually listened to the courts, but they were dragged into the implementation kicking and screaming. as such, mbeki deserves no credit.