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Change your Life! |
Conference
in South Africa questions established AIDS theories |
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News
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May 7, 2000
PRETORIA, MAY 6 (AP) - Taking a controversial stance amid the worst catastrophe to hit Africa, President Thabo Mbeki convened a meeting Saturday of dozens of scientists who debated whether HIV leads to AIDS and other already accepted concepts. "I've asked myself over the past few months whether the matters we've raised are folly or grace," admitted Mbeki, an economist and intellectual who has been studying AIDS over the Internet and by reading medical literature. But Mbeki said nothing should be taken for granted and blindly accepted while millions of people are dying. Among those attending the two-day conference is U.S.-based researcher Peter Duesberg, a scientific outcast for his theory that AIDS is not caused by the human immunodeficiency virus but by illegal drugs and the anti-AIDS medication AZT. Mbeki this year astounded the world health community by ruling out providing AZT to HIV-positive pregnant women, declaring it is too dangerous to use, even though it's been proven that AZT drastically cuts the chances the newborns would get the deadly virus. Critics
say that by organizing the conference and picking over widely
accepted concepts, Mbeki is diverting precious time, energy and resources
while the epidemic races through the continent unchecked. More than 2 million people died in sub-Saharan Africa of AIDS in 1999 - 85 percent of the total deaths of AIDS, while the region accounts for only 10 percent of the world's population. Mbeki said given the horrifying statistics, he has personally gotten involved in the anti-AIDS fight. He said that when he reads medical papers on the epidemic, he often phones his health minister to have terminology explained. At least one of those invited to the conference, being held in a luxury hotel in Pretoria, said he hoped Mbeki would not get hung up on discredited theories. "I hope (the conference) allows the president to move forward," said David Scondras, a Harvard mathematician and who has been a public health official in Boston. Instead
of spending time listening to scientists argue, Mbeki should
focus on what physicians in his country are doing to fight the epidemic.
Many have blasted his refusal to provide AZT to infected pregnant women, and some are rebelling and quietly providing the anti-retroviral drug. "Mbeki
should look carefully at what people who deal with the illness
do every day, not at people who sit in ivory towers and speculate,"
Scondras told journalists.
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