Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

The departure  of Thabo Mbeki from the South African political stage has alrady produced some positive effects. His interim replacement, Kgalema Motlanthe, while stating a desire to pursue continuity, has got rid of some of Mbeki’s more controversial ministers. Chief among these is Health Minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the chief theoretician behind Mbeki’s AIDS danialist policies. Mbeki’s government refused to accept the role the HIV virus has in the spread of AIDS, and his health minister stated that anti-retroviral drugs, which have been shown to have some effect in fighting the disease, were too expensive. Anyway, she advocated more thrifty and traditional methods for fightuing AIDS: eating beetroot and chewing garlic. This earned her the nickname of Dr Beetroot. Medical professionals working in the South African health service who publlicly disagreed with the minister’s bizarre theories have been victimised.

South Africa is reckoned to have over five milion AIDS sufferers. Many lives could  be saved with greater availability of anti-retrovirals; tens of thousands at the very least have died as a result of the AIDS denialism of the South African government.  Dr Beetroot was as much an enemy of AIDS sufferrs as those religious fundamentalists in the West who claim that AIDS is a Divinely-inspired disease to rid the world of the evil of homosexuality and sodomy. 

I personally believe that Dr Tshabalala-Msimang should be tried for crimes against humanity and genocide against her own people.

Her successor at the health helm, Barbara Hogan, has a distinguished record of opposing the government’s AIDS policies. The man who will almost certainly become South African president, Jacob Zuma, has his own eccentric theories on combating IAIDS. He believes that the best way of avoiding contagion after sex with an AIDS carrier is to have a quick shower.