AIDS post-HIV : beat of a different drummer - AltHeal

Panelists Dr Klaus Koehnlein (Germany), Pro f .
Etienne de Harven (France) and Dr Roberto
Giraldo (New York) relax after the meeting.
ELISA antibody testing methodology used in
South Africa was in line with British standard s ,
resulting in a ‘false positivity’ rate of 0.1%. He
made no attempt to address the absence of any
gold standard for ‘true positivity’.
Next the Panel heard from Dr Harvey Bialy on the
p ro g ress made towards designing the experiments
that had been hastily foreshadowed at the
p ress conference at conclusion of the first
meeting six weeks before, which it was hoped
would settle some of the areas of scientific
d i s a g reement. Shortly into his impro v i s e d
presentation a loud disagreement flared up from
opposite sides of the room between Prof. Peter
D u e s b e rg and Dr Helene Gayle, ostensibly over
some comments about AZT, which saw
Duesberg leave the conference hall, pursued by
Tshabalala-Msimang who spent tense minutes
persuading him to re t u rn in the interests of the
many people whose lives would be influenced by
the successful working of the Panel. However,
t h e reafter Duesberg absented himself from the
working group on experiments, at much the
same time that Eleopulos, who had not been at
the Pretoria meeting, became one of its most
active members. Indications are that Duesberg
continues to be willing to participate as the
process moves forward.
The Panel split into working groups next, to try to
deliver recommendations to the anxious
Secretariat that they could use in the preparation
of their report. The group on experiments
confirmed its intention to “test the tests”; there
was also a set of conventional recommendations
p roduced from the working group around tre a t-
ment, and that around ‘co-factors’.
South African President Thabo Mbeki has
become the liberal media’s whipping boy for
seeking advice about how applicable to South
Africa the received We s t e rn wisdoms about
HIV/AIDS are. Scientific journals were asserting
in the mid-1980s that HIV was not endemic in
South Africa. Now it is said to be everywhere
you look. Mbeki has publicly asked how this can
be so What will the answers mean for policy
And why are these statistics showing AIDS in
men and women almost equally If this is
‘ h e t e rosexual spread’, why did it not happen in
the West, where frankly most people do not use
condoms Why are there no figures for AIDS
mortality in South Africa Real data, not
projected estimates When can these figures be
available Why are the figures for HIV positivity in
South Africa extrapolated from testing in antenatal
clinics with an ELISA HIV antibody test
about which its manufacturer warns the principal
cause of false positivity is pregnancy
When none of the 29 illnesses grouped as AIDS
is new, what evidence is there that a ‘new’
m i c robe is involved in the apparent increase of
some of these illnesses
From the answers to these questions, the Mbeki
Administration seeks to understand whether
there are untried approaches to the problems in
its country - principally TB, which is said to
account for 60% of the AIDS-projection figures -
which would be aff o rdable and effective. By
Christmas, one of the biggest questions in AIDS
science should have its answer, supervised by
top international bodies, at the behest of a
P resident not afraid to test convention and go
the extra distance to find the truth: is there such
a thing as HIV
This article first appeared in the September issue
of New African magazine
New African magazine.
www.africasia.com/icpubs
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