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Compiled by GayToday
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Pretoria, South Africa—President Thabo Mbeki, praised by some for his intense,
hands-on approach as when familiarizing himself with scientific literature, opened a meeting
of scientists here Saturday, discussing the origins of the AIDS virus. South Africa now
hosts over 3 million persons (total population is 44 million) who have become infected. |
 President Thabo Mbeki |
President Mbeki admits that he's no expert. “I'm reading all these
complicated things, language I don't understand,” he said, “I've got dictionaries
all around me in case there are words that are difficult to understand.”
Mbeki caused an uproar among medical experts last month by inviting two dissident
American researchers to sit on his evenly divided panel of scientific experts.
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On one side a biochemist, Dr. David Rasnick, was joined by a Professor of biochemistry
and molecular biology from the University of California at Berkley. Both argued against
the other panel by insisting that AIDS is not caused by HIV.
A Johannesburg-based professor of political science, Tom Lodge, characterized President
Mbeki as "a compulsive interferer". "There is a medical establishment." he noted to reporters with
little patience for heresies, "You leave, as it were, to the experts certain things that require expertise."
Harvard mathematician David Scondras, a former Boston public health
official suggested that President Mbeki should get more involved with his country's health care workers
who are on the epidemic's front lines.
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Related Stories from the GayToday Archive:
South Africa "AIDS Dissident" Dispute: Time to Stop and Think
Answering the AIDS Denialists:
CD4 (T-Cell) Counts, and Viral Load
ACT UP Dissidents Emerge
in San Francisco & Hollywood
Related Sites:
AIDS Foundation of South Africa
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He advised the South African President to talk to those people who deal with the illness
every day, not to those who “sit in ivory towers and speculate.''
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