This is an archive of the Treatment Action Campaign's public documents from December 1998 until October 2008. I created this website because the TAC's website appears unmaintained and people were concerned that it
was becoming increasingly hard to find important documents.

The menu items have been slightly edited and a new stylesheet applied to the site. But none of the documents have been edited, not even for minor errors. The text appears on this site as obtained from the Internet Archive.

The period covered by the archive encompassed the campaign for HIV medicines, the civil disobedience campaigns, the Competition Commission complaints, the 2008 xenophobic violence and the PMTCT, Khayelitsha health workers and Matthias Rath court cases.

 
Debunking AIDS Denialists
 

The Price of Denial

TAC treasurer, Mark Heywood, has written a short history of the effects of political denial on the HIV epidemic in South Africa. This was published in Development Update.
( The Price of Denial - MSWord document)

Links Showing That HIV Causes AIDS

http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/evidhiv.htm
This is the definitive National Institutes of Health article debunking the myths that the AIDS denialists perpetuate.

http://www.sfaf.org/aboutsfaf/outreach/index.html?june00/hiv_causes_aids.html
A simple look at the politics and history of AIDS denialism.

http://my.webmd.com/content/dmk/dmk_article_5462570
An explanation with diagrams, explaining how HIV causes AIDS.

http://www.unaids.org/special/
A shorter look at the myths the AIDS denialists perpetuate than the NIH article above.

Links and Abstracts about the Efficacy of Antiretroviral Treatment

http://www.hivatis.org/trtgdlns.html
These are the AIDS Treatment Information Service guidelines which President Mbeki has misquoted and misunderstood in order to excuse not treating people with HIV/AIDS. An extract from the summary as of August 2001 states:

"... treatment should be offered to all patients with the acute HIV syndrome, those within six months of HIV seroconversion, and all patients with symptoms ascribed to HIV infection. Recommendations for offering antiretroviral therapy in asymptomatic patients require analysis of many real and potential risks and benefits. In general, treatment should be offered to individuals with fewer than 350 CD4+ T cells/mm3 or plasma HIV RNA levels exceeding 30,000 copies/mL (bDNA assay) or 55,000 copies/mL (RT-PCR assay). The strength of the recommendation to treat asymptomatic patients should be based on the willingness and readiness of the individual to begin therapy; the degree of existing immunodeficiency as determined by the CD4+ T cell count; the risk of disease progression as determined by the CD4+ T cell count and level of plasma HIV RNA; the potential benefits and risks of initiating therapy in asymptomatic individuals; and the likelihood, after counseling and education, of adherence to the prescribed treatment regimen."
(from http://www.hivatis.org/guidelines/adult/Aug13_01/text/index.html)

Here is the abstract of one of the most important papers published on the efficacy of antiretroviral treatment. Further research has refined some some of the conclusions below (e.g. the authors' findings regarding protease inhibitors), but the core result that "... recent declines in morbidity and mortality due to AIDS are attributable to the use of more intensive antiretroviral therapies" remains unchanged.

N Engl J Med 1998 Mar 26;338(13):853-60
Declining morbidity and mortality among patients with advanced human immunodeficiency virus infection. HIV Outpatient Study Investigators.
Palella FJ Jr, Delaney KM, Moorman AC, Loveless MO, Fuhrer J, Satten GA, Aschman DJ, Holmberg SD.
Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, IL 60611-0949, USA.

BACKGROUND AND METHODS:
National surveillance data show recent, marked reductions in morbidity and mortality associated with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). To evaluate these declines, we analyzed data on 1255 patients, each of whom had at least one CD4+ count below 100 cells per cubic millimeter, who were seen at nine clinics specializing in the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in eight U.S. cities from January 1994 through June 1997.

RESULTS:
Mortality among the patients declined from 29.4 per 100 person-years in the first quarter of 1995 to 8.8 per 100 in the second quarter of 1997. There were reductions in mortality regardless of sex, race, age, and risk factors for transmission of HIV. The incidence of any of three major opportunistic infections (Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, Mycobacterium avium complex disease, and cytomegalovirus retinitis) declined from 21.9 per 100 person-years in 1994 to 3.7 per 100 person-years by mid-1997. In a failure-rate model, increases in the intensity of antiretroviral therapy (classified as none, monotherapy, combination therapy without a protease inhibitor, and combination therapy with a protease inhibitor) were associated with stepwise reductions in morbidity and mortality. Combination antiretroviral therapy was associated with the most beneDoes President Mbeki believe Aids is caused by afit; the inclusion of protease inhibitors in such regimens conferred additional benefit. Patients with private insurance were more often prescribed protease inhibitors and had lower mortality rates than those insured by Medicare or Medicaid.

CONCLUSIONS:
The recent declines in morbidity and mortality due to AIDS are attributable to the use of more intensive antiretroviral therapies.

Links about HIV Testing

http://www.hivtest.org/faqs/testing.htm
Simple answers to simple questions about HIV tests.

http://www.thebody.com/sowadsky/tests2.html
An explanation of the different types of HIV tests.

Paucity of AIDS denialist arguments demonstrated in debate on Tim Modise show.

See the transcript of a debate between TAC's Nathan Geffen and Anthony Brink of the Rath Foundation.

Transcrip

 

Does President Mbeki Believe HIV Causes AIDS?

Download a detailed, sourced, collection of his statements regarding HIV/AIDS (Word doc)