TAC Statement 1 June 2001 GCIS Misinforms on HIV/AIDS Treatment In a letter to the Cape Argus (30 May), the head of the Western Cape branch of the Government Communications and Information Services (GCIS), Al-Ameen Kafaar, asks Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) why the organisation is treating black people like "guinea pigs". Kafaar's letter is mischievous, because it tries to create confusion, and dangerous, because it demonstrates scientific illiteracy on a life and death issue. MSF are not testing the pharmacological efficacy of antiretroviral medicines. Triple-drug antiretroviral therapy has reduced HIV/AIDS mortality rates by over 70% in Europe and America, and by more than 50% in Brazil. People with HIV in these countries can now live longer, healthier lives. MSF have implemented the Khayelitsha programme to demonstrate that "antiretroviral therapy in a primary health care setting in a resource-poor African environment is feasible, affordable and reproducible." Contrary to the implication in the GCIS statement, MSF counsels the programme participants extensively on the potential side-effects of taking these medicines. But results the world over, including extensive experience in South Africa, indicate that the benefits of antiretroviral therapy far outweigh the risks. Indeed the participants in this programme are taking an opportunity which most of their fellow citizens are denied because of lack of government political will to fight this epidemic and unaffordable drug prices. The GCIS rhetoric is reminiscent of the Apartheid Government's Bureau of Information, which also used false propaganda to hide a complete lack of regard for black people and to discredit the mass democratic movement. Is the government embarrassed that its constitutional duties to protect life and dignity are being carried out by MSF? Kafaar writes "let's stop politicising Aids". TAC agrees that political parties should not use HIV/AIDS for petty points-scoring. However, the lack of a coherent treatment plan is resulting in premature and unneccessary deaths. Nothing could be more political. Kafaar's statement only makes sense in the context of the discredited view that HIV does not cause AIDS. This is not the stated viewpoint of the government or the ANC. But since the GCIS is an organ of state leaders, one must conclude that there are people in government who still do not believe that HIV causes AIDS. This demonstrates that some of this country's leaders are hopelessly out of touch with the daily reality of HIV/AIDS faced by South Africans. Is our government treating the lives of over 4 million predominantly poor black people as dispensable? ---------- GCIS Letter Black people are not Aids’ guinea pigs (Letter to Cape Argus from Al-Ameen Kafaar -- Government Information Services Western Cape) It was heartwarming to read in your edition of 25 May ("Hope for state Aids patients), that new hope is to be given to people living with Aids in Khayelitsha. I am sure the patients selected by Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) for the triple-therapy anti-retroviral cocktail will pin all their hopes on this treatment, if not to cure them then at least to prolong their lives. For their sake, we can only hope their prayers will be answered. However, I would like to raise the question, why are they still being used as guinea pigs? Another publication reported earlier that MSF already tested the antiretrovirals on sufferers in Europe. Why test them again? The argument is that we all know that HIV causes Aids. In other words, the conclusion reached after the tests in Europe should deliver the same results in Africa. MSF should be careful. They might be accused of supporting President Thabo Mbeki’s argument that the approach to Aids in Africa should be different from that in Europe. However, to use the words of MP Ruth Bengu, let’s stoppoliticising Aids and look at the human aspect of this scourge. I think it is only fair of MSF to warn the public that the antiretrovirals could have side-effects such as liver and heart disease. Anaemia and diabetes, as indicated in an earlier report. Please remember, as our Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and her predecessor Nkosazana Dhlamini-Zuma said, blacks are human too, and are not just to be used in experiments. Signed: Al-Ameen Kafaar --GCIS Western Cape