Politicians call it “plausible deniability”. One makes a statement that everyone who hears it believes to mean X. The generally accepted meaning of X is, however, untrue. But one has parsed the words in such a way that one could always later claim never to have said what everyone thought one had said – even if one had not contested the generally accepted interpretation shortly after it was made. Or evades responsibility for one’s words by denying ever having said something that others have not really claimed one has said.
President Thabo Mbeki is a master at this. He really is not someone with a great fondness for honesty and truth.
Earlier this week Mbeki denied ever having said that HIV does not cause AIDS. A “(im)plausible denial” of the generally accepted interpretation of his words, if ever there was one. At the time Mbeki had said:
“Does HIV cause AIDS? Can a virus cause a syndrome? How? It can’t, because a syndrome is a group of diseases resulting from acquired immune deficiency.”
And in an interview with Time Magazine on September 4 2000, Mbeki stated that, “the notion that immune deficiency [AIDS] is only acquired from a single virus [HIV] cannot be sustained.” When asked whether he was prepared to “acknowledge that there is a link between HIV and AIDS?” he replied:
This is precisely where the problem starts. No, I am saying that you cannot attribute immune deficiency solely and exclusively to a virus.
So, in a dry technical sense Mbeki is not peddling a “deliberate falsehood” when he says he never said the words: “HIV does not cause Aids”. Plausible deniability. Problem is, he questioned the link between HIV and AIDS and said a virus cannot cause a syndrome and this was widely understood by those spineless cabinet Ministers (who refused at the time to state that HIV causes AIDS), state officials and ordinary people to mean that Mbeki did not believe that HIV caused AIDS. And Mbeki, who at any time during the controversy could have corrected this impression, failed to do so.
This is like asking whether apartheid was really bad for South Africa and had really caused the suffering of millions of South Africans, then when asked directly whether I thought apartheid was bad for South Africa and had caused misery to say: “no, there are many reasons for people’s misery”. Then years later denying that I had ever suggested that apartheid caused suffering.
Now, hundreds of thousands of deaths later, Mbeki wants to rewrite history. Why take responsibility for your words when they come back to bite you? That would require courage and honesty – two things our former President seems to lack.
Another example of this lack of basic honesty was revealed in his affidavit in support of his suspension of Vusi Pikoli. In the affidavit Mbeki stated:
I had to confer with the NSC to establish the risk posed by this decision [not to provide more time to arrest Selebi] and considered ways of minimising any potential threat to national security…. All I can say is that following such discussion [with the NSC] the advice I received was to suspend the applicant from office with immediate effect.
At the time it was widely reported that Mbeki had said that he had suspended Pikoli on the advice of the NSC. Mbeki never corrected this. Now the Presidency has issued a statement saying:
Former President Thabo Mbeki did not say he was advised by the National Security Council to suspend the NDPP. All he said was that he conferred with the National Security Council.
So, at best Mbeki was misleading the court and the public by his innitial statement and then – more importantly, by his silence afterward. At worst he was committing perjury.
Would you buy a second hand car from this man? I won’t.
I welcome the fact that Prof has now shifted from accusing TM of being an AIDS denialist to a somewhat lesser charge of failing to correct the “misperceptions” that people had about what he actually said.
But Prof if people (like you) are going to hear what you want to hear, don’t you think you also have a responsibility to listen/read/pay attention to the things he said when he made the first quote you highlighted above.
Just before the line you quoted, it is said:
“he emphasised that all government HIV/AIDS policies are based on the premise that HIV causes AIDS.”
“All HIV/AIDS programmes of this government are based on the thesis that HIV causes AIDS,” ………. “There is absolutely no confusion about what to do.”
Now, if you bear in mind that context of his statement, how can you possibly go out there and proudly peddle a “deliberate untruth” that he actually said HIV does not cause AIDS. More to the point, on the article you referring to above, it is clear (even to a primary school learner) that what he was sayign was that it is not HIV alone that causes AIDS and this was not even his view, but that of other scientists.
So, unless you are going to dispute the theory that HIV is but one of the causes of AIDS (perhaps the primary cause), there are other contributing factors, don’t come here and accuse TM of not telling the truth when you yourself are not being honest about what TM actually said.
In 1996, at the International Aids Convention, then being held at Guelph in Canada, it was announced that the treatment for Aids, a triple cocktail, was working successfully and that a real breakthrough had been obtained which they estimated would prolong life for twenty years. That length of time has since been extended indefinitely when proper health and nutritional practices are rigorously maintained.
Canada’s Stephen Lewis, the son of my father’s legal partner, you may recall as the UN Head of Aids for Africa, was blacklisted from entering South Africa for saying it was possible in the future that both Mbeki and the mad hatter would be charged with crimes against humanity.
That these drugs were available in 1996, that the international community was pleading with South Africa to accept their help, and that SA refused, is a crime against humanity. That such ignorance can cause so much unnecessary suffering and death, is inexplicable.
Of note, Stephen Lewis went on to establish hundreds of groupings of Canadian grandmothers who send aid to the South African grandmothers raising Aids orphans.
Mzo – HIV exclusively causes AIDS. Yes, there are a zillion things that break down immunity, but AIDS is a term linked exclusievly to the breakdown of imunity as a result of the HIV virus. You know this, Khosi knows this and Mbeki knows this.
There is no getting around the fact that in the face of an overwhelming scientific consensus regarding HIV/AIDS and its treatment, Mbeki went off on an arrogant and ignorant internet jaunt with a couple of dissidents which directly cost the lives of 100s of thousands of South Africans. I’m sorry for you, him and all his admirers, but that will be his primary legacy in the eyes of the world.
Prof//
Yes I would buy a second-hand car from Thabo. It would simply mean that I most probably cannot afford a brand new one, and would have to get an expert opinion from the sale’s man (Thabo). Similarly if you cannot afford medication for your illness, one could get expert advice from Mantwa (ex Minister of Health) on what replacements are available. Politicians often than not, rely upon someone else’s expert advice. For e.g; Scientists, Lawyers, Constitutional law experts, etc. However as a rule, they have to exercise their minds when making the final decision. How much of this advice gets put into the final result or even, how much single molt whiskey did the person exercising their mind’s have when making the final decision, will forever remain a mystery.
Prof, on the AIDS question one has to look at the guys logic a bit careful. Consider this simple mathematical relationship: A+B+C=3. If I want to increase 3 to say 3, firstly would I know which variable A, B or C to change? Secondly, how should I change that variable? I have to know how individually A, B and C affect 3 and then I can pick the most appropriate variable or even variables to manipulate to get 3.
From where I stand this is the jist of the argument. Whether it is maths or design of experiments in simulation modeling and other scientific endevours.
People misunderstood his the argument and peddled something that misrepresented the man’s argument with regards to AIDS.
He was simple doing what lawyers do all the time when they want to question the validity of deductive arguments. If the car’s lights suddenly go off, am I blind? Is the battery dead? Or is the bulb dead? You have to check each and every until you find the one that affirms your answer.
I reserve my comments on the rest of the things the man is accussed of.
Mzo,
You did not understand what the prof said here. he did not reduce his “:charge” against Mr Mbeki to failing to correct misperceptions – he used that failure to illustrate the fact that Mr Mbeki is probably lying now. A reasonable person would have corrected the misperceptions at the time (given the controversy over the issue).
Prof, also in 2000, Mr Mbeki was interviewed by Tim Sebastian of the BBC. He denied any statistical link between AIDS and the death stats (saying there was no data to verify that AIDS was a noticeable cause of death in SA).
The problem was that he used 1995 death stats, which had not yet shown any real impact from AIDS. However, the total numbers of deaths per annum (the data was clearly available to Mr Mbeki at the time) went some like this:
1993 – 209,000
1994 – 240,000
1995 – 270,000
1996 – 324,000
1997 – 390,000
1998 – 480,000
1999 – 570,000
In five years the total deaths more than doubled. Murders declined, road deaths were constant, and no other natural cause could account for anything more than a 4% increase per annum (based on birth figures decades earlier). there is no such thing as “inflation” when it comes to death stats.
There is only one variable in the picture – AIDS!
The eath rate subsequently went up to 800,000 per annum. Based on normal increases, and allowing for better reporting after 1994 (although some would say that reporting is now worse), these figures should look something likke this:
1996 – 350,000
1997 – 365,000
1998 – 382,000
1999 – 400,000
2000 – 420,000
2001 – 442,000
Mr Mbeki, with a Masters Degree in Economics (from Surrey?) lied to the BBC by selectively choosing his data. This is cynicism of the worst kind.
“This is precisely where the problem starts. No, I am saying that you cannot attribute immune deficiency solely and exclusively to a virus.”
And whatever you want to say and think about Mbeki that is absolutely 100% scientifically correct. Not that the usual hysterical bandwagon of self-proclaimed AIDS “activists”, alarmist, political point scorers and the mind-boggling array of AIDS ngo freeloaders WANT to hear that immune deficiency can be caused by an array of factors including malnutrition, disease, certain drugs and HIV. It must be caused by one and one thing only : HIV for which there is only ONE cure – antiretroviral drugs.
Joe Public // May 28, 2009 at 2:59 pm
My point exactly. The fact of the matter is that everyone, SA included, is looking for a cure for AIDS. The scientists we all hold in such high regard have so far failed to find a permanent cure for AIDS. Now is it so wrong to say, let’s listen to everyone else (even the so-called dissidents) and see if we cannot perhaps find something in their theory that might assist us all in finding the elusive cure?
Those who defend Thabo – “AIDS” stands for “Acquired Imunity Deficiecy Syndrome” – and that “syndrome” can only be “acquired” from one thing, the virus called HIV, nothing else. Therefore, if Thabo publicly denied this (which he did) by saying, “No, I am saying that you cannot attribute immune deficiency solely and exclusively to a virus”, and he is now denying that he ever said so, he is a liar, nothing else. Moreover, by saying, “Does HIV cause AIDS? Can a virus cause a syndrome? How? It can’t, because a syndrome is a group of diseases resulting from acquired immune deficiency.”, he already put his foot in his mouth. Where does he get the medical knowledge to state that a “syndrome is a group of diseases resulting from acquired immune deficiency”? Firstly, “syndrome” is not the composite name of a number of diseases, the term “syndrome” is mostly (if not always) used to describe a specific disease. Secondly, other causes of immune deficiency are not “acquired” through HIV, and they have not led to a “syndrome” in the true sense of the word occurring, and they might be cured/corrected through the use of supplements, anti-bodies and antibiotics (more or less in line with Dr Beetroot’s stupid theory – stupid when advanced in respect of AIDS). HIV induced AIDS can however not be cured with those interventions, at least not yet. For HIV-AIDS, one needs anti-retro-virals (ARV’s), not as a cure, but to prolongue life until a cure can be found or until one dies of old age or something else like a motor-car accident or a heart attack. Mzo, Joe Public, Khosi et al, stop beating about the bush – Thabo did say HIV does not cause AIDS (or is not the sole cause of AIDS), and he sought to attribute other causes to AIDS, which is wrong, and he knew it, and Dr Beetroot should’ve known it from her medical qualifications and background (except if her training only involved traditional healing that knows nothing about viruses and syndromes) – and now denying it, makes his nose grow longer.
Mike Atkins // May 28, 2009 at 3:24 pm
I don’t have a degree in economics but even I can tell you that “death rates” are normalized/100 000 of population because you cannot use absolute accumulative numbers. Amongst other things you have something called population growth that needs to be accounted for.
ozoneblue // May 28, 2009 at 3:39 pm
so what your saying is we can out populate aids?
Mbeki’s defenders do what Mbeki often does: use a perverted kind of logic that ignores the larger context and parses words and phrases as if human beings are pieces of excrement that can easily be flushed away in order to make oneself feel pure and clever and in order to deny reality. They twist (or selectively use) the facts, ignore the consequences of the words and actions and then, when they are proven wrong, they lie. Classy.
Words have consequences. Mbeki’s questioning of the HIV/AIDS link had consequences. Hundreds of thousands died. Those who defend Mbeki implies that this was a good thing. I happen to think it was not. We all lived through 2000 and 2001. We all remember the way in which this debate was conducted. If Mbeki had really not questioned the link between HIV/AIDS (i) why did every cabinet minister refuse to state this scientific fact; (ii) why did Mandela come out of retirement to address an ANC NEC meeting to try and change policy only to be ridiculed and shouted down; (iii) why did Manto start peddling garlic and beetroot as an alternative; (iv) why did the government deny the efficacy of ARV’s in court and argue that it was poisonous when the MCC had approved it for use; (v) why has he never said – ever, I repeat, ever – that HIV causes AIDS? Mbeki at any time could have said: “I believe HIV causes AIDS. I believe ARV’s can help to save lives of people living with HIV. I believe using condoms can save lives.” He never did say any of these things. Instead he played little vanity games with the lives of others. We all (well those of us who are lucky enough to still be alive) are living with the consequences of this madness. Trying to rewrite history will never change this. Those who try to do are merely apologists for the actions of a heartless and cynical man who has a problem with telling the truth.
Mike Atkins // May 28, 2009 at 3:24 pm
“he used that failure to illustrate the fact that Mr Mbeki is probably lying now. A reasonable person would have corrected the misperceptions at the time (given the controversy over the issue)”
Your reasoning fails me. Prof needed to show us where Mbeki said “HIV does not cause AIDS”. Instead the best he has done, something you seem to support, is to show us that, at best, he was probably “unreasonable” for not disputing the perception at the time. With respect, that is a far cry from lying!!
The AIDS “epidemic” should rather be renamed to the big bullshit AIDS scare epidemic. Or like in Uganda during the 80’s – the imaginary epidemic that never happened. Honestly – I will take you by the hand on a journey trough the corridors of our hospitals, see if there are hundreds if not thousands of people dying. Whenever you start asking probing questions the obvious knee-jerk from the AIDS lunatics is always : yeah but they are being turned away by the genocidal psychopathic SA government from the hospitals and send back to die in the villages. Go to the villages and you can find no such a thing. It is one off those “quiet epidemics” that is “decimating the nation” but you always have to rely on anecdotal evidence from morally outraged posters on internet forums who have “personally lost some friends”.
Pierre De Vos // May 28, 2009 at 3:54 pm
“v) why has he never said – ever, I repeat, ever – that HIV causes AIDS?”
C’mon Prof, Mbeki was the head of government which said:
“he emphasised that all government HIV/AIDS policies are based on the premise that HIV causes AIDS”.
“All HIV/AIDS programmes of this government are based on the thesis that HIV causes AIDS,” …. “There is absolutely no confusion about what to do.”
Did you really want him to utter the statement in his personal capacity.
So Ozone, you don’t know of anyone who has died because of HIV related disease. I don’t either, but I know people whose domestic workers, casual employees and such like have passed away despite the fact that they were not aged, poorly nourished or ill with some other disease. I suspect that many cases attributable to the virus are not reported as such due to the taboo on talking about Aids. How many ANC pliticians have died younger than they should have? Mandela’s son died of Aids according to Mandela himself.
Mzo – “why has he never said – ever, I repeat, ever – that HIV causes AIDS?”
Well, what did he say when he said thus:
“Does HIV cause AIDS? Can a virus cause a syndrome? How? It can’t, because a syndrome is a group of diseases resulting from acquired immune deficiency.”
Last time I checked “acquired immune deficiency syndrome” is what “AIDS” stands for – see my post above – And he clearly questions the ability of HIV causing that syndrome.
O3blue – thanks for showing up again – a while ago we all wondered whether the O3 layer had finally been blown out of the skies by the gasses emanating from the mouths of some bloggers here – joke. Nevertheless – I have known quite a few close people that died of AIDS. During the past year, three of my domestic worker’s children died of AIDS. Many of the people I’vre tried (in rural areas and villiages) died of aids. In the run-up to the election it was estimated that AIDS is responsible for the death of 30,000 people per month in South Africa. This I would not call a mere bulshit scare.
spoiler // May 28, 2009 at 4:46 pm
“So Ozone, you don’t know of anyone who has died because of HIV related disease.”
In fact I do now of people who have died of AIDS. I also know some people who have died of heart attacks. I know some people who have died of diabetes. I know some people who have died in road accidents. I lost a family member in the prime of hair life just recently due to a stroke.
What was your point. I have never said HIV doesn’t cause AIDS or that it doesn’t add to mortality figures. I do however question the perpetual hysterical rubbish, coming from the very same people who urge us please not to “stigmatize” the disease, trying to convince us that Africa’s only problem is AIDS, the solution is in a little pink pill and that we are dealing here with an epidemic of tragic proportions if we don’t do hwat they say. I question the stereotype of Africa slowly wilting away because of one single disease. I question this sick obsession with one single issue at the expense of an array of other issues of equal if not much more importance. I question the hysterical response to Mbeki stating that the problem of AIDS (amongst other diseases) needs toe be addressed in the context of poverty and development. I question the cynical abuse of the AIDS issue to score cheap political points against Mbeki and the ANC with emotionally charged and manipulative language loaded with words such as “genocide”.
Prof, I have to amire you. You must have the patience of Job!
I have read quite a few of the articles on your blog and I have noticed a distinct pattern emerging – no matter what the topic the same two characters will always disagree with you. They are, of course, the person or persons going by the names Mzo and ozoneblue.
No amount of reasoned argument will change their minds. It’s almost as if they love arguing.
Reading their comments above was hilarious.
Incidently Mzo, the reason that Mbeki never made any personal statements in public is because by that time the ANC had decided to exert some kind of damage control and had asked Mbeki to step away from the debate, because his comments were beginning to damage the reputation of the country. Mbeki himself, to this day, still does not believe that HIV causes AIDS.
Prof, I have to agree with you on Mbeki. A thouroughly despicable and dishonest man indeed. I believe that we will find out a lot more about Mbeki in the future that will reveal more of his odious character.
Thank you for this very well-balanced article. As a retired medical journalist who was working at the Sunday Times of Johannesburg at the very start of the AIDS-epidemic in South Africa, I have seen many colleagues, friends and contacts in the medical world, especially in the nursing profession, die of AIDS. Mbeki’s mishandling of this epidemic was only one aspect of the way this has been able to spread throughout Southern Africa, however. He contributed greatly to the problem because of his leadership in this regard, but I recall the press conferences I attended of the United Democratic Front before the ANC was unbanned, and where my colleagues and I increasingly started reasing the issue of HIV-AIDS with the ‘comrades’. Often, we questioned why they opposed the very sound medical advice from the South African medical fraternity to promote condom use to prevent it from spreading. The standard answer from all of these leaders was always that ‘it was a disease among white, homosexual men, and the recommended use of condoms as proclaimed by the white medical profession was a plot to reduce the black birth rates’. I still have some of these answers on tape recordings from those press conferences. My dismay only grew as this policy by the UDF and its political taskmaskers the ANC seemed to be set in concrete.
And every step which has been taken by the ANC-leadership in regards to the HIV-AIDS epidemic, and now with the co-epidemic of drug-resistant Tuberculosis which now claims some 350,000 lives a year, all remained geared towards this denialist approach. There are several groups who are busy drawing up charges of crimes against humanity against specific members of the ANC in regards this terrible tragedy. Millions of people throughout southern Africa now are dying due to this, because the infections also could spread rapidly from South Africa after Mbeki basically threw open all the borders and effectively turned many neighbouring countries into new South African provinces. The last chapter about this horrible medical crisis won’t be written for many decades to come as countries are struggling to escape from the spiral of these two devastating co-epidemics — and the socio-economic after-effects these are causing such as the feral young criminals who are roaming the country without any kind of parental supervision – because their parents and guardians are all dead. Growing famine is only one side-effect now seen all across southern Africa. Yes, I have seen many people die of the combination of AIDS-TB. The latest friend I have had to mourn from afar was a fine woman I had seen at work as one of the best community-health nurses in the country, a dedicated, hard-working and well-educated woman. She died within two weeks of XDR-TB. She did NOT have AIDS. That’s the future staring all of Southern Africa in the face. It’s high time to stop ‘debating’ the issue and start facing the fact that the entire sub-continent is being plunged into conditions worse than the Plague which decimated the European population so many centuries ago…
Pierre must have been smoking swazi when he wrote this…
Mzo
“Did you really want him to utter the statement in his personal capacity?”
Well, why not? If he was a man of integrity he would, if that is what he believes. Good leaders lead by example and are not afraid to state their beliefs and the principles underlying the way they govern. No ANC leader has to subsume his voice entirely within the organisation’s surely? Or why elect a single leader?
Look at our current President. There’s a fine example of a man who leads by example and states his beliefs strongly.
Prof, having lost a little brother as a result of AIDS in the very year 2000, I cant help but feel the intense hatred for the man. If only he had stopped this ‘omni scient’ attitude of his at the time, my little brother would probably be still alive. I guess Revenge is for God hey – look what happened to him later: He was impeached by about 80 people or less as Head of State before end of his term, how embarassing!. I swear he ll never get over that pain, same way I ll never get over the loosing my little brother. His defenders on this one will follow him straight to hell I guess!
Once again people are hearing what they want to hear and not listening to what is being said.
Pierre says;
“Earlier this week Mbeki denied ever having said that HIV does not cause AIDS.”
Pierre, please provide the exact quote and speech and context [from Mbeki] that forms basis for that statement.
On the NSC advice or lack of – you obviously think that Thabo Mbeki is a school teacher who spends his life correcting incompetent journalists and analysts.
Again you are writing like a horse with blinkers on. Inform us, is Thabo Mbeki part of the presidency that issued that statement? If he is not, why are you misleading us by saying that Mbeki misled us while quoting a presidency that is led by someone who is generally known as Mbeki’s nemesis? That statement is the presidency’s interpretation of the Mbeki affidavit and not Mbeki’s retraction or correction of what he said.
The next time I see you on tv, I am certain that I will see a talking horse.
ozoneblue // May 28, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Yes, total death figures DO depend on population growth – about 40 – 70 years before. If the population is static, you would not expect total deaths to increase AT ALL. My “expected” figures are probably overstated. Murders, accidents and the like are stable, and are not increasing with current (minor) increases in population.
The point is that over a 5 – 10 year period, the total deaths escalated in a way that has no explanation other than AIDS. And, the death rates per 100,000 will have increased as well – obviously.
Mbeki and other got it the wrong way round. Although poverty makes death from AIDS speedier, it is AIDS that causes poverty!
Adriana Stuijt // May 28, 2009 at 6:34 pm
“There are several groups who are busy drawing up charges of crimes against humanity against specific members of the ANC in regards this terrible tragedy. Millions of people throughout southern Africa now are dying due to this, because the infections also could spread rapidly from South Africa after Mbeki basically threw open all the borders and effectively turned many neighbouring countries into new South African provinces.”
LOL. I’m so glad Adriana Stuijt turned up on this thread too and I invite posters on here to visit her wonderful website called “censor-bugbear”. Look for example for posts under the label “Afrikaner Boer ethnocide by ANC-regime 2009″ where you will find plenty of unrelated stories.
censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/search/label/Afrikaner%20Boer%20ethnocide%20by%20ANC-regime%202009
Mzo, Mbeki could have uttered (and had a moral duty as leader to utter) the statement that HIV did cause AIDS in his personal capacity or in any other capacity. Hell, he could have uttered it in his capacity as Chief Internet Researcher or – just a thought – his capacity as a human being who cares about others. He never did. Pity. It might have saved a few hundred thousand lives. But I suppose it is more important to save face than save lives.
Mike Atkins // May 29, 2009 at 6:40 am
“The point is that over a 5 – 10 year period, the total deaths escalated in a way that has no explanation other than AIDS. And, the death rates per 100,000 will have increased as well – obviously.”
I cannot imagine how incredibly ignorant you must be to believe that a developing nation like South Africa has a “static population growth”. And then there are plenty of very logical on plausible explanations why South Africa’s mortality rates due to “AIDS related” diseases would have increased during the late 90’s and early 2k. How about phenomenal growth in urbanization with accompanying slum living condition : leading an corresponding increase in air-born “AIDS related” diseases such as tuberculosis and pneumonia.
“Mbeki and other got it the wrong way round. Although poverty makes death from AIDS speedier, it is AIDS that causes poverty!”
LOL. Some people will call that a form of the most extreme fascism. Poverty is now reclassified as a disease – all we need are drugs to heal us then ?
Adriana Stuijt // May 28, 2009 at 6:34 pm
“That’s the future staring all of Southern Africa in the face. It’s high time to stop ‘debating’ the issue and start facing the fact that the entire sub-continent is being plunged into conditions worse than the Plague which decimated the European population so many centuries ago…”
Perhaps it is worth revisiting her post again because it proves my earlier point exactly. So I want to invite Adriana to come with me- I will take you and PdV by the hand and we can visit a few hospitals etc. here in South Africa and I absolutely dare you to show me the piles of AIDS victim bodies being carted off on wheelbarrows.
@Ozoneblue
Great posts. Commendable patience. The peddlers of falsehoods need to be kept in check.
Please see:- khosi // May 28, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Pierre has failed to respond.
Khosi, see http://www.dispatch.co.za/article.aspx?id=318100 (you will like the article).
On the NSC issue: I take you a bet (let us say a good bottle of whiskey) that Mbeki will never say the NSC advised him to suspend Pikoli. That is why his affidavit (misleadingly) suggests that the NSC did advise him accordingly without saying so outright. That is why he says that after consulting with NSC “the advice I received” was to suspend Pikoli and not “the NSC advised me to suspend Pikoli”. When someone uses the passive voice they are often hiding something or trying to fudge the issue. Exactly what Mbeki did here. Under cross examination I would love to ask Mbeki: “so who gave you this advice?” My bet is on Mojanku Gumbi or that Simelane fellow that was exposed as a shifty liar at the Ginawala Inquiry.
khosi // May 29, 2009 at 8:36 am
Khosi – I may not like Mbeki but this rubbish about genocide etc. is simply over the top – a cynical bunch of lies and conjecture. What it does do is to cheapen the meaning of the concept “genocide” though – much like people do with the word “holocaust”.
I find it shamful and entirely disgusting that ANYONE can defend Mbeki’s stance. And the ONLY defence is pure scemantics (or linguistics). The next best thing for Ozone is piles of dead bodies at the hospitals. Ozone, do you want the hospials to look like Aushwitz? This is such bullshit! If I said that “HIV/AIDS has not been the cause of death for any individual in SA”, I’d hope you all think I’m stark-raving mad! I’d in effect be saying that HIV/AIDS has not caused any deaths. That’s true as one’s immune system is weakened to the point that opportunistic infections etc manage to kill you very easily – compared to a person who’s immune system is not compromised. I’ve just shown that I wasn’t exactly lying but I was talking shit. I’d have misled you and if I don’t correct the interpretation over such a KEY health issue then I am in agreement with the skewed interpretation.
Ozone, to suggest that the AIDS denialist stratergy had no effect on this nation is unforgiveable. It was because the government refused to make rational decisions on the issue people like the nation’s current president Zuma who had sex without a condom… Sex education should be so unavoidable that all actions that are risky beyond what is necessary are heavily stigmatised.
I have no respect for anyone who defend’s Mbeki in this refard, without showing the slightest hint of reservation.
Ozoneblue
Perhaps you should take a drive from Alice (The seat of Government Knowledge) to Fort Beaufort and explain the acres of new graves on the right hand side as you approach Fort Beaufort? even the township is not growing as fast!
Okay Pierre De Vos, now we have the context.
This is what I could find :-
~~
Questioned about his controversial stance on Aids, Mbeki said Parliament had told him “to shut up and not say anything”.
“We faced a major catastrophe and needed to respond.”
Mbeki however said “somebody decided” he had said HIV did not cause Aids and the issue of the health of people became “diverted”.
~~
1.) Because he respected parliament, he kept quite on the issue. So he could have corrected any misreporting on the issue but he was bound by parliament from doing so.
2.) At no point does this report clearly quote Mbeki saying what you say he said. The “somebody decided” could have well been a response to a question or comment that we do not have access to or knowledge of.
Basically you have based you assertions on hearsay.
On the NSC issue, it is clear that you are putting words in his mouth. So it is pointless to continue entertaining you on your own day dreams.
Slum Dweller // May 29, 2009 at 9:07 am
“Perhaps you should take a drive from Alice (The seat of Government Knowledge) to Fort Beaufort and explain the acres of new graves on the right hand side as you approach Fort Beaufort? even the township is not growing as fast!”
So please try to let me understand this. The fact that we have new grave yards means we must have an AIDS epidemic killing off the nation. I was around before 1994 (when AIDS become the “new biggest threat”) and even then we also had lots of people dying every year, dying at some stage or the other does appear to be a human frailty, and we had to bury them – in new grave yards.
Khosi, you must be joking on point 1. Read Feinstein pp 123-153. Mbeki went to the ANC Parliamentary caucus on 28 September 2000 to harangue them on AIDS and said: “If we say HIV=AIDS then we must say = drugs. Pharmaceutical companies want to sell drugs which they can’t do unless HIV causes AIDS, so they don’t want this thesis to be attacked.” So much for respecting Parliament! He peddled his dangerous views on AIDS to the ANC Parliamentary caucus (and the NEC) and one thing one can say about ANC cadres is that they are not stupid, and they knew how to keep the Chief happy (and thus how to keep their jobs), so they all started refusing to state that HIV causes AIDS. Your view (and the new rewriting of history by Mbeki) is only sustainable if one accepts that even within the ANC everyone was mistaken about Mbeki’s views on AIDS. Forty five million people (and the rest of the world) all got it wrong and what we thought Mbeki said he never said. That defense suggests either that we are all – every single one of us – fools, or that Mbeki is so bad at communicating that he confused even the members of his own party about his views. That would make Mbeki merely pathetic, hopelessly inarticulate and inept. There does not seem to be any argument lurking in point 2.
On NSC your “logic” also escapes me. I am quoting verbatim from Mbeki’s affidavit, so I am not putting any words in his mouth. At best your “defense” (I am being kind here to you) can be that Mbeki is so bad with words and uses them so opaquely that he has accidentally created the impression that NSC advised him to suspend Pikoli without intending to. That would make Mbeki merely stupid and inarticulate – not dishonest. Not a stirring defense of your hero, I might say. Also rather implausible. Give your hero at least the benefit of the doubt and accept that he used the passive voice on purpose and deliberately wanted to create the impression that the NSC had advised him to suspend Pikoli without saying so outright – which would have been a far bigger lie.
Ozoneblue, I am not sure you understand how callous, grotesque and absurd you are sounding and how ignorant you seem to be of all the recent research – also by STATS SA – on this topic. No recent study by government or other bodies doubt that the death rate in SA has risen dramatically over the past ten years because of HIV and AIDS. To try and deny this fact – on which statisticians all agree – robs you of any little bit of credibility you might otherwise still have had. See for example: http://www.thebody.com/content/news/art7048.html AND http://www.avert.org/safricastats.htm AND http://www.statssa.gov.za/PublicationsHTML/Report-03-09-052004/html/Report-03-09-052004.htmlhttp://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/southafrica_statistics.html AND http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15668545
@Pierre
On AIDS, I give up on you. You cannot be rescued.
On NSC, you will remember that, two weeks ago, we argued the Mbeki affidavit. I am very aware of what Mbeki said on that affidavit. The problem is that you create your own interpretation of things that were said and you then sell your interpretation as what was said. That is putting words into ones mouth. But, on this instance, I suspect that is a result of your lacking linguistic prowess other than mischief. What you need to do, is to read up the meaning of word ‘advice’ because I think you are conflating it with the word ‘advise’.
And do not kick yourself it happens a lot, even to me since English is not my first language.
Pierre De Vos // May 29, 2009 at 9:39 am
“If we say HIV=AIDS then we must say = drugs. Pharmaceutical companies want to sell drugs which they can’t do unless HIV causes AIDS, so they don’t want this thesis to be attacked.”
It’s alarming how you tendentiously cite those you adore without questioning the veracity yet will assume the worst of your boogey-man regardless the evidence to the contrary. It’s amusing that you (a lawyer) have failed to exercise due caution when interrogating Feinstein’s obviously self-serving extract (this in environment where you and the liberal cabal, amongst others, have failed to provide a single shred of evidence that Mbeki ever said HIV does not cause AIDS, yet still have the temerity and/or dishonesty to call him a “denialist”).
In any event, even if we accept that he made these remarks (using Feinstein’s word, who as a Mbeki detractor is presumably of pure motives), how has parliament been disrespected by stating this obvious fact (NOTE: Feinstein claims these remarks were made in the ANC caucus and not in seating parliament, so much for disrespecting parliament)? It does truly boggle the mind that you would not consider that Big Pharma is more likely to sell more drugs and be more profitable if HIV is NOT prevented, if a cure is NOT found, if the MORE people are infected and if MORE people consume their drugs, and therefore would be very keen on suppressing any thesis that attacks their paradigm (i.e. that the most effective mode of combating HIV is ARVs)! You
To attribute the interpretations by ANC “cadres” of the “Chief’s “ remarks as extraordinarily stupid Pierre as attributing your musings in this august blog as the views of your students, etc.
The forty five million people and everyone in the world (excluding myself) who got it wrong did so because they were reliant on the likes of Mr De Vos and a media (who fail to the conduct the basic research required to substantiate a fact) hence your continued inchoate attempts to sustain what you always thought was a fact, that Mbeki said HIV does not cause AIDS.
The least said about your use of the presidency’s statements to prove Mbeki’s lie, the better.
Pierre, I understand that it is tough to believe in something and later be shown by facts that you were wrong. It’s not easy to base your attitudes about an era on what is later proven to be a lie; it leads to oblivion, gloom and a feeling of wasted opportunities. Think of the parties where you waxed ever so lyrically about Mbeki’s denial only to be proven later to been complicit in the peddling of lies. If I were you I would also rant endlessly in some or other forum trying to show that there was truth in my initial assertions! To late Pierre, you failed to do your homework and ten years of your thoughts have been proven to have been founded on sandy grounds!
Some scholars are of the opinion that ARV’s would not be put to good use in Africa. This according to them is owed to the thinking that, Africans still use the Sun to tell what time of day it is. ARV’s have to be taken with precision timing, and therefore not suitable for Africa.
This type of thinking made Thabo angry, and most probably the reason why he lashed out at them like he did!!
Pierre De Vos // May 29, 2009 at 9:55 am
“Ozoneblue, I am not sure you understand how callous, grotesque and absurd you are sounding and how ignorant you seem to be of all the recent research”
Sure the same tactic they used against Rian Malan or anybody who dares to question the huge discrepancy between the reality and the hype are no classified “HIV/AIDS holocaust” deniers. You simply have to agree doesn’t matter what your everyday observations or your logic tells you otherwise you are callous, absurd, a moral leper.
Pierre De Vos // May 29, 2009 at 9:55 am
Now lets look at the piss poor “science” that PdV is dishing up for us here.
From http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15668545
“Out of the 22 potential causes of death investigated, there were nine that increased in the same distinct age pattern (tuberculosis, pneumonia, diarrhoea, meningitis, other respiratory disease, non-infective gastroenteritis, other infectious and parasitic diseases, deficiency anaemias and protein energy malnutrition) and could be considered AIDS-related conditions. ”
And” COULD be considered AIDS-related conditions”. Any HIV testing or CD4 counts to verify that assumption – no. Just more fodder to boost funding for the hundreds of NGO’s that focuses on HIV/AIDs. Yet try to secure funding for even one NGO that focuses on poverty, housing, plumbing, cholera or any other non-PC cause and you will start to realize what this is all about.
The real deniers and morally bankrupt out there are those who are trying to reclassify preventable diseases such as tuberculoses and pneumonia that are typical of poor living conditions and urbanization in developing countries as some kind a sex related disease.
From the very same STATS SA site lets see now:
http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/statskeyfindings.asp?PPN=P0309.3&SCH=4254
Out the 2006 paper on Migration and Urbanisation in South Africa:
“Despite being the continent with the lowest level of urbanisation, sub-Saharan Africa’s urban population is growing at a higher rate than any other region in the world. The scale of urban transition is unprecedented, as well as the rates of urban population growth (Montgomery, Stren et al, 2003). The urban population in Africa was 15% in 1950, 32% in 1990, and is projected to 54–60% by 2030 (United Nations, 1998; UNEP, 2005). However, this rapid growth of urban areas is occurring in the context of generally declining economic performance (World Bank, 2000). This fact, combined with poor planning and governance, increases the visibility of urban poverty whereby a significant proportion of urban populations live below the poverty line in over-crowded slums and sprawling townships. This is the case in most African countries. Indeed, it is estimated that about 72% of all urban residents in sub-Saharan Africa live in informal settlements [UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlement Programme) 2003].”
And what do we already know for decades about diseases such as tuberculoses and pneumonia ?
“In the early 1600s, the development of cities and the spread of poverty in feudal Europe produced the necessary environmental changes to set off the first tuberculosis (TB) epidemic in humans. Dubbed “the Great White Plague,” TB ran rampant in the crowded, unsanitary slums of early industrial cities (1). At its apex in the 17th and 18th Centuries, tuberculosis took the lives of one in five adults (2).
Contrary to the belief that tuberculosis is a disease of the past, nearly 3 million people died of TB in 1995 (3). Although the disease appears to have leveled off in 1996 as the result of concerted government action, and a control program launched by the World Health Organization (WHO), the TB epidemic is expected to continue to pose a serious threat to human health, especially in developing countries. Global implementation of WHO’s strategy could reduce these numbers dramatically, but without interventions, as many as 90 million people could contract TB in the next 10 years (4).
The global emergence of HIV/AIDS has been an important factor driving the prevalence of TB, especially in Africa and Asia. The HIV virus damages the immune system and accelerates the speed at which tuberculosis progresses from a harmless infection to a life-threatening condition. About one third of the estimated 1 million AIDS-related deaths in 1995 were the result of a secondary infection with TB (5).
Increasing poverty and homelessness in cities also seems to be linked with the reemergence of TB (6). Associations among tuberculosis, urbanization, and poverty have been noted in studies from countries as diverse as Denmark and Puerto Rico (7). It is clear that growing numbers of poor, malnourished people living in unhygienic, overcrowded conditions can facilitate the transmission of TB. In poor neighborhoods, the combination of overcrowding and poor ventilation often means that one person with TB, if not properly treated, will transmit the infection to between 10 to 15 other people each year (8).”
http://www.wri.org/publication/content/8338
Pierre De Vos // May 29, 2009 at 9:55 am
Now lets look at the piss poor “science” that PdV is dishing up for us here.
From /www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15668545
“Out of the 22 potential causes of death investigated, there were nine that increased in the same distinct age pattern (tuberculosis, pneumonia, diarrhoea, meningitis, other respiratory disease, non-infective gastroenteritis, other infectious and parasitic diseases, deficiency anaemias and protein energy malnutrition) and could be considered AIDS-related conditions. ”
And” COULD be considered AIDS-related conditions”. Any HIV testing or CD4 counts to verify that assumption – no. Just more fodder to boost funding for the hundreds of NGO’s that focuses on HIV/AIDs. Yet try to secure funding for even one NGO that focuses on poverty, housing, plumbing, cholera or any other non-PC cause and you will start to realize what this is all about.
The real deniers and morally bankrupt out there are those who are trying to reclassify preventable diseases such as tuberculoses and pneumonia that are typical of poor living conditions and urbanization in developing countries as some kind a sex related disease.
From the very same STATS SA site lets see now:
http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/statskeyfindings.asp?PPN=P0309.3&SCH=4254
Out the 2006 paper on Migration and Urbanisation in South Africa:
“Despite being the continent with the lowest level of urbanisation, sub-Saharan Africa’s urban population is growing at a higher rate than any other region in the world. The scale of urban transition is unprecedented, as well as the rates of urban population growth (Montgomery, Stren et al, 2003). The urban population in Africa was 15% in 1950, 32% in 1990, and is projected to 54–60% by 2030 (United Nations, 1998; UNEP, 2005). However, this rapid growth of urban areas is occurring in the context of generally declining economic performance (World Bank, 2000). This fact, combined with poor planning and governance, increases the visibility of urban poverty whereby a significant proportion of urban populations live below the poverty line in over-crowded slums and sprawling townships. This is the case in most African countries. Indeed, it is estimated that about 72% of all urban residents in sub-Saharan Africa live in informal settlements [UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlement Programme) 2003].”
And what do we already know for decades about diseases such as tuberculoses and pneumonia ?
“In the early 1600s, the development of cities and the spread of poverty in feudal Europe produced the necessary environmental changes to set off the first tuberculosis (TB) epidemic in humans. Dubbed “the Great White Plague,” TB ran rampant in the crowded, unsanitary slums of early industrial cities (1). At its apex in the 17th and 18th Centuries, tuberculosis took the lives of one in five adults (2).
Contrary to the belief that tuberculosis is a disease of the past, nearly 3 million people died of TB in 1995 (3). Although the disease appears to have leveled off in 1996 as the result of concerted government action, and a control program launched by the World Health Organization (WHO), the TB epidemic is expected to continue to pose a serious threat to human health, especially in developing countries. Global implementation of WHO’s strategy could reduce these numbers dramatically, but without interventions, as many as 90 million people could contract TB in the next 10 years (4).
The global emergence of HIV/AIDS has been an important factor driving the prevalence of TB, especially in Africa and Asia. The HIV virus damages the immune system and accelerates the speed at which tuberculosis progresses from a harmless infection to a life-threatening condition. About one third of the estimated 1 million AIDS-related deaths in 1995 were the result of a secondary infection with TB (5).
Increasing poverty and homelessness in cities also seems to be linked with the reemergence of TB (6). Associations among tuberculosis, urbanization, and poverty have been noted in studies from countries as diverse as Denmark and Puerto Rico (7). It is clear that growing numbers of poor, malnourished people living in unhygienic, overcrowded conditions can facilitate the transmission of TB. In poor neighborhoods, the combination of overcrowding and poor ventilation often means that one person with TB, if not properly treated, will transmit the infection to between 10 to 15 other people each year (8).”
http://www.wri.org/publication/content/8338
Pierre,
If you wish to see the real impact of this drug culture that you promote, go to meadowlands (Soweto). People refuse to condomise and be sexually responsible because they believe that even if they are infected they will live long and meaningful lives because of these miraculous pills. I visit my cousin (4 kids, pregnant and HIV positive) regularly and she and her friends and neighbors are oblivious of the risks of irresponsible sexual behavior. They know of HIV and they don’t care because survival dictates that they sleep with as many partners as required to pay the bills, and besides ARVs supposedly will give them an extra 15 years. The holistic approach of addressing poverty, education, etc, prevention, etc, as advocated by Mbeki would have gone to the heart of the matter.
We have elected to pop pills and the consequences are showing. Ask anyone who interacts regularly with people in places where there’s an ARV rollout what the primary cause of death? Answer: “anemia”. Yes Pierre, we are seeing more deaths caused by low blood pressure than deaths by car accidents! People who are in their 20s and 30s! Ask any scientist, particularly the proponents of ARVs, what one of the primary side effects is of ARV cocktails? But no one has taken responsibility for the deaths caused by the side effects of ARVs, such anemia. No one is calling for the indictment of PdV, Hogan, and other proponents of the old pop the pill.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/06/opinion/africa-can-t-just-take-a-pill-for-aids.html
http://www.whatisaids.com/rollingstone.htm
Apologies for the double post. The first one got stuck in the moderator’s queue.
Vuyo // May 29, 2009 at 11:12 am
I completely agree with you that Mbeki never said that HIV does not cause AIDS, but it is clear to any person assessing his comments (such as those cited above by Pierre) that he did question the link between HIV and AIDS. This in itself is not wrong, it is any thinking persons right to question what is being propogated by scientists, popular belief or what the masses want you to believe.
I, and I think most people on this blog as well, do have a problem with what has resulted from his questioning of this link. What has resulted is that people suffering from an illness that they have already contracted did not have access to the best known suppressant of the disease at the time, namely ARV’s. Even you yourself commented: Vuyo // Nov 27, 2008 at 6:13 pm “I also believe our people should have access to them and the choice to use them”. Lets at least admit that by his “questioning of the link” and influence he had on his ministers it resulted in at least a portion of the AIDS sufferers in this country to die an early death.
By the way, I dont believe ARV’s are the answer, but chicken soup was also the best we had against flu before there was anti-biotics.
The statistics I find most reliable are those on the CIA Worldbook website regarding South Africa’s population statistics. The CIA uses satellite surveillance to compile their records. It makes very interesting reading and is completely different from the ‘formal government statistics’ us poor fools on the ground are being forced to rely on, even if they are being dished out by some of the most grossly incompetent and politically-correct government appointees in the world. As far as the Aids-EPIDEMIC is concerned, I refuse to debate any denialists, from Mbeki on down. It’s not worth wasting one’s time on. One also does not need to be taken by the hand and led to government hospitals to try and find people who are dying of AIDS. One merely needs to read the obituaries in the Sowetan, and view the burial statistics at all the country’s cemeteries, to realise that young people are dying at unprecedented rates from deeply mysterious diseases. Healthy young people don’t die at such huge numbers from disease in normal society. The only reason South Africa still shows a ‘growth rate’ of less than 1 percent, is because it’s borders have been thrown wide open to migration from the rest of the continent, says the CIA.
Adriana Stuijt // May 29, 2009 at 12:04 pm
“One also does not need to be taken by the hand and led to government hospitals to try and find people who are dying of AIDS.”
Of course not because doing that exposes the fallacies and myths that you have carefully interwoven with bits and pieces of the truth in your paranoid anti-South African government campaign that is so well documented on your website.
What does your CIA satellite pictures tell you about the rate of urbanization in sub-Saharan Africa ?
Here is another bit of inconvenient truth that the “censor-bugbear” would probably “refuse to debate”.
“Uganda’s population to hit 100 million by 2050
KAMPALA, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) — Uganda’s population could hit the 101 million mark by the year 2050, Director of the Population Secretariat Jotham Musinguzi has warned.
Musinguzi was quoted Friday by local daily The Monitor as saying that Uganda’s population doubles after every 20 years.
“At that rate, currently we are 24.7 million and in 20 years to come we shall be around 50 million. If you sum it up, it means by 2050, Ugandans will have reached 101 million people. So you can see what I mean,” Musinguzi told a workshop.
He said the ballooning population figures are partly due to Uganda’s high fertility rate.
He added that Uganda’s population would keep increasing despite the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Uganda has a population of 24.7 million with an annual population growth rate of 3.4 percent between 1991 and 2002, according to the latest census.”
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/37874/ugandas_population_to_hit_100_million_by_2050/
Uganda’s population would keep increasing despite the “HIV/AIDS pandemic”
Now lets see what the “censor-bugbear” wants the world to believe about Africa:
“It’s high time to stop ‘debating’ the issue and start facing the fact that the entire sub-continent is being plunged into conditions worse than the Plague which decimated the European population so many centuries ago…”
please everyone excuse Ozoneblue the guy is only let out of his cage once a month and can see he has come back with built up frustrations.
Ozone i know its tough for you i can see you have a doctors degree specializing in Aids/HIV i really dont know why people are questioning you. Your knowledge of city planning must look impressive on your CV with many of your other degrees
Adriana Stuijt
how dare you critizies Ozoneblue he has first hand experience that the people dying in hospital is not related to Aids or HIV it is a CIA cover up. Please respect Ozone blues medical proffession.
ozoneblue // May 29, 2009 at 12:23 pm
The reason he probably mentioned the growth rate despite the AIDS epidemic is because he is iterating that Uganda is Africa’s success story regarding AIDS. Go see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3250021.stm
Here are some quotes from the page, we could learn a lot from Uganda.
” A massive government education programme from the early 1990s made Uganda the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to reverse its own Aids epidemic.”
‘[Aids is] not hard to prevent – if there is a snake in a hole, why do you put your finger in the hole?’
President Yoweri Museveni
“Professor Francis Omaswa, the director of health services at Uganda’s Health Ministry, is convinced that the government’s warning broadcasts worked.”
“President Yoweri Museveni made it a government policy to be open about HIV and Aids. He insisted that the topic was included in sex education in schools.’
ozneblue so what your saying or actually copying from websites is africa has a high tendency of fornication becuase you showing such lovely statistics of high groweth rates in other words alot of sex happening and forget about condems because africa will just out fuck aids.
Thats really what ur argument is about….you really are one twisted nutcase
I know its late in the thread, but:
“Thabo did say HIV does not cause AIDS (or is not the sole cause of AIDS),” – Anonymouse.
Is it just me, or is the meaning of the parenthesised text very different to the proposition in the main body?
I agree with those who insist that if you’re going to demand that people make statements, you pay some attention to your own ability to parse them.
OK so now that you are in the denial phase, only bargaining, guilt, anger and depression remains before you calm TF down, accept yourself and understand that your life can go on to find meaning and purpose.
Sorry, above comment aimed at Ozone for his carbon copy ignorance as displayed by TM. Anyway Ozone, aren’t you a Zuma man? Or is the HIV/AIDS danialism more of a ANC thing?
DJL, my views are quite simple about this matter (call them pedestrian if you like):
1. Read ALL of Mbeki’s comments at the time (1999 – 2000) and subsequently, and you will find that at no point doe he say HIV does not cause AIDS.
2. Read Mbeki’s comments and approach to policy formulation and you will see that he did not approach HIV/AIDS any differently from his consideration of other policy issues (i.e. (1) Identification of the issue/problem/mischief, (2) assess the need for a new policy, (3)Consult with stakeholders, (4) determine requirements to address mischief (5) gather information about existing and/or similar (6) develop guiding principles (7) prepare “draft” policy for stakeholder engagement (8) revise draft policy after stakeholder feedback (9) adopt policy). All this without preconceptions.
3. Consistent with this approach stakeholders were engaged, regardless of the merits or demerits of their views, consistent with an open discourse of a serious national crisis requiring inclusiveness. Note that he did not make his own views known as this would invariably align the policy formulation outcome to his own views. The breadth of stakeholders and the inclusion of “denialists” and “dissidents” was interpreted by some as evidence of support for their views. Curiously, the inclusion of “orthodox” scientists was never interpreted as evidence of his support for them. When pressed on this issue, he refused to make his views know as, to paraphrase him, because the very act of making his views known would be acceptance or rejection of a set paradigm (i.e. why consult widely if you have already accepted a paradigm). [“That's one of the issues that the scientists are discussing. I've never made any judgement on that. It is an issue they are debating, Mbeki]
4. With the above in mind read material on the disagreements and debates amongst those who support the HIV/AIDS paradigm about how to address. Some believe ARVs are the solution and disagree amongst themselves on how they must be administered. Some reject ARVs and believe in using all resources on prevention (such as a vaccine) or in finding a cure. Expand the matter to those who believe HIV does not cause AIDS and their own internal disagreements and you start finding that the consensus that is so often trumpeted does not exist in reality.
What to do as a policy make?:
you consider the approach that optimizes the resources of your country by doing a total socio-economic need analysis and integrating the HIV/Aids strategy to these other needs. Therefore HIV stops being merely a medical issue but is addressed in conjunction with other things (i.e. you must necessarily educate, therefore incorporate prevention to the curriculum, you must establish sustainable human settlements and shelter, therefore design them in a manner that does not lead to slums and related social ills and eradicate human settlements that tend to facilitate social ills such as promiscuity, etc, you must provide primary health care that eradicates the opportunistic diseases of poverty therefore reducing the likelihood of the degradation of the immune systems of those who are infected, you must foster gender equality and empower women, therefore eradicating the social imbalances that devalue the ability of women to decide on their sexuality, you must strengthen research institutions to facilitate the finding of a cure, you must engage drug companies in international trade organs, the courts, etc, to force them to reduce the price of drugs, which was achieved, etc, etc, etc).
All this is more comprehensive than popping a miracle pill, and all this requires more consented effort, and a vision that most journalists do not have. Hence none of this was communicated to our people, hence the summation by many that Mbeki’s acts in combination meant he did not believe HIV cases AIDS.
5. To state that “Lets at least admit that by his “questioning of the link” and influence he had on his ministers it resulted in at least a portion of the AIDS sufferers in this country to die an early death’ is patently absurd and is based on a supposition that ARVs work. Yes I support people being given the choice to pop the pill but I reject the efficacy of ARVs. Frankly, I believe they are a poison and suggest that you read of them in detail (read particularly the recent findings of the “antiretroviral therapy Cohort Collaborative, read also about the FDA approval of AZT and the dodgy process that was followed, read also of the so-called concorde study). Any “treatment” that has a 50/50 chance of treating you and also has a 50/50 chance of actually killing you IS A POISON. To use the analogy of chemotherapy (as I know some will do) is simply disingenuous, after all you do not have chemotherapy everyday until the day you die (but you must take a drug everyday until you die, a drug which was created precisely to kill cancer cells and was found to kill them AND the healthy cells! For your information, and I know this for a fact and not from hearsay, Mbeki does believe HIV causes AIDS but he rejects ARVs as the biggest con in history and his biggest regret in his professional life is not to having spoken out more against them. He believes that the focus should be on prevention (including the search for a vaccine), treatment of the opportunistic diseases, and the search for a cure. He believes firmly that the disengagement between the orthodox and dissident scientists is self defeating as they respectively run the risk of not being able to consider relevant factors and/or considering irrelevant factors.
As stated in one of my other postings, speak to any individual in townships where ARVs have been rolled out and ask them how many young people are dying from anemia and other side effects of ARVs (what killed them, AIDS or the ARVs, or is this irrelevant because, argh, they were in any event going to die anyway?).
Lastly, (and mark my words) South Africa and India are going to become the most important revenue base for the big pharma peddlers of ARVs. We are going to have problems with increased resistance and therefore the need for stronger ARV combinations, we are going to see ordinary diseases becoming drug resistant (like the recent TB cases, only worse) as more and more people with HIV and on ARVs inadvertently spreading the more resistant strains to non-HIV individuls, we are going to see higher levels of HIV infection as more and more people accepting HIV as an ordinary disease “curable” with ARVs. As all this happens, with PdV being the chief praise singer, Big Pharma will be reaping handsome rewards from this travesty, spending R&D on more sophisticated ARVs and not cures or vaccines (because of the higher returns). The scandal is bigger than the arms deal!!!! Mark my words.
It is unwise to judge Mbeki too harshly at this moment in time. Mbeki is the slice of ham in the medical-scientific sandwich. Science is still divided on HIV AIDS. Albeit unequally. The majority of scientists believe that HIV AIDS is a conclusively proven phenomenon whilst a minority believe it to be an unproven hypothesis. We will do well to remember that history shows that the minority was vindicated in identifying the causes for the endemic diseases of Scurvy, Beriberi, Pellagra etc.
Dr Rebecca Culshaw, a mathematical biologist involved in constructing mathematical models of HIV infection, describes the scientific dilemma succinctly in her article “Why I quit HIV” http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/culshaw1.html . She states “ My work as a mathematical biologist has been built in large part on the paradigm that HIV causes AIDS, and I have since come to realize that there is good evidence that the entire basis for this theory is wrong. AIDS, it seems, is not a disease so much as a sociopolitical construct that few people understand and even fewer question. The issue of causation, in particular, has become beyond question – even to bring it up is deemed irresponsible.”
The inadequacies she identifies in the currently used HIV diagnostic procedures, have been echoed by other eminent scientists as well. If scientists differ on the same set of facts, where does this leave the layman?
hey better yet lets rather watch videos of him
lets see what youtube has on Mbeki and hiv/aids
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Mbeki+aids&page=1
ANC Aids Denial – South Africa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N98xMJWy9tQ&feature=related
AIDS denialist who have died
http://www.aidstruth.org/aids-denialists-who-have-died.php
hey better yet lets rather watch videos of him
lets see what youtube has on Mbeki and hiv/aids
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Mbeki+aids&page=1
ANC Aids Denial – South Africa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N98xMJWy9tQ&feature=related
AIDS denialist who have died
http://www.aidstruth.org/aids-denialists-who-have-died.php
O3blue – And” COULD be considered AIDS-related conditions”. Any HIV testing or CD4 counts to verify that assumption – no. Just more fodder to boost funding for the hundreds of NGO’s that focuses on HIV/AIDs.
What about that Free State Forensic Pathologist that was “charged” for unethical conduct by pro-government agencies before the SA Medical Council, and that just because he, after thorough testing, habitually entered AIDS on the death certificates of people he conducted post-mortems on and wher he found that it was in fact HIV/AIDS that caused death. (That, again, because the South African Departments of Health and Home Affairs, no doubt influenced by the ANC’s AIDS denialist regime under Mbeki, have forbidden medical practitioners to tell the truth in this regard – at the same time hiding behind ‘confidentiality’ and ‘humanity’ issues, so that the families of HIV/AIDS sufferers do not feel bad in the public eye because it has now been disclosed that AIDS caused one more death). The ‘confidentiality’ and ‘humanity’ issues are of course all hogwash when compared to society’s right to know that a pandemic is on hand, and when a government is hiding behind such issues as far as AIDS related deaths are concerned, it is either scared about whether it will still enjoy the support of the masses if it admits its failure/incompetence to join the battle against AIDS; or, it wants large parts of the polulation to be erazed. Why else would SA refuse to compile and disclose statitstics of AIDS related deaths?
On the population growth rate versus the death rate issue – if you go to Statistics SA’s website and compare the past three years’ statistics, you will witness the strange phenomenon that, although in the past, the population growth rate has always exponentially grown faster than the death rate, suddenly, three years ago, the gaps between the population growth rate and the death rate (although the former is still much higher than the latter due to the earlier exponential growth) has remained stable. One does not need to have a masters or PHD in maths/statistical science to know that, when something like that happens on a graph comparing the two growth rates at hand, a turn in the two lines is eminent. Therefore, within a year or two, the gaps between the two lines on the graph will start narrowing (exponentially), and we will sometime (sooner than later if ARV’s are not made more freely available and promoted) see that the death rate exceeds the population growth rate. There is only one variable that could cause this massive turnabout (as argued by another blogger above), and that is HIV/AIDS since the other cuases of death are on the decline.
If you would take the time to visit your local magsitrates’ court houses and welfare offices, and establish how many AIDS orphans are being adopted on a daily basis, a large quantity of those orphans also testing HIV positive because steps were not taken to prevent mother-to-child tasfer of the virus; and, if you would just take the time to investigate the increase in rather untimely deaths under young and middle-aged people in SA today, especially in the rural areas (just drive past grave-yards on a Saturday and see how many more people are being burried than say two years ago), you wil have reason to become worried, if not paranoid. I tell you, allegations of genocide and crimes against humaity are not as far-fetched as you are suggesting.
Vuyo // May 29, 2009 at 1:17 pm
The elaborate run up to point 5 in your post really wasn’t necessary. I agree with you on those points and denying or defending what hasn’t been claimed only wastes time.
It does however beg the question: Why was this elaborate holistic approach that we were apparently busy with behind the scenes not communicated to the people and the rest of the world? Is this miscommunication the media’s fault or Mbeki’s?
As for point 5. I will definitely go and read up on ARV’s and their side effects. I concede you know much more about the drug than me. Please also furnish me with the link to the scientific work where you read that ARV’s has a 50/50 chance of killing you. I’m sure that for every article negatively geared towards ARV’s there is another equally positive about the drug, so I suspect this avenue, interesting as it may be, will lead to a dead end.
At least we agree that ARV’s are not the solution and I at least believe they are helpfull to many people suffering from AIDS. At least we also agree that a holistic approach to curing/curbing AIDS is required. I just wish we would bloody hell go ahead and do it.
An interesting article
http://richardknight.homestead.com/files/SouthAfrica2006-PopulationanandHIV-AIDS.pdf
O3blue and others intersted in AIDS stats. The following presentation by Statistics SA shows that the total no of deaths per annum in SA has risen from roughly 400,000 in 1997 to 565,000 in 2002; the marked increase cannot be attributed to the population growth rate during that period; the number of HIV/AIDS and TB related deaths from the total no of deaths has risen from 9.6 (nine point six) per 10,000 (ten thousand) in 1997 to 19.1 (nineteen point one) per 1,000 (one thousand) in 2002.
http://www.statssa.gov.za/commonwealth/presentations/E_Udjo.pdf
Now, having especially a look at the last finding (a shocking / whopping ten-thousandfold increase) over a period of five years (1997-2002) – and we are now again seven years later! – then suddenly the allegations of genocide no longer appears far-fetched.
Anonymouse // May 29, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Ok – let me take you up on that challenge. I’m willing to take you, and Pierre and “censor-bugbear” an a trip to :
Johannesburg Hospital
Baragwanath
Tembisa Hospital
Albert Luthuli (in Kwa-Zulu Natal)
We can take some independent journalists with to take pictures conduct interviews etc. We can set up an independent website and publish it all – perhaps call it the Mbeki AIDS genocide expose to please censor-bugbear.
Then I will also invite you along to visit our biggest prisons, a nice controlled high risk group. We have prison population of over 200 000 and we have AIDS related deaths that are for all practical purposes neglible. More inmates die of hypertension and heart attacks in our prisons than of HIV/AIDS.
Please lets start such a project : lets stop bluffing each other on internet forums with anecdotal horror stories and speculation about minute inflections on exponential graphs. I’m wiling to sacrifice a week of my life on this project, because quite frankly I’m sick and tired of this bullshit.
ozoneblue // May 29, 2009 at 3:10 pm
And would you know it, the bargaining phase begins.
Anonymouse // May 29, 2009 at 3:06 pm
So you are going to totally ignore putting that into perspective with urbanization stats ? How many people, in that same period 1997 to 2003 moved into high risk squatter camp/township areas in cramped conditions where TB/pneumonia (your dramatically and intensionally misleading named “AIDS related diseases”) spreads like wildfire ?
Did you note that the age profile of the “higher AIDS related” deaths just happen to match the migration profiles of young/ middle age men and women looking for work in the cities?
mili // May 29, 2009 at 3:16 pm
You can talk as much shit in here as you like. I have been around in hospitals in South Africa and I have also seen the medical wards in prisons. I know what I have seen and no UNAID/WHO estimates and stats, mathematical models or internet wannabe AIDS activists are going to tell me what I must or must not believe.
O3blue – I’d take up the challenge any day – provided that we also include in our visits and research the villiages, clinics and hospitals in the rural areas of Mpumalanga/Enchanga in KZN; Sekhukhune/Praktiseer in Limpopo; Bushbuckridge/Acornhoek in Mpumalanga. However, someone else will have to go in my stead due to my pre-occupation with my occupation to put more prisoners behind bars to assist in decreasing the death rate resulting from violent crime. (By the way, our current prison-population is just more than 165,000 while there is space for roughly 114,000 – not over 200,000 as you suggest. And the reason for the low HIV/AIDS related deaths in prison is because inmates are usually in their last days released to go and die at home.) But, do yourself a favour and go and read the above reports, as well as the latest report (the 2008 population estimate on Stats SA’s website) and look at the life-expectancy of males and females projected there (quite conservatively I would say – come Sensus 2011 Stats SA and the likes of you are going to be in for a nasty surprise), especially in the Kwa-Zulu Natal area.
Oh, and O3blue – watch out, outbursts like that might just have you pop a vein.
mili // May 29, 2009 at 3:16 pm
LOL!!
That fine Ozone. You don’t have to believe anything; but don’t go around trying to discredit every single comment on this blog only for the sake of taking opposing views. Sure there might be some credibility in your statements, but from this thread, your every single argument has been demolished by 1) credible commentators (assuming at least 20 % of the people having opposing views to yours is credible) and 2) credible resources.
I am utterly amazed at the ignorance that is posted by the wanabe ANC spin doctors, Mbeki mad hatter supporters, et al, stunned actually. No wonder Aids is what it is in South Africa and elsewhere on the Continent.
Do all you who post your illusionist impressions about your ridiculous leaders and HIV Aids ever care even a little bit about the level of suffering HIV/TB folk and their families go through. Have you watched someone die of aids, cleaned their vomit and flowing shit, felt the sores both covering and within their bodies, or washed them for burial? Obviously not.
What ignorant drivel they speak Pierre, likely just to see them selves in print. I lived through San Francisco’s decapitation of the best, the most talented, the most loving, and for ten long years I’ve lived with this nonsense in SA. And yes, I’ve known many who have fallen, and what a revolting, heart destroying death they come to.
Do they get it, these verbally abusive children who post virtually every reasonable blog with their garbage? ARV’s are not a cure, but Aids ( which like herpes carries through life) since 1996 forward, (that’s 13 years ago) the drugs were available which offered to prolong not just life, but a good life, able to be active, to love and enjoy, to support your family and not leave them destitute. What has happened here is a disgrace beyond description.
God save South Africa. The young turks certainly won’t.
Anonymouse // May 29, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Good. Lets see if PdV and censor-bugbear also buy in. You can include whatever you want in such a real life expedition. I have absolutely no vested interest in veering away from the truth. Perhaps we can also get Rian Malan involved : I think he may be very interested since the vicious attacks against his moral fiber and his credibility.
http://www.tac.org.za/newsletter/2004/ns20_01_2004.htm
http://www.lewrockwell.com/spectator/spec192.html
Anonymouse // May 29, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Good. Lets see if PdV and censor-bugbear also buy in. You can include whatever you want in such a real life expedition. I have absolutely no vested interest in veering away from the truth. Perhaps we can also get Rian Malan involved : I think he may be very interested since the vicious attacks against his moral fiber and his credibility.
http://www.tac.org.za/newsletter/2004/ns20_01_2004.htm
http://www.lewrockwell.com/spectator/spec192.html
last comment awaiting moderation ?
Ozone, you poor lad, my gf used to work in government hopsitals…unfortunately, it is illegal for a doctor to put AIDS as a cause of death on a death certificate, so statistics are harder to come by.
However, AIDS – as the name suggest – depletes the immune system of an individual, the natural defence system of the body. Therefore, where most of us could fight of a cold or the flu, somebody with full blown AIDS will die instead, unless they are controlling their condition.
Therefore while it may be accurate to say that TB, meningitis, influenza etc was actually what dealt the final blow in many cases, it is also accurate to say that it would not have been fatal had the person not had an immune system that was shot to hell and back by the HI Virus. To deny that AIDS results in deaths on the basis that it only impairs the immune system, but does not kill of organs etc is like denying you are guilty of killing a man because you only tied him up and held him still while your friend shot him in the head.
Go ask some doctors in government hopsitals what they think of Mbeki’s AIDS theories. I’m sure they will show you scores of bodies of people who would still be alive if they hadn’t contracted AIDS.
In the event that my posting at 13h26 accidently fell off the screen and was not “moderated” into oblivion, it is submitted again:
It is unwise to judge Mbeki too harshly at this moment in time. Mbeki is the slice of ham in the medical-scientific sandwich. Science is still divided on HIV AIDS. Albeit unequally. The majority of scientists believe that HIV AIDS is a conclusively proven phenomenon whilst a minority believe it to be an unproven hypothesis. We will do well to remember that history shows that the minority was vindicated in identifying the causes for the endemic diseases of Scurvy, Beriberi, Pellagra etc.
Dr Rebecca Culshaw, a mathematical biologist involved in constructing mathematical models of HIV infection, describes the scientific dilemma succinctly in her 2006 article “Why I quit HIV” http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/culshaw1.html . She states “ My work as a mathematical biologist has been built in large part on the paradigm that HIV causes AIDS, and I have since come to realize that there is good evidence that the entire basis for this theory is wrong. AIDS, it seems, is not a disease so much as a sociopolitical construct that few people understand and even fewer question. The issue of causation, in particular, has become beyond question – even to bring it up is deemed irresponsible.”
The inadequacies she identifies in the currently used HIV diagnostic procedures, have been echoed by other eminent scientists as well. If scientists differ on the same set of facts, where does this leave the layman? So, until the scientific jury is in, I will buy a second hand car from Mbeki.
Ag tsk, tsk.
“EVERYBODY knows” what Mbekigabe’s view on aids was/is. No need debating what the silly Africanist said or didn’t. I’m just heartened that the ANC humiliated him and ceremoniously threw him on the (big ) rubbish-dump of failed African leaders -where a new subcategory of failed Southern African liberation movement leaders are forming.
Anyway – JZ are becoming a real peoples President!
He looks excellent in blue (Bullblue) on Beeld’s website today!
Henri – Yeah! Up the BLUE! JZ could’ve been a good hooker for the Bulls – Hope I see him at Loftus today to really experience unity first hand.
To “Ozone Blue” ———- regarding his personal prejudices towards my reports on http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com:
The term “genocide” was coined by legal scholar Raphael Lemkin in 1943.
Defining genocide in 1943, Lemkin wrote:
‘Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation.
” It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.
“The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of personal security, liberty, health, dignity and lives of the members of such groups.’
Perhaps what people should do who do not even have the guts to write under their own names, is to actually read reports before judging them by their headlines.
A visit to the Doctors without Borders Clinic also is a very informative experience. Try speaking to the people who are actually running these clinics – and do all the medical reporting, too: It’s the only clinic in southern Africa which treats both co-epidemics at the same time, because AIDS and Extremely-Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis are very closely interlinked in South Africa.
http://doctorswithoutborders.org/news/article.cfm?id=1317
The results of the government’s approach to a HUGE problem are plain for all those who WANT to see them. If you don’t care, you won’t see them. Keep debating it but you know that had there been swift and real ation, some impact would have been made.
I find the “debate” here beyond the pale. It is a bit like “debating” whether the Holocaust really happened, whether black people are less intelligent than white people, whether torture is a good thing, whether raping your wife should be condoned. By engaging in the debate one legitimises the premise of those who argue from a premise that is immoral, heartless, intellectually fraudulent and dangerous. It is the very premise from which defenders of Mbeki argue that is so troubling. It reflects very poorly on their integrity, compassion, and basic decency.
Hi Prof,
I bring you some urgent news. The Hlophe Judgment is out. Its a 2-1 split. You can access it on http://www.saflii.org. Here is the link
http://www.saflii.org/_za/cases/ZAGPJHC/2009/19.html
Mbeki – The Serial Liar
Sunday Times
Editorial
19 January 2008
http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=686327
President Thabo Mbeki has held the ultimate trust a nation can bestow since he was sworn in as our first citizen on June 16 1999. As head of state and the government, he has been responsible for those aspects of our health, security and economic wellbeing that are beyond our personal control.
He has invoked that mandate regularly in the execution of his responsibilities ¬ insisting that Manto Tshabalala-Msimang was up to the job in the face of massive anecdotal and empirical evidence to the contrary; telling us that there were moves afoot, too secret for us to know, that would resolve the Zimbabwe crisis; reassuring us that our police force was in good hands.
“Trust me,” Mbeki told religious leaders who raised concerns with him over a year ago about the relationship between National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi and Mafia boss Glenn Agliotti, who had just been arrested in connection with Brett Kebble’s murder.
He said he had no evidence suggesting Selebi had done anything wrong, and promised to act if anything came up.
Now it has emerged that National Prosecuting Authority and Scorpions head Vusi Pikoli wrote a “last resort” appeal to Mbeki in May last year, spelling out serious allegations against Selebi and asking for executive support to investigate the country’s police chief, who was also president of Interpol. He specifically recorded his concern that Selebi was protecting Agliotti.
We do not know whether Mbeki responded to that letter, but in September, when Pikoli obtained search and arrest warrants against Selebi, Mbeki intervened decisively to suspend Pikoli on grounds massively more tenuous than the evidence already stacked against the policeman . Days later ¬ after a meeting with officials from Mbeki’s office ¬ Pikoli’s temporary replacement pulled the arrest warrant and unsuccessfully tried to do the same with the search warrants. But, to his credit, Mokotedi Mpshe continued to do a policeman’s work.
Selebi will soon be charged with defeating the ends of justice by protecting crime suspects, corruption and racketeering. The details of the indictment, most of which would have been available to Mbeki in September, range from soliciting petty bribes to a charge that Selebi abused his Interpol access to protect Agliotti.
Mbeki protested publicly that no one had given him cause to doubt Selebi, but we now know that, in addition to the many detailed reports by investigative journalists ¬ which should have been enough for him to act ¬ the evidence gathered by official investigators has been there for Mbeki to pick up and read, at least since May. We now know that he deliberately ignored this information.
It is impossible to conclude otherwise than that our President lied to the nation *1 when, in announcing Selebi’s suspension last week, he said: “I have said this before many times: if there was anybody who brought information to me that showed that the national commissioner of police had done wrong things, I would act on it. And nobody did.”
You betrayed our trust, Mr President. Now we ask: dare we trust you any longer?
________________________________________
*1 Mbeki lied point blank to the nation in this instance.
But he has a seven year track record of lying point blank to the nation in Arms Deal.
On 19 January 2001, yesterday exactly seven years ago, Mbeki told the nation via a special broadcast on SABC TV :
“Fellow South Africans
…………….
In this regard, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Advocates Jan Lubbe S.C. and Frank Kahn, S.C., Director of Prosecutions in the Cape of Good Hope, for the assistance they gave the Minister to correct the weakness we have indicated.
In a letter to the Minister of Justice dated 18 January, 2001, they say:
‘Further to your enquiry we advise as follows that at this stage there is no prima facie evidence in law that any person or persons committed a criminal offence.’
Let me repeat their statement:
‘Further to your enquiry we advise as follows that at this stage there is no prima facie evidence in law that any person or persons committed a criminal offence.’”
The truth was exactly the opposite; the precise words of the two senior counsel in their letter of 18 January 2001 were as follows :
“there are sufficient grounds in terms of the Special Investigating Units and Special Tribunals Act No 74 of 1996, for a special investigating unit to conduct an investigation, and, in our opinion, such an investigation is warranted”.
So this is point blank lie direct to the nation.
Mbeki’s Fishers of Corrupt Men, contains multiple examples of Mbeki’s out and out lying to the country ”
“The fishers have focused especially on the Thomson (Thales) element *2 of the prime contract entered into by the government with the suppliers of the corvettes, the German Frigate Consortium (GFC) *3. The government has explained this very clearly before, that it entered into a contract with the GFC to supply the required number of corvettes, meeting all the stipulated specifications *4.
The government has no contracts with the companies retained by the GFC to supply the various component parts of the corvettes *5. Similarly, it never had occasion or need to determine who the partners of the GFC should or should not be, including Thomson (Thales) *6.
Our Country Needs Facts, Not Groundless Allegations
http://www.armsdeal-vpo.co.za/special_items/correspondence/mbeki/mbeki_facts.htm
*2 Another lie.
The government did not enter into a prime contract with the German Frigate Consortium (GFC).
The government entered into a prime contract the European South African Corvette Consortium (ESACC).
ESACC consisted of Blohm+Voss, Thyssen Reinstahl Techniek, HDW, Thomson-CSF Naval Combat Systems and African Defence Systems (Pty Ltd.
It’s clear, it’s in black and white, it’s got all the signatures on it including those of January Masilela and Chippy Shaik.
*3 Another lie.
The contract diverged in many respects from the stipulated SA Navy specifications.
*4 Another lie.
The Umbrella Agreement for the Corvette is directly between the SA Government and Thomson-CSF Naval Combat Systems and African Defence Systems (Pty Ltd in respect of the supply of Part B (the Thomson-CSF and ADS supplied part of the corvette combat suite) and Part C.(the South African Defence Industry supplied part of the corvette combat suite plus the anti-ship missile).
*5 Another lie.
Armscor’s Request for Information dated September 1997 and Request for Offer dated March 1998 specifically recorded ADS as being responsible for the combat suite and supplying inter alia the combat management system.
The Project Control Board (PCB) sat on 6 June 1999 and formalised its equipment selections (including these ones) and a letter just a few days later (I think 21 June 1999) to ESACC from the Chief Executive Officer of Armscor, Llew Swan, the SA Government statutorily-stipulated defence materiel acquisition agency formally recorded these selections.
So Mbeki manages to propagate at least four serous lies in just two paragraphs.
Mbeki goes on to say :
The proposition that the government influenced the choice of Thomson by the GFC as one of its sub-contractors is both a blatant falsity concocted by the fishers, and a logical absurdity *6. In its statement of 15 September 2000, the government announced those with whom it had entered into contracts. These are British Aerospace/SAAB, the German Frigate Consortium and Augusta. It had no primary contract with Thomson (Thales), as the supplier of the electronic combat suite of the corvettes, which matter, of the supplier of this suite, remained in the exclusive domain of the GFC *9.
*6 Another lie.
Mbeki is on the documented record as having met Thomson-CSF privately, secretly and on multiple occasions in the two year period prior to Thomson-CSF being awarded the contract for the Thomson-CSF Tavitac NT combat management system (CMS) and the combat suite sensors.
If is clear, it is on paper it cannot reasonably be refuted.
Indeed when questioned in Parliament about his secret meetings with Thomson-CSF in Paris, he claimed he cannot recall.
Yet apart from Thomson-CSF’s encrypted faxes referring to these meetings, there are letters directly to Mbeki himself and to his ambassador thanking them for the meeting.
It is extraordinary.
What a wonderful witness Mbeki will make for adversarial cross-examination.
*7 Another lie.
The contract for the combat suite and the Thomson-CSF Tavitac NT combat management system (CMS) is directly between the South African Government and Thomson-CSF and ADS.
But next ceases to amaze :
The gentleman concerned makes the false allegation that during the life of the Government of National Unity, formed in 1994, a contract for four corvettes to be built by Bazan of Spain “was cancelled after being awarded” *8. This is not true. The preceding apartheid Cabinet had not approved this contract. The GNU Cabinet decided not to enter into this contract.
Bazan entered the later competition to supply the four corvettes, and lost to the GFC. This issue is of relevance and interest only because of the controversy that some have brought into the current defence procurement. It is an interesting coincidence
that this controversy has focused so intensely on the corvettes.
*8 Another lie.
What I said was :
“This was not long after a R2,4bn tender (1995 : the rand to the US dollar was R3,50) for four patrol corvettes (read light frigates) was cancelled after being awarded, to all intents and purposes to Bazan of Spain.”
http://www.armsdeal-vpo.co.za/articles03/query_spending.html
Mbeki simply leaves out the rider to suit his deceitful purposes.
Meanwhile Rear Admiral (JG) Kek Vester had testified under oath during the Public Phase of Arms Deal Investigation during June 2001 as follows :
“I just want to point out in 1994 and 1995 there were very particular approvals given for the Corvette, the navy Corvette, and there is certain documentation which I do not want to now name, but we were on our way to ask for political authority in 1995 particularly. At that time the Corvette had money approved on the budget.”
I can state categorically that after a three year process Bazan had won the tender over the Yarrows Shipyard of Glasgow. The approvals had been given – only final cabinet authority was required.
SA Navy and Armscor personnel were by then already working at the Bazan shipyard on the western seaboard of Spain. I personally know some of them.
I can also state categorically that Bazan actually won the military evaluation process of the 1997 to 1998 Arms Deal. I know – I was told face to face by the SA Navy’s project director.
This too was overturned by Mbeki and his cronies in Cabinet to give it to his buddies in Germany.
In short Mbeki is an out and out liar whenever it suits him.
A first world country or even a developing country cannot have liar for a president.
He must go.
But the problem is, with whom can he be replaced right now?
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Report from the Director Public Prosecutions Western Cape, Advocate FW Kahn SC,
and Advocate J Lubbe SC,
to the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, PM Maduna
18 January 2001
Memorandum
Your fax dated 16 January 2001 refers. In accordance with your request, we report as follows:
In the brief time available to us, we looked at the available information and we also consulted certain interested parties to obtain further information, including MS de Lille.
The Auditor-General has pointed out irregularities which merit further investigation and it is too early to conclude whether criminal offences will be revealed.
We are of the view that the preparatory criminal investigation being conducted by IDSEO in terms of section 28(13) of the National Prosecuting Authority Act, No 32 of 1998, is warranted and justified.
In addition there are sufficient grounds in terms of the Special Investigating Units and Special Tribunals Act, No 74 of 1996, for a Special Investigating Unit to conduct an investigation, and, in our opinion, such an investigation is warranted.
We agree with the conclusions of the Special Committee on Public Accounts, namely that the investigation would be best conducted by a multi-disciplinary team, consisting of the Investigating Directorate: Serious Economic Offences (under the authority of the National Director of Public Prosecutions), the Auditor-General, the Public Protector and the Special Investigating Unit. Due to the scope of the investigation, it is, in our opinion imperative that all the agencies referred to above should be involved at the earliest possible stage.
We have, however, also taken cognisance of the judgement of the Constitutional Court in the case of SA Association of Personal Injury Lawyers versus Heath and others( CCT27/2000) in which the court declared section 3(1) of Act 14 of 1996 and Proclamation R24 of 1997 invalid. In the light of this judgement, we recommend that the Act be amended as a matter of urgency, to meet the constitutional defects.
We have furthermore noted that, in terms of the judgement, Judge Heath’s tenure as head of the present Special Investigating Unit will terminate as a matter of law within a year of the judgement, for as long as Judge Heath remains a judge. Given the magnitude and complexity of the investigation, a change of the head of the unit during the investigation might practically hamper the investigation.
Consideration could be given to appointing another Special Investigating Unit under an acting judge, who could then be placed in a position to continue with this investigation by reverting to his personal status after the Act is amended. Some existing members of the present Unit could be appointed to the new Unit, thereby retaining experience and expertise gathered by the present Unit. Such a step would ensure continuity and be in accordance with good governance expected of the President in view of the above-mentioned Constitutional Court judgement.
(signed)
FW KAHN SC
(signed)
ADV J LUBBE SC
18 January 2001
________________________________________
And there you have it.
One massive lie by the president of the country broadcast to the entire nation by a special SABV TC mid-afternoon transmission.
Out with him.
His legacy to the nation :
• a litany of lies;
• a very corrupt country;
• a chacma baboon for chief of police;
• an idiotic and corrupt successor;
• transformation of a first world country back into the dark ages; and
• a 10% shortfall in supply over demand in electrical power rather than a 15% safety margin.
Out with him.
(Annotated by Dr Richard Young, PhD, telephone: 082 891 5868)
Pierre De Vos said:
“I find the “debate” here beyond the pale………. It is the very premise from which defenders of Mbeki argue that is so troubling. It reflects very poorly on their integrity, compassion, and basic decency”.
Pierre, in your posting you asked a question which some participants are attempting to respond to according to their worldview and the requirements of the scientific model. To say that it reflects poorly on their integrity, compassion and basic decency is a bigoted view. It also disregards the current scientific dilemma.
Whether we like it or not, we cannot wish away the fact that science is divided on the issue of HIV AIDS.
The scientific community eventually achieved unanimity on the causes of the dread diseases of Scurvy, Pellagra and Beriberi only after quite extended periods.
Although convincing clinical evidence of a controlled nature on the causes of all three diseases had at early stages been presented to the scientific community, most members remained skeptical. In the case of Scurvy this prejudice lasted another 39 years, 22 years for Pellagra and at least 13 years for Beriberi. Today the scientific community stands united on the causes of these dread diseases.
We will know that the HIV AIDS issue has been resolved when the scientific community is united behind its cause.
There are many scientists sitting on the scientific fence that is HIV AIDS waiting to see what way the penny is going to drop. They do not lack basic decency, integrity or compassion.
“Realist”, there are no credible scientist questioning the link between HIV and Aids or that we have a serious HIV problem in SA. There are some crackpots who question this link, but events of the past 15 years have entirely discredited them in the scientific community and they now find themselves in the same category as those who once claimed that the earth was not round(ish). This is because the scientific community has made great strides in dealing with HIV based on the consensus view (rejected by the dissidents). Today ARV’s are used by millions and this keep most of them (us) alive. This is you and me, our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters I am talking about and I feel rather passionate about not killing myself or anyone else merely to keep an entirely fake scientific debate going. Those who question the link between HIV and Aids and usefulness of ARV’s are dangerous charlatans and their “dissent” is the cause of misery and death. This is not a debate about how many angels can balance on the end of a pin. It is a real life and death issue and those who dissent are not on the side of life but of death.
Realist, in case you have not noticed, the 2008 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to Luc Montagnier and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi for their discovery of the virus that causes AIDS. What F$@#ing debate?
Pierre De Vos said ………” What F$@#ing debate?”
Pierre, you are leading with your jaw.
There are more than 2600 scientists that belong to the non-profit scientific organization “Rethinking AIDS”. And they are not all “crackpots” as you aver.
I am aware of the award of the Nobel Prize to Luc Montagnier and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi. Way back in 2003 many scientists had reservations about Barré-Sinoussi’s research.
In case you did not notice, the omission of Robert Gallo as co-founder with Luc really stirred up a major storm. 37 Eminent scientists (and some legal boffins) with the full support of the 2600 scientists mentioned above, on 9 December 2008,demanded that the scientific journal, SCIENCE, withdraw Gallo’s four seminal publications (1983 onwards) in which he claimed to have isolated the HI virus. They cite bad application of science and even untruthfulness. The text of their letter can be read at:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2146208/posts
Has it ever crossed your mind that these “crackpots” are as concerned as you are about suffering and dying people? And please remember that the “crackpots” of the dread diseases of Scurvey, Beriberi and Pellagra were vindicated. We should never forget the lessons of history.
Like it or not……the scientific jury is still out on HIV AIDS….and will still be out for a long time.
If you want to make catagoric statements like “those who dissent are not on the side of life but of death” you should really appraise yourself on the scientific issues at stake.
Let us hope and pray that, within a short period of time, scientists will unite behind a cause for this disease. As happened for the dread diseases mentioned earlier.
Pierre De Vos // Jun 1, 2009 at 2:27 pm
“Realist”, there are no credible scientist questioning the link between HIV and Aids or that we have a serious HIV problem in SA.”
Now if only that was true. Two names of the most prominent “crackpots” – Peter Duesberg and Kary Mullis.
I’m so happy this PdV “professor” chap has so much respect for academic freedom.
Adriana Stuijt // May 30, 2009 at 3:20 pm
“Perhaps what people should do who do not even have the guts to write under their own names, is to actually read reports before judging them by their headlines.”
Adriana – let me give you some well-meaning advice. If I was you and I dished up such rubbish as you are doing on your website I would rather use a pseudonym to avoid embarrassing myself.
Ozoneblue, my point exactly. See Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Duesberg, where it states:
“Duesberg’s HIV/AIDS claims are rejected as disproven and incorrect by the scientific community.” and “In 2000, Duesberg was the most prominent AIDS denialist to sit on a 44-member Presidential Advisory Panel on HIV and AIDS convened by then-President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa.[25] The panel was scheduled to meet concurrently with the 2000 International AIDS Conference in Durban and to convey the impression that Mbeki’s doubts about HIV/AIDS science were valid and actively discussed in the scientific community.[8] The views of the denialists on the panel, aired during the AIDS conference, received renewed attention.[26] Mbeki later suffered substantial political fallout for his support for AIDS denialism[27][28] and for opposing the treatment of pregnant HIV-positive South African women with antiretroviral medication.[29] Mbeki partly attenuated his ties with denialists in 2002, asking them to stop associating their names with his.[30] In response to the inclusion of AIDS denialists on Mbeki’s panel, the Durban declaration was drafted and signed by over 5,000 scientists and physicians, describing the evidence that HIV causes AIDS as “clear-cut, exhaustive and unambiguous.”[31]
Two independent studies have concluded that the public health policies of Thabo Mbeki’s government, shaped in part by Duesberg’s writings and advice, were responsible for over 330,000 excess AIDS deaths and many preventable infections, including those of infants.[7][8]
A 2008 Discover Magazine feature on Duesberg addresses Duesberg’s role in anti-HIV drug-preventable deaths in South Africa. Jeanne Linzer interviews prominent HIV/AIDS expert Max Essex, who suggests that,
“ …history will judge Duesberg as either “a nut who is just a tease to the scientific community” or an “enabler to mass murder” for the deaths of many AIDS patients in Africa.[3]”
And on Mullis at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis#AIDS_denialism:
Mullis has also drawn controversy for his association with prominent AIDS denialist Peter Duesberg and his rejection of the evidence that HIV causes AIDS.[12] At a 1994 conference in Toledo, Spain, Mullis changed the topic of his speech at the last minute, and instead lectured the crowd on his idea that HIV does not cause AIDS. According to The New York Times, his supporting slides were “photographs he had taken of naked women with colored lights projected on their bodies.”[4]
Mullis wrote in an introduction to Duesberg’s Inventing the Aids Virus (1997), “No one has ever proven that HIV causes AIDS. We have not been able to discover any good reasons why most of the people on earth believe that AIDS is a disease caused by a virus called HIV.”[13] Mullis has stated that AIDS is an arbitrary diagnosis in which common medical conditions are mislabeled as AIDS when antibodies to HIV are found in a patient.[14] Medical and scientific consensus rejects such statements as disproven.
Pierre De Vos // Jun 2, 2009 at 6:46 pm
So not only do we have an academic who doesn’t understand the basic tenants of academic freedom, but also one who quotes selectively from the Wikipedia. Pierre – you and your fellow foaming-at-the mouth AIDS lunatics are the ones who may be causing millions of deaths by suppressing legitimate scientific inquiry and hampering progress in finding a cure. You don’t even have a clue what the background of Duesberg is for example: he isolated the first cancer genes through his work with retroviruses (of which HIV is a prime example):
He isolated the first cancer gene through his work on retroviruses in 1970, and mapped the genetic structure of these viruses. This, and his subsequent work in the same field, resulted in his election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1986. He was also the recipient of a seven-year Outstanding Investigator Grant from the National Institute of Health.”
http://mcb.berkeley.edu/labs/duesberg/
Now that would indicate he is hardly a “crackpot”, some ape-shit crazy right-wing fundamentalist like censor-bugbear who is using CIA pictures to try and prove the eminent genocide of the “Afrikaner-Boer nation”.
Pierre – science is not a democratic process, just because the majority in the “scientific community” may disagree with Duesberg doesn’t make them right. In the naive example you gave : the scientific community believed for centuries that the earth was flat before Galileo proved them all wrong.
OH – and do yourself a favor and do a quick google on : “nevirapine toxicity”
ozoneblue
“let me give you some well-meaning advice. If I was you and I dished up such rubbish as you are doing on your website I would rather use a pseudonym to avoid embarrassing myself.”
Which of course explains exactly why you write all your dangerous, malicious and uninformed views pseudonymously. Even on your own blog it would seem.
Sarah Palin // Jun 3, 2009 at 8:25 am
Oh dear- my views are “dangerous” and “malicious” indeed. Next thing you would be propagating the burning of books and that I be tossed into a deep dark bottomless pit for all my heresies.
You are an insecure and gullible person. Defending basic principles like independent scientific inquiry, academic freedom and the freedom of expression doesn’t make me an “AIDS heretic” either.
Only cowards write under fake names. You clearly have never read any of the contents on my website. If indeed you ever read more than headlines. And what does that mean anyway,a silly name like “Ozone Blue”?
Adriana Stuijt // Jun 3, 2009 at 10:29 am
Please Adriana I have been reading your crazy stuff occasionally ever since this invisible AIDS holocaust started in South Africa according to your “predications” back then around 2002. I don’t even bother to reply because it is just so shyte and out of touch with reality.
You clearly have no grasp of stats and a little thing called objectivity also. Your “Afrikaner-Boer” genocide theory relies almost in its entirety on wild conspiracy theories regarding our crime stats read and interpreted out of context, with the sole purpose of proving your pre-existing assumptions, of the impact of crime on EVERYBODY in this country, not only your socalled “Afrikaner-Boer nation”. No wonder you are also an avid AIDS lunatic.
ozoneblue
Your problem is that you see everything in black and white. The ‘hysterical’ ‘AIDS lunatics’ who think that ARVs are the ONLY way to deal with AIDS are a figment of your imagination. I agree with people such as Mbeki when they say that poverty, lack of education, poor sanitation, terrible living conditions in slums, etc cause diseases such as AIDS to spread. But I also happen to believe that ARVs can help those who are already suffering. That’s all Mbeki needed to add: that HIV can lead to AIDS and that ARVs could help in the fight against AIDS. No one was demanding he say that it is the SOLE solution and that every single penny in the government’s coffers ought to go into supplying the drugs.
But it is actually possible to deal with both the causes and the symptoms. How would you like it if you had TB, let’s say, or had a heart attack and the doctors said to you ’sorry, there is medicine available but no medicine for you. The government is busy uplifting the people so that future generations won’t live in conditions that allow TB to spread and they are improving the education system so that in future people will know not to eat too much fatty food and become obese.’ You’d be pretty pissed off that there was medicine available to help you live a better life but, tough shit, you came along too early.
I just cannot understand your defensiveness on this issue. Forget extremists like Stuijt and co. There are people dying of AIDS here in SA, in Africa and all over the whole world. Only the lunatic fringe is pointing fingers at Africa and saying ‘your fault’. The rest of us are trying to face the challenge of dealing with a disease that has killed millions worldwide, and the fact that influenza, car accidents, alcoholism, malaria or heart attacks have resulted in more deaths doesn’t change that. It is possible for a government to draw up a strategy to fight all of those diseases/ problems simultaneously.
Thabo Mbeki should have stated unequivocally that HIV usually leads to AIDs and that in SA’s fight against the disease the government would be adopting a holistic approach, including rolling out drugs. Then if in the future someone develops a more successful drug or someone develops a vaccination, whoopee! sufferers can use that instead. Nothing to be embarrassed about in promoting something that helped in the meanwhile.
And what kind of argument is: ‘you are an insecure and gullible person”. How would you know? I didn’t use the phrase “AIDS heretic’. I withdraw ‘uninformed’ because you have clearly read widely. I will modulate it to ‘informed, but gullible and unable to ’separate the wheat from the chaff’.
how about we just end this debate
how about we educate you OZONEBLUE
Minister of Health and Others v Treatment Action Campaign and Others, judgment of 5 July 2002, para 1 note 1.
Para 60.
Para 93.
Para 135(2)(a).
the Court went out of its way, in a pointed exercise in public education and affirmation, to set out in detail the uncontested scientific evidence that HIV is the cause of AIDS.
tell me something what do you and David Irving have in common?
David Irving was a holocast denier
Ozoneblue is a HIV causes Aids Denier (giving the fact OZONEBLUE seems to have profound experties in this field – how about you go do your own scientific research in a medical lab instead of coming off as some inorant ranting slickwick who actually has no clue what he is on about?
HIV causes AIds and court cases.
N v United Kingdom (European Court of Human Rights 2008)
Covarrubias v. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration (Court of Appeal 2006)
the Court highlighted deliberate attempts by countries to persecute or discriminate against certain persons either by refusing treatment or deliberately allocating insufficient resources for treatment and care.
E N and others v Government of RSA and others (High Court 2006)
The Court held that the government had violated the prisoners rights to health care and dignity in prison in not providing anti-retroviral treatment
Ozoneblue shut the fuck up cos you have no clue or evidence or any court ruling to back your denielism up. unless you go to an actual lab and do your own medical research to prove other wise you got no leg to stand on.
SOUTH AFRICA RECOGNISES HIV CAUSES AIDS BY A COURT RULING BY THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT.
case closed, next….
O3Blue et Khosi – I hope you guys are still around and wouldn’t mind archiving a little – get a load of this, enjoy! http://www.news24.com/Content/SouthAfrica/AidsFocus/1058/c18123c3914f4b59854050235ecb81d5/11-11-2009-06-58/Mbeki_blamed_for_Aids_crisis
@ Anonymouse
Do you really want Khosi on your back? Let us deny that Mbeki had a policy of denial (at least towards AIDS) in order to remain in Khosi’s good books.
On a serious note though, I wish the relevant politicians were not just bashing Mbeki to get attention away from them and their performance in the relevant portfolios but are actually gonna change the government policy for the better.
@Anonymouse & Sne ET AL,
LOL!
But seriously, there are so many numbers being thrown around that if you try to reconcile them they just exonerate Mbeki other than crucify him. But I guess that if you are going to just read the headline and the numbers without testing them against things like the population register, historical mortality rate, timelines for certain interventions (ARV) etc – you are only going to come to a populist conclusion.
You see, no one has ever denied that South Africans (especially the young) are indeed dying at a rate that is abnormal. The issue has always been what the best way to respond to that is and that response had to be based on the causation for the deaths of South Africans. I understand that the minister is a qualified GP and not a mathematician but common sense is common sense and that should never escape him. Now the minister in his populist posture seems to miss one very key element to his own data. According to the article the minister is saying that in 1997 we had approximately 300,000 deaths. Then nothing, on the article, is said about what the death rate in the subsequent 10 years. We are then told that in 2007 we had 573,408. Now, if my math does not abandon me, that is an average of 6.7 percent growth in the mortality rate per year, between 1997 to 2007.
Take a look at TABLE 2.2 on PAGE 5 of the Stats SA report that I assume the minister is quoting – http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P03093/P030932007.pdf
Subsequently, Stats SA did release an interesting report about what happened between 2006 and 2007. Guess what! the number of deaths decreased and that is validated by the minister’s own figures – http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/statskeyfindings.asp?PPN=P0309.3&SCH=4507
This figure is substantiated by the fact that between 2002 and 2006, the growth in our mortality rate was actually decreasing.
Now the minister informs us that 756,062 South Africans died in 2008. That is a jump of 24 percent. Now under what circumstances would a shrinking mortality rate suddenly increase by over 24 percent? This jump is too high and too inconsistent with the infection rate itself.
What is a FACT is that between 2002 and 2007 our nation was consistently beginning to live longer.
What is a FACT is that that increase, in people dying, has coincided with the roll out of ARV’s. Even the so called ‘Harvard report’ puts a 2005 cut of date on the lack of ARV’s. For me there are three plausible conclusions here:
1) The figures quoted by the minister are incorrect – and (that I doubt)
2) ARV’s are not putting a dent on our mortality rate – (easy way out)
3) As more people are taking ARV’s, more people are dying – (closer to the truth)
The minister needs to sit down and really think his figures and their meaning through.
P.S.: COULD ANYONE WHO WANTS TO WRITE A DISPUTING RESPONSE TO THIS, PLEASE RESPOND WITH FIGURES AND NOT ILL-CONSTRUCTED EMBELLISHMENTS.
Mouse ET AL,
LOL
But seriously, there are so many numbers being thrown around that if you try to reconcile them they just exonerate Mbeki other than crucify him. But I guess that if you are going to just read the headline and the numbers without testing them against things like the population register, historical mortality rate, timelines for certain interventions (ARV) etc – you are only going to come to a populist conclusion.
You see, no one has ever denied that South Africans (especially the young) are indeed dying at a rate that is abnormal. The issue has always been what the best way to respond to that is and that response had to be based on the causation for the deaths of South Africans. I understand that the minister is a qualified GP and not a mathematician but common sense is common sense and that should never escape him. Now the minister in his populist posture seems to miss one very key element to his own data. According to the article the minister is saying that in 1997 we had approximately 300 000 deaths. Then nothing, on the article, is said about what the death rate in the subsequent 10 years. We are then told that in 2007 we had 573 408. Now, if my math does not abandon me, that is an average of 6.7 percent growth in the mortality rate per year, between 1997 to 2007.
Take a look at TABLE 2.2 on PAGE 5 of the Stats SA report that I assume the minister is quoting – http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P03093/P030932007.pdf
Subsequently, Stats SA did release an interesting report about what happened between 2006 and 2007. Guess what! the number of deaths decreased and that is validated by the minister’s own figures – http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/statskeyfindings.asp?PPN=P0309.3&SCH=4507
This figure is substantiated by the fact that between 2002 and 2006, the growth in our mortality rate was actually decreasing.
Now the minister informs us that 756,062 South Africans died in 2008. That is a jump of 24 percent. Now under what circumstances would a shrinking mortality rate suddenly increase by over 24 percent? This jump is too high and too inconsistent with the infection rate itself.
What is a FACT is that between 2002 and 2007 our nation was consistently beginning to live longer.
What is a FACT is that that increase, in people dying, has coincided with the roll out of ARV’s. Even the so called ‘Harvard report’ puts a 2005 cut of date on the lack of ARV’s. For me there are three plausible conclusions here:
1. The figures quoted by the minister are incorrect – and that I doubt
2. ARV’s are not putting a dent on our mortality rate – easy way out
3. As more people are taking ARV’s, more people are dying – closer to the truth
The minister needs to sit down and really think his figures and their meaning through.
COULD ANYONE WHO WANTS TO WRITE A DISPUTING RESPONSE TO THIS, PLEASE RESPOND WITH FIGURES AND NOT ILL-CONSTRUCTED EMBELLISHMENTS.
teet
ET AL,
LOL
But seriously, there are so many numbers being thrown around that if you try to reconcile them they just exonerate Mbeki other than crucify him. But I guess that if you are going to just read the headline and the numbers without testing them against things like the population register, historical mortality rate, timelines for certain interventions (ARV) etc – you are only going to come to a populist conclusion.
You see, no one has ever denied that South Africans (especially the young) are indeed dying at a rate that is abnormal. The issue has always been what the best way to respond to that is and that response had to be based on the causation for the deaths of South Africans. I understand that the minister is a qualified GP and not a mathematician but common sense is common sense and that should never escape him. Now the minister in his populist posture seems to miss one very key element to his own data. According to the article the minister is saying that in 1997 we had approximately 300 000 deaths. Then nothing, on the article, is said about what the death rate in the subsequent 10 years. We are then told that in 2007 we had 573 408. Now, if my math does not abandon me, that is an average of 6.7 percent growth in the mortality rate per year, between 1997 to 2007.
Take a look at TABLE 2.2 on PAGE 5 of the Stats SA report that I assume the minister is quoting – http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P03093/P030932007.pdf
Subsequently, Stats SA did release an interesting report about what happened between 2006 and 2007. Guess what! the number of deaths decreased and that is validated by the minister’s own figures – http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/statskeyfindings.asp?PPN=P0309.3&SCH=4507
This figure is substantiated by the fact that between 2002 and 2006, the growth in our mortality rate was actually decreasing.
Now the minister informs us that 756 062 South Africans died in 2008. That is a jump of 24 percent. Now under what circumstances would a shrinking mortality rate suddenly increase by over 24 percent? This jump is too high and too inconsistent with the infection rate itself.
What is a FACT is that between 2002 and 2007 our nation was consistently beginning to live longer.
What is a FACT is that that increase, in people dying, has coincided with the roll out of ARV’s. Even the so called ‘Harvard report’ puts a 2005 cut of date on the lack of ARV’s. For me there are three plausible conclusions here:
1. The figures quoted by the minister are incorrect – and that I doubt
2. ARV’s are not putting a dent on our mortality rate – easy way out
3. As more people are taking ARV’s, more people are dying – closer to the truth
The minister needs to sit down and really think his figures and their meaning through.
COULD ANYONE WHO WANTS TO WRITE A DISPUTING RESPONSE TO THIS, PLEASE RESPOND WITH FIGURES AND NOT ILL-CONSTRUCTED EMBELLISHMENTS.
ET AL,
………….
Please bear with me, I had to break this posting into pieces because it was refusing to go through.
………….
LOL
But seriously, there are so many numbers being thrown around that if you try to reconcile them they just exonerate Mbeki other than crucify him. But I guess that if you are going to just read the headline and the numbers without testing them against things like the population register, historical mortality rate, timelines for certain interventions (ARV) etc – you are only going to come to a populist conclusion.
You see, no one has ever denied that South Africans (especially the young) are indeed dying at a rate that is abnormal. The issue has always been what the best way to respond to that is and that response had to be based on the causation for the deaths of South Africans. I understand that the minister is a qualified GP and not a mathematician but common sense is common sense and that should never escape him. Now the minister in his populist posture seems to miss one very key element to his own data. According to the article the minister is saying that in 1997 we had approximately 300 000 deaths. Then nothing, on the article, is said about what the death rate in the subsequent 10 years. We are then told that in 2007 we had 573 408. Now, if my math does not abandon me, that is an average of 6.7 percent growth in the mortality rate per year, between 1997 to 2007.
Take a look at TABLE 2.2 on PAGE 5 of the Stats SA report that I assume the minister is quoting (REFERENCE 1)
Subsequently, Stats SA did release an interesting report about what happened between 2006 and 2007. Guess what! the number of deaths decreased and that is validated by the minister’s own figures (REFERENCE 2)
This figure is substantiated by the fact that between 2002 and 2006, the growth in our mortality rate was actually decreasing.
Now the minister informs us that 756,062 South Africans died in 2008. That is a jump of 24 percent. Now under what circumstances would a shrinking mortality rate suddenly increase by over 24 percent? This jump is too high and too inconsistent with the infection rate itself.
What is a FACT is that between 2002 and 2007 our nation was consistently beginning to live longer.
What is a FACT is that that increase, in people dying, has coincided with the roll out of ARV’s. Even the so called ‘Harvard report’ puts a 2005 cut of date on the lack of ARV’s. For me there are three plausible conclusions here:
1. The figures quoted by the minister are incorrect – and that I doubt
2. ARV’s are not putting a dent on our mortality rate – easy way out
3. As more people are taking ARV’s, more people are dying – closer to the truth
The minister needs to sit down and really think his figures and their meaning through.
COULD ANYONE WHO WANTS TO WRITE A DISPUTING RESPONSE TO THIS, PLEASE RESPOND WITH FIGURES AND NOT ILL-CONSTRUCTED EMBELLISHMENTS.
ET AL,
…………..
You will find these keys on the previous posting. Sorry for the mess
…………..
REFERENCE 1 – http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P03093/P030932007.pdf
REFERENCE 2 – http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/statskeyfindings.asp?PPN=P0309.3&SCH=4507
ET AL,
…………..
You will find these keys on the previous posting. Sorry for the mess
…………..
REFERENCE 1 – http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P03093/P030932007.pdf
ET AL,
…………..
You will find these keys on the previous posting. Sorry for the mess
…………..
REFERENCE 2 – http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/statskeyfindings.asp?PPN=P0309.3&SCH=4507