The deadly hand of denial: Governance and politically-instigated AIDS denialism in South Africa

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2009

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University of Cape Town

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The 26 May 2005 issue of Drum magazine, a widely-read South African monthly, featured a comparison of two deeply contrasting approaches to treating HIV. The strap-line was 'They both look the picture of health.? And they're both living with HIV/AIDS.? Yet Judge Edwin Cameron and Nozipho Bhengu each do it their way'. Bhengu, daughter of African National Congress (ANC) grandee, Ruth Bhengu (a close associate in exile of former President Thabo Mbeki), was, so the article claimed, controlling her infection and CD4 count with a nutritional concoction. 'Like [the former] health minister Manto Tshabala-Msimang', the article recorded, 'Nozipho believes there is a direct link between nutrition and AIDS'. An interview with one of the writers, Edwin Cameron, was posted alongside. Cameron explained how he was treating his HIV infection using scientifically proven antiretroviral (ARV) treatment. The article epitomised the fraught debate on HIV in South Africa at the time.
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