Dr. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who as South Africa’s health minister drew international censure for questioning the causal connection between H.I.V. and AIDS and for promoting dietary measures rather than drugs to treat AIDS, a policy that was held responsible for hundreds of thousands of premature deaths, died Wednesday in Johannesburg. She was 69. Her doctor said the cause was complications from a liver transplant in 2007, the South African Press Association reported.
Dr. Tshabalala-Msimang (pronounced cha-buh-LA-lum zih-MANG) lived in exile for nearly three decades as a member of the African National Congress, the anti-apartheid group that became South Africa’s governing party in 1994, before becoming health minister in 1999, with the election of Thabo Mbeki as president. She served in that post until he resigned last year. Echoing Mr. Mbeki’s own widely lambasted views about AIDS, Dr. Tshabalala-Msimang advocated marshaling vitamin and nutritional forces against the H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. She maintained that foods like garlic, lemon, African potatoes and beetroot were stauncher defenses than the antiretroviral drugs that had been proved to prolong the lives of H.I.V.-positive patients and to help prevent the passage of the virus from pregnant women to their babies.
Noting that the drugs had side effects, and adopting the claims of so-called AIDS dissidents who deny a connection between H.I.V. and AIDS, she referred to the antiretroviral drugs as poison. “She was one of the disasters of the post-apartheid era,” said Mark Gevisser, the author of “A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream.” She was not up to the job of health minister, he added. Mr. Mbeki kept her in the job amid intense pressure to dismiss her “because she very, very quickly became his agent in the AIDS wars, and she could continue to ask questions he thought had to be asked but that he couldn’t afford, politically, to ask himself,” Mr. Gevisser said. While Dr. Tshabalala-Msimang was health minister, the estimated number of H.I.V.-infected people in South Africa climbed to more than five million, more than in any other nation. Critics from around the world denounced a South African policy that at first opposed and then delayed the distribution of antiretroviral drugs.
Dr. Tshabalala-Msimang was derisively called Dr. Beetroot, and as time went on the criticism aimed at her and at the Mbeki AIDS policy grew more and more hostile. Speaking at an international AIDS conference in Toronto in 2006, Stephen Lewis, the United Nations envoy on AIDS, called the South African government’s drug policy “obtuse, dilatory and negligent” and said the government “continues to propound theories more worthy of a lunatic fringe than of a concerned and compassionate state.” The damage was quantified when a study by Harvard researchers released a year ago stated that the South African AIDS policy was responsible for 365,000 premature deaths.
Dr. Tshabalala-Msimang was born in Durban on Oct. 9, 1940, and educated at the University of Fort Hare, a haven for black intellectuals (Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu both spent time there) before the African National Congress was banned from the country. In exile, she lived in the Soviet Union, where she received a medical degree, and later in Tanzania, where she studied obstetrics and gynecology. Returning to South Africa in 1990, she at first worked in community health organizations. She was elected to Parliament in 1994 and was chairwoman of the National Assembly’s health committee. Before being appointed to the Health Ministry, she was deputy minister of justice.
Dr. Tshabalala-Msimang was married twice. Her survivors include her husband, Mendi Msimang, former treasurer of the African National Congress, and two daughters.
Source: New York Times
Showing posts with label Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
'Cops Ignore Kebble Murder Accused'
Police have not yet acted on 52 extraditions, including Brett Kebble murder accused John Stratton.
Yet they seem to have made moves to extradite a nurse accused of stealing medical records of former health minister Manto Tshabala-Msimang.
Source: All Africa.com
Yet they seem to have made moves to extradite a nurse accused of stealing medical records of former health minister Manto Tshabala-Msimang.
Source: All Africa.com
Saturday, July 15, 2000
Focus on AIDS Epidemic, Mandela Says
Closing the 13th International AIDS Conference today, Nelson Mandela urged scientists to move beyond their concerns about South Africa's president and to focus on combating the epidemic that is raging across the African continent. In a speech punctuated by repeated applause, Mr. Mandela said the world could not afford to be distracted by the furor surrounding President Thabo Mbeki, his successor, who has questioned whether H.I.V. causes AIDS.
Mr. Mandela did not clarify Mr. Mbeki's views on the subject, but told his audience that Mr. Mbeki was committed to fighting the sickness in South Africa, the country with the largest number of people infected with the AIDS virus, 4.2 million. ''So much unnecessary attention around this conference had been directed toward a dispute that is unintentionally distracting from the real life-and-death issues we are confronted with as a country, a region, a continent and a world,'' said Mr. Mandela, who handed over the reigns of power to Mr. Mbeki one year ago. ''In the face of the grave threat posed by H.I.V./AIDS, we have to rise above our differences and combine our efforts to save our people,'' he said. ''History will judge us harshly if we fail to do so, and right now.''
The speech marked the end of the first international AIDS conference to be held in a developing country. About 34 million people, most of them in Africa, are infected with H.I.V. And this week, scientists debated the best ways to battle the scourge, finding hope in studies that suggest circumcision reduces the risk of infection and disappointment in a report that questions the long-term benefit of a drug intended to protect newborns from the virus. But the scientific developments announced here were almost overshadowed by the controversy surrounding Mr. Mbeki. He addressed the conference once, in the opening speech on Sunday, when he singled out extreme poverty, rather than AIDS, as the biggest killer in Africa.
But in the corridors and conference halls at the convention center here, the president dominated conversations nearly as much as the talk about future vaccines. Last week, the scientific magazine Nature published a declaration signed by 5,000 scientists from around the world who described the link between H.I.V. and AIDS as ''clear-cut, exhaustive and unambiguous.'' And this week, in panel after panel, scientists and activists criticized Mr. Mbeki, who stirred the debate by consulting two American researchers who argue that poverty and malnutrition, not H.I.V., cause AIDS. No one disputes the link between poverty and AIDS, which is well established. And government officials here emphasize that Mr. Mbeki has never said H.I.V. did not cause AIDS.
But researchers fear that Mr. Mbeki's heavy emphasis on poverty and his talks with AIDS dissidents may fuel confusion among ordinary people who may assume they can engage in risky sexual behavior because the president has raised questions about H.I.V. ''I was disappointed, to put it bluntly,'' Roy Anderson, a prominent AIDS researcher, said of Mr. Mbeki's speech. ''In South Africa, it's really such an acute problem.''
The government quickly lashed back. Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang dismissed the criticism and accused the media of distorting Mr. Mbeki's message. She insisted that the president was committed to fighting the disease by encouraging safe sex and by sponsoring research on drug therapies and a possible vaccine. ''Why should he deny something he has not said?'' she asked.
Today, Mr. Mandela also defended Mr. Mbeki. He called him ''a man of great intellect'' who ''continues to place this issue on the top of the national and continental agenda.'' Mr. Mandela acknowledged that the government, under his leadership and Mr. Mbeki's, had fallen short in efforts to fight the disease. Scientists and AIDS activists have accused South Africa of a lack of leadership in combating the epidemic. In 1993, H.I.V. infected 4 percent of South Africa's adult population. Now the figure is 20 percent. ''He will, with me, be the first to concede that much more remains to be done,'' Mr. Mandela said. ''I do not doubt for one moment that he will proceed to tackle this task with the resolve and dedication he is known for.''
Mr. Mandela did differ with Mr. Mbeki on some points. For instance, he emphasized his reluctance to engage in the scientific debate, saying he lacked adequate knowledge to contribute seriously. And while Mr. Mbeki has questioned the safety of AIDS drugs, Mr. Mandela stressed the urgency of using them to reduce the transmission of the virus from mothers to newborns, saying such measures ''have been proven to be essential.''
Source: New York Times
Mr. Mandela did not clarify Mr. Mbeki's views on the subject, but told his audience that Mr. Mbeki was committed to fighting the sickness in South Africa, the country with the largest number of people infected with the AIDS virus, 4.2 million. ''So much unnecessary attention around this conference had been directed toward a dispute that is unintentionally distracting from the real life-and-death issues we are confronted with as a country, a region, a continent and a world,'' said Mr. Mandela, who handed over the reigns of power to Mr. Mbeki one year ago. ''In the face of the grave threat posed by H.I.V./AIDS, we have to rise above our differences and combine our efforts to save our people,'' he said. ''History will judge us harshly if we fail to do so, and right now.''
The speech marked the end of the first international AIDS conference to be held in a developing country. About 34 million people, most of them in Africa, are infected with H.I.V. And this week, scientists debated the best ways to battle the scourge, finding hope in studies that suggest circumcision reduces the risk of infection and disappointment in a report that questions the long-term benefit of a drug intended to protect newborns from the virus. But the scientific developments announced here were almost overshadowed by the controversy surrounding Mr. Mbeki. He addressed the conference once, in the opening speech on Sunday, when he singled out extreme poverty, rather than AIDS, as the biggest killer in Africa.
But in the corridors and conference halls at the convention center here, the president dominated conversations nearly as much as the talk about future vaccines. Last week, the scientific magazine Nature published a declaration signed by 5,000 scientists from around the world who described the link between H.I.V. and AIDS as ''clear-cut, exhaustive and unambiguous.'' And this week, in panel after panel, scientists and activists criticized Mr. Mbeki, who stirred the debate by consulting two American researchers who argue that poverty and malnutrition, not H.I.V., cause AIDS. No one disputes the link between poverty and AIDS, which is well established. And government officials here emphasize that Mr. Mbeki has never said H.I.V. did not cause AIDS.
But researchers fear that Mr. Mbeki's heavy emphasis on poverty and his talks with AIDS dissidents may fuel confusion among ordinary people who may assume they can engage in risky sexual behavior because the president has raised questions about H.I.V. ''I was disappointed, to put it bluntly,'' Roy Anderson, a prominent AIDS researcher, said of Mr. Mbeki's speech. ''In South Africa, it's really such an acute problem.''
The government quickly lashed back. Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang dismissed the criticism and accused the media of distorting Mr. Mbeki's message. She insisted that the president was committed to fighting the disease by encouraging safe sex and by sponsoring research on drug therapies and a possible vaccine. ''Why should he deny something he has not said?'' she asked.
Today, Mr. Mandela also defended Mr. Mbeki. He called him ''a man of great intellect'' who ''continues to place this issue on the top of the national and continental agenda.'' Mr. Mandela acknowledged that the government, under his leadership and Mr. Mbeki's, had fallen short in efforts to fight the disease. Scientists and AIDS activists have accused South Africa of a lack of leadership in combating the epidemic. In 1993, H.I.V. infected 4 percent of South Africa's adult population. Now the figure is 20 percent. ''He will, with me, be the first to concede that much more remains to be done,'' Mr. Mandela said. ''I do not doubt for one moment that he will proceed to tackle this task with the resolve and dedication he is known for.''
Mr. Mandela did differ with Mr. Mbeki on some points. For instance, he emphasized his reluctance to engage in the scientific debate, saying he lacked adequate knowledge to contribute seriously. And while Mr. Mbeki has questioned the safety of AIDS drugs, Mr. Mandela stressed the urgency of using them to reduce the transmission of the virus from mothers to newborns, saying such measures ''have been proven to be essential.''
Source: New York Times
Monday, March 20, 2000
South Africa In a Furor Over Advice About AIDS
President Thabo Mbeki's decision to seek advice from two Americans who argue that H.I.V. does not cause AIDS has touched off an outcry at home and abroad and raised fears that South Africa's already soaring infection rate will climb still further. News that Mr. Mbeki recently consulted the Americans, a scientist and a professor of African history, leaked out this month, and is the latest of several disputes over how to treat AIDS in a country of 44 million people with one of the highest H.I.V. infection rates in the world.
Mr. Mbeki and his officials spoke with David Rasnick, a biochemist, and Charles Geshekter, a professor of African history at California State University, Chico, as the president was considering strategies to combat the virus, which has infected 12.9 percent of the nation's adults. He plans to convene international AIDS experts later this year, and telephoned the scientists to assess various AIDS treatments and to reappraise the evidence that concludes that H.I.V. causes AIDS. ''The president speaks to all scientists and to everyone who believes he's got something to contribute,'' said Parks Mankahlana, the president's spokesman. ''Until all the questions that keep cropping up are answered, we are not going to be able to say to a person who disagrees with the conventional thinking, 'You are wrong or right.' Mbeki has never said H.I.V. doesn't lead to AIDS,'' Mr. Mankahlana said.
Mr. Rasnick argues that H.I.V. does not cause AIDS, a view shared by Peter Duesburg, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of California at Berkeley. The United Nations AIDS program, the World Health Organization and most scientists say the causal link between H.I.V. and AIDS is already well established. ''At first, we were thinking we would just ignore it, but now we think this confusion can really undermine all the efforts people have made to prevent this disease,'' Dr. Awa Coll-Seck, the director of the United Nations' Department of Aids Policy in Geneva, said in a telephone interview of Mr. Mbeki's move. ''People will reassure themselves, perhaps, that they can continue risky behavior because H.I.V. is not the real cause of AIDS,'' Dr. Coll-Seck said. ''It's becoming a real issue.''
Earlier this month, government officials scrambled to explain how $6.2 million of the country's $17 million AIDS budget went unspent last year. They said the money would be rolled over into next year's budget. And five months ago, Mr. Mbeki stunned health experts by questioning the safety of the standard anti-AIDS drug AZT. This week, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said the government had decided the drug should not be distributed in public hospitals. ''There is not enough information for me as the minister of health to expose women to a drug that we do not know about,'' Ms. Tshabalala-Msimang said. Concerns about AZT, particularly for children, have been raised in the United States. One study found that pregnant mice treated with AZT gave birth to babies with tumors. But after reviewing the mouse study and others like it, the National Institutes of Health determined in 1997 that the benefits of the drug far outweighed the potential side effects. One two-year study found that a short course of AZT treatment for women who did not breast-feed their babies reduced transmission of the virus by 50 percent.
But Mr. Mankahlana says South Africa cannot afford to accept the West's conventional wisdom about AIDS without investigating carefully since Western scientists have yet to discover a cure for the disease. ''The fact of the matter is, there is so much that is still unknown about H.I.V. and AIDS,'' said Mr. Mankahlana, who added that the government would spend an additional $11 million this year on research. Mr. Rasnick said he received a telephone call from Mr. Mbeki after he replied to faxed questions from the president about AIDS. Mr. Rasnick and his colleagues say AIDS is typically caused by recreational drug use and malnutrition.
Prominent scientists say this thesis, which is most prominently advanced by Mr. Duesberg, relies mostly on the data of other scientists and that those scientists disagree with this interpretation of their work. But on Jan. 21, Mr. Mbeki called Mr. Rasnick directly, to hear for himself. ''He wanted our views, and we gave them to him,'' said Mr. Rasnick in a telephone interview from his home in Saratoga, Calif. ''He had read everything we had written, everything that was available on the Internet. He knows there are some serious questions out there.'' ''I think he's courageous,'' Mr. Rasnick said. ''You start looking like a lunatic if you question the AIDS axioms. Knowing this in advance, he put his neck out there anyway. He wants to have a free and public hearing about all things related to AIDS.''
source: New York Times
Mr. Mbeki and his officials spoke with David Rasnick, a biochemist, and Charles Geshekter, a professor of African history at California State University, Chico, as the president was considering strategies to combat the virus, which has infected 12.9 percent of the nation's adults. He plans to convene international AIDS experts later this year, and telephoned the scientists to assess various AIDS treatments and to reappraise the evidence that concludes that H.I.V. causes AIDS. ''The president speaks to all scientists and to everyone who believes he's got something to contribute,'' said Parks Mankahlana, the president's spokesman. ''Until all the questions that keep cropping up are answered, we are not going to be able to say to a person who disagrees with the conventional thinking, 'You are wrong or right.' Mbeki has never said H.I.V. doesn't lead to AIDS,'' Mr. Mankahlana said.
Mr. Rasnick argues that H.I.V. does not cause AIDS, a view shared by Peter Duesburg, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of California at Berkeley. The United Nations AIDS program, the World Health Organization and most scientists say the causal link between H.I.V. and AIDS is already well established. ''At first, we were thinking we would just ignore it, but now we think this confusion can really undermine all the efforts people have made to prevent this disease,'' Dr. Awa Coll-Seck, the director of the United Nations' Department of Aids Policy in Geneva, said in a telephone interview of Mr. Mbeki's move. ''People will reassure themselves, perhaps, that they can continue risky behavior because H.I.V. is not the real cause of AIDS,'' Dr. Coll-Seck said. ''It's becoming a real issue.''
Earlier this month, government officials scrambled to explain how $6.2 million of the country's $17 million AIDS budget went unspent last year. They said the money would be rolled over into next year's budget. And five months ago, Mr. Mbeki stunned health experts by questioning the safety of the standard anti-AIDS drug AZT. This week, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said the government had decided the drug should not be distributed in public hospitals. ''There is not enough information for me as the minister of health to expose women to a drug that we do not know about,'' Ms. Tshabalala-Msimang said. Concerns about AZT, particularly for children, have been raised in the United States. One study found that pregnant mice treated with AZT gave birth to babies with tumors. But after reviewing the mouse study and others like it, the National Institutes of Health determined in 1997 that the benefits of the drug far outweighed the potential side effects. One two-year study found that a short course of AZT treatment for women who did not breast-feed their babies reduced transmission of the virus by 50 percent.
But Mr. Mankahlana says South Africa cannot afford to accept the West's conventional wisdom about AIDS without investigating carefully since Western scientists have yet to discover a cure for the disease. ''The fact of the matter is, there is so much that is still unknown about H.I.V. and AIDS,'' said Mr. Mankahlana, who added that the government would spend an additional $11 million this year on research. Mr. Rasnick said he received a telephone call from Mr. Mbeki after he replied to faxed questions from the president about AIDS. Mr. Rasnick and his colleagues say AIDS is typically caused by recreational drug use and malnutrition.
Prominent scientists say this thesis, which is most prominently advanced by Mr. Duesberg, relies mostly on the data of other scientists and that those scientists disagree with this interpretation of their work. But on Jan. 21, Mr. Mbeki called Mr. Rasnick directly, to hear for himself. ''He wanted our views, and we gave them to him,'' said Mr. Rasnick in a telephone interview from his home in Saratoga, Calif. ''He had read everything we had written, everything that was available on the Internet. He knows there are some serious questions out there.'' ''I think he's courageous,'' Mr. Rasnick said. ''You start looking like a lunatic if you question the AIDS axioms. Knowing this in advance, he put his neck out there anyway. He wants to have a free and public hearing about all things related to AIDS.''
source: New York Times
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