Stefaans Br?mmer and Lynda Gledhill
Uncertainty surrounds the authenticity of two faxes that Ziggy Visser, husband of Virodene inventor Olga Visser, says he sent to the African National Congress in December which “proved” shares had not been earmarked for the party.
This is one of the unresolved issues to be investigated by Public Protector Selby Baqwa after the Democratic Party last week claimed the government’s favourable reception of the Aids drug – whose development flouted basic research principles – may have been influenced by ANC monetary interests.
Some scientists this week also asked why Virodene should have received government favour while another South African-developed product that outshone Virodene in its claimed results has yet to secure government support.
Minister of Health Nkosazana Zuma and Deputy President Thabo Mbeki – who have both had personal contact with the Vissers and other members of Cryopreservation Technologies (CPT), the company that owns the Virodene patent – denied the ANC was offered a 6% share. Both have publicly confirmed their continued support for Virodene research.
Mbeki at the weekend launched an extraordinary attack on the Medicines Control Council (MCC), which has withheld approval for testing Virodene on humans. He accused the MCC of denying Aids sufferers “mercy treatment”, echoing ANC charges that the MCC was “censoring” research and pandering to pharmaceutical interests.
The latest controversy around Virodene was sparked by DP health spokesperson Mike Ellis, who released a CPT memorandum, penned by the Vissers last November, to the media. Drawn up during a legal battle between two warring factions in CPT, the memo informed company members that 6% of the shares in a CPT subsidiary would go to the ANC.
In response, the ANC and CPT interim administrator Hugo Snyckers released copies of correspondence, dated mid-December, between Zuma, the ANC’s legal desk and Ziggy Visser. In it, Zuma and the ANC said they became aware of the “purported 6% shares” from court papers in the CPT dispute and stated for the record that they were not aware of any share offer. They asked for an explanation.
Visser, in two faxes addressed to George Chaane of the ANC’s legal desk and dated December 11 and 12 , denied shares were intended for the ANC, saying: “The description ‘ANC’ was the wrong choice of phrase and RDP might have been more accurate in this instance.” The faxes were touted in the media as “proof” there had been no attempt to buy influence.
Ellis this week said the correspondence proved nothing to him as it could have been pre-emptive cover-up in December when it became clear the memo was part of court records. “It is funny that there is this kind of scurrying if it were not a cover-up.”
The Mail & Guardian is in possession of a detailed printout of telephone calls made from CPT’s fax line. While it shows that Zuma’s Pretoria office was faxed on December 10, there is no record of the other two faxes having gone to Chaane at the ANC’s Shell House headquarters in Johannesburg. The fax to Zuma has not been released.
Visser could not explain why the faxes did not show up on the printout. “Perhaps the post office [Telkom] is not so good after all.” Visser claimed also to have had copies of both letters delivered “in the hands of” Chaane at Mafikeng, where the ANC’s 50th national conference started on December 15. But Chaane denied having received the hand-delivered letters, saying he “did not even attend that conference”. But he backed the rest of Visser’s version.
He showed the M&G copies of the two faxes in his own file and said: “If anybody puts me in the witness stand and asks me did I get them, I will say, ‘Yes, I got them through the normal fax system.'”
The MCC went silent this week after its chair, Peter Folb, originally responded to Mbeki’s attack by saying CPT’s researchers and the MCC agreed that Virodene was not ready for human testing. He said the latest protocol – a detailed research proposal – had been handed to the MCC by CPT in January and, when the MCC pointed out problems, CPT agreed amendments were necessary.
Folb found an unlikely ally in Snyckers this week. Snyckers confirmed that CPT agreed the January protocol had “sufficient problems for us to resubmit it”. He agreed that some of the foreign experts, quoted by Mbeki to have supported the protocol, did not give it an unqualified go-ahead. “Some wanted aspects fixed, but they did not reject it out of hand.”
Professor Patrick Bouic at the University of Stellenbosch has developed a mixture of plant extracts that supports the immune system and appears useful in treating people with HIV and Aids. The substance, Moducane, has received approval for trials by the MCC.
“Moducane is fantastic stuff,” said Dr Keith Scott, who uses it in his clinic in Botswana. “I can’t understand why it isn’t being used [by the government] in South Africa. It has everything going for it. The researchers have done everything by the book.” Scott pointed out that because Moducane is natural it retails for as little as R100 for a month’s supply.
Bouic this week emphasised that he was not in competition with Virodene, but said he was upset that the government has not responded to a letter he sent the Department of Health alerting it to his research results. He said several other African countries, as well as Canada, have expressed interest in Moducane and he assumed South Africa would also want to investigate providing the treatment to patients and hospitals.
Mbeki’s representative Ricky Naidoo responded that the Stellenbosch research “most certainly” had not been brought to Mbeki’s attention, but he said Mbeki would be open to any proposals.
Zuma’s representative, Vincent Hlongwane, said the health department only took recommendations from the MCC, not individual researchers, and that it was up to the MCC to pass on information about any new drug.
Hlongwane said the only reason Zuma and her department took a direct interest in Virodene was because the researchers had approached the government for funding. Bouic said this was “a pathetic excuse to give”, and said since he was the one who had written the letter, he should have received a response.