Sarah Duguid and Vegard Veberg
A spate of publications promoting dissident views of Aids has appeared in the week the government reversed its stance on the provision of anti-retroviral drugs and has turned up in the areas where Aids is most severe.
Approximately 100 000 copies were printed of a 24-page supplement entitled The Pulse The Pharmers Herald and inserted into The Durban Leader and its sister paper, Ubhuaqa Lwe-Afrika, this week; an eight-page supplement was inserted into both papers last week.
At the same time, health counter news, a venerable publication available at health food shops across the country, including a health centre in Orange Farm, is devoting a great deal of space to bizarre theories about the cause of HIV/Aids and the non-existence of the disease.
In Durban, Mike Blazely, spokesperson for The Pulse The Pharmers Herald, said a foreign group helped to fund the supplements in the two newspapers, but he declined to identify the group.
The Leader which has served as a training ground for generations of good journalists was chosen “because of their history”, he said. “They reach out to the disadvantaged.”
Ubhaqa Lwe-Afrika is being distributed as a free newspaper in several rural areas in KwaZulu-Natal.
Kwazulu-Natal has the highest prevalence in the country of people living with HIV. Rural areas are in a particularly difficult position because of the high rate of infection. It is also difficult to get information out to the people living in those areas. Aids workers are worried that the views promoted in the supplements will encourage those at risk to eschew both anti-retroviral drugs and preventative measures.
Blazely described The Pulse as an “editorial supplement”, but said part of the cost was being paid for by a group of foreigners. He refused to identify the editor and said the reason that most of the articles are unsigned is that the authors would be “branded as insane”.
Repeated efforts to contact Sunil Bramdaw, editor of The Leader, were unsuccessful; Bramdaw was not available for comment.
In an editorial in The Pulse the medical and scientific community is portrayed as “a few self-styled experts” who threaten the very core ideals of democracy.
Medical science is referred to in The Pulse as the “Opiate of the People”. Everything in science is compared to belief. “Medical science is a better opiate than religion could ever be. It offers us the real dope: AZT, Prozac, Ritalin and ritualised group experiences such as vaccination programmes.” It continues: “Medical science first obscures our vision, and even charges us for that service. We pay for its propaganda. We self-monitor our need for its products like a person who is HIV-positive relies upon his viral-load test results for treatment. We are expected to insist, lobby, demonstrate, line up and pay for our opiates.”
Several of the articles in The Pulse date back to the mid-Nineties and have not been updated. One article, by columnist Jeff Ofstedahl, was previously published in the United States-based gay magazine Echomag in 1996. It raises several questions that were relevant at that time. In the meantime, however, most of the issues have been solved. An article on Aids in Lesotho, written in 1995, when the epidemic was still in its first stages, is another example.
Blazely states they are only trying to restore the balance in the debate on HIV/Aids and nevirapine.
“You know we believe in democracy. Personally I do not think we should allow ourselves to be brainwashed. The response we have got on the inserts, so far, has been astounding. Some of the things people of the scientific community have said would not be fit for print, though, but the response from regular people has been overwhelming.”
Professor Hoosen Coovadia of the University of Natal is quoted in one story. When he states that it will take time to roll out nevirapine, and that one must “tread with caution”, his views are publicised by The Pulse. What the inserts never mention is that Coovadia is one of the most ardent opponents of the government’s reluctance to roll out anti-retroviral drugs.
When asked for his opinion on The Pulse, Coovadia said: “This is really worrying. It strongly suggests that a group of people are willing to spend money and time on spreading these ideas that have no scientific proof whatsoever. It looks like it even goes beyond the African National Congress. There is an international network of dissidents, and it really worries me if they are allowed to make South Africa a stage for their views.”