Pat Sidley

''The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) is taking legal action against what it sees as a charlatan flogging vitamins to people with Aids so that they can avoid taking anti-retroviral treatments which is said to be poisonous. That is what the TAC does, and should do, so well,'' writes Pat Sidley.

Some years ago, several babies in the neo-natal intensive care unit of the Park Lane Clinic died from a bacterial infection. Bacteria had been found in the drip bags attached to the babies, and in the babies' bodies. In light of the recent talk of regulating private hospitals to keep costs in check, there is now a good opportunity to look at a few other issues concerning private hospitals, reckons Pat Sidley.

Radical change is difficult to manage at the best of times -- as anybody working in the civil service over the past 10 years will know. When it means separating people from their money, and tackling vested interests, the fallout can be really messy. So it is with the regulation of medicines.The confusion over the regulation of medicines serves neither consumers nor doctors.

The South African Catholic Bishops Conference believes priests don't belong in politics but Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa is ready to defy this order.

This week a large group of Afrikaans rightwingers forced ANC deputy president Nelson Mandela to abandon his address to a student meeting at Tukkies.

Brigalia Bam is part of a small-but growing elite. She is black, single, well-educated and travelled, a professional who holds down a major post.

?Helene Passtoors flew into Brussels yesterday hours after her release from Pretoria Central.

Government departments have been instructed not to talk to foreign journalists who are not accredited with the Bureau for Information.

It was hoped all the ''open'' universities would take the same action, at the same time on the same day.

A fact-finding delegation of Liberal International Parliamentarians has asked permission for a second time to visit imprisoned ANC leader Mandela.

So why did the Government dump the farmers?

South African tampon manufacturers say they do not use the fibre believed to cause toxic shock syndrome.