| Abstract: | AIDS policy in post-apartheid South Africa has been shaped bypersistent antipathy towards antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). Thishostility was framed initially by President Mbeki's questioningof AIDS science and subsequently by direct resistance to implementingprevention and treatment programmes using ARVs. Once that battlewas lost in the courts and in the political arena, the HealthMinister, Tshabalala-Msimang, continued to portray ARVs as ‘poison’and to support alternative untested therapies. Demographic modellingsuggests that if the national government had used ARVs for preventionand treatment at the same rate as the Western Cape (which defiednational policy on ARVs), then about 171,000 HIV infectionsand 343,000 deaths could have been prevented between 1999 and2007. Two key scientific bodies, the Medicines Control Council(MCC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC) fall under theambit of the national Department of Health. Although notionallyindependent, both have experienced political interference asa consequence of their scientific approach towards AIDS. AIDSpolicy improved after the Deputy President was given responsibilityfor coordinating AIDS policy in 2006. However, the underminingof the scientific governance of medicine is a legacy that stillneeds to be addressed. |
