http://www.nypress.com/18/2/news&columns/celiafarber.cfm

MAKGATHO MANDELA, 54

By Celia Farber

The global media is a Kabuki theater of exaggerated gestures.
Headlines must somehow reaffirm or inflame preexisting beliefs
and emotions, or they don't work. In AIDS, nothing is accurate
or true anymore, but the Kabuki dance is understood by all-the
stories are gestures.

Yesterday, the global headlines declared that Nelson Mandela's
son had died of AIDS. They were loaded with subtext intended
to reinforce emotions borne by the name "Mandela" and the
word "AIDS." They are a political statement-a Kabuki gesture
to rouse the crowds into favorable feelings toward Nelson Mandela
and hostility toward his successor, Thabo Mbeki, who does not
exploit AIDS for political gain or sentimental posturing.

Only one problem: Mandela's son did not die of AIDS. According
to Makgatho Mandela's own brother-in-law, quoted in the
Washington Post, 'the immediate cause of Makghato's death was
complications from a gall bladder operation on Nov. 30.' He also
said that Mandela had had trouble with his pancreas. This is a
classic toxicity profile for a person who has been on anti-HIV
drugs, which Mandela's brother in law, Dr. Isaac Amuah,
confirmed that he had been, for over a year.

Follow the AIDS logic here: When the son of South Africa's
most famous, iconic man dies, it becomes clear that he has
been given "access" to the very anti-retroviral drugs that Mbeki
is supposedly denying people. (Not true: Anybody who wants
the drugs can get them.) When he nonetheless dies on the
life-saving regimen, he is touted as having died of AIDS,
despite having actually died of known toxicities from the drugs
themselves. Then his father announces to the press that he
wants to stress that his son died of AIDS in order to "demystify
the disease" and make it "an ordinary disease, like any other."

Mandela must not have read-or must be in denial of-the recent
press reports in which cocktail-therapy deaths are finally being
called what they are: drug deaths.