A multivitamin/mineral (MVM) should be part of HIV care. It can be
used throughout the course of infection. An MVMcan slow progression
30%. It can reduce morbidity and mortality. An MVM may help attenuate
ARV side effects and toxicities.

An MVM will not result in a cancellation of the need for
antiretroviral therapy in the vast majority of HIV infected
individuals.

Traditional healers have a great deal to offer. And the best ones know
how to combine the best of the west with the best of healing.

Manto, sadly, remains steadfast in her foolishness, as I witnessed at
the UN last week. She apparently is happy, with Thabo, to kill her
people. Whither the ANC? Whither the breaking of the bondage of
apartheid, only to die of AIDS?

        George M. Carter

***
Deadly Quackery
The New York Times - Sunday, June 4, 2006
John Moore and Nicoli Nattrass, Op-Ed Contributor

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H.I.V. causes AIDS. This is not a controversial claim but an
established fact, based on more than 20 years of solid science. It is
as certain as the descent of humans from apes and the falling of
dropped objects to the ground.

So why reiterate the obvious? Because lately, a bizarre theory has
gained ground -- one that claims that H.I.V. is harmless, and that the
antiretroviral drugs that curb the growth of the virus cause rather
than treat AIDS. Such talk sounds to most of us like quackery, but the
theory has emerged as a genuine menace to public health in the United
States and, particularly, in South Africa.

The theory, which we call AIDS denialism, has gained such currency
with President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa that his administration is
reluctant to expand access to antiretroviral drugs. Despite generous
allocations from the country's Treasury and substantial assistance
from foreign donors, only a quarter of those needing antiretrovirals
receive them. This response is poor by the standards of middle-income
countries, but it is especially troublesome in South Africa, which has
more H.I.V.-positive people than any other country.

American AIDS denialists are partly to blame for South Africa's
backsliding AIDS policy. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the health
minister, has described antiretrovirals as poisons. She is supported
in these views by Roberto Giraldo, a New York hospital technologist
who says AIDS is caused by deficiencies in the diet, and who served on
President Mbeki's AIDS advisory panel in 2000. The minister promotes
nutritional alternatives like lemons, garlic and olive oil to treat
H.I.V. infection. Several prominent South Africans have died of AIDS
after opting to change their diets instead of taking antiretrovirals.

Another American AIDS denialist, David Rasnick, a regular
letter-writer to South African newspapers, absurdly claims that H.I.V.
cannot be transmitted between heterosexuals. Mr. Rasnick now works in
South Africa for a multinational vitamin company, the Rath Foundation,
conducting clinical trials in which AIDS patients are encouraged to
take multivitamins instead of antiretrovirals.

In the past, South Africa's Medicines Control Council acted swiftly to
curb such abuses, and the Medical Research Council condemned AIDS
denialism. But recent high-level political appointments of
administration supporters to both bodies have neutered their
influence. In South Africa, AIDS denialism now underpins a lucrative
nutritional supplements industry that has the tacit, and sometimes
active, support of the Mbeki administration.

By courting the AIDS denialists, President Mbeki has increased their
stature in the United States. He lent credibility to Christine
Maggiore, a Californian who campaigns against using antiretrovirals to
prevent transmission of H.I.V. from mothers to children, when he was
photographed meeting her. Two years later, Ms. Maggiore gave birth to
an H.I.V.-infected daughter, Eliza Jane, who acquired an AIDS-related
infection last year and died at age 3.

Mother-to-child H.I.V. transmission is now rare in the United States,
thanks to the widespread use of preventive therapy and the activities
of organizations like the National Institutes of Health and the
Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. Sadly, this is not so in
South Africa, where many children are born infected and then face
short, painful lives. The health and lives of American children are
also still under threat: a small clique of AIDS denialists is trying
to block the provision of antiretrovirals to H.I.V.-infected children
in the New York City foster care system.

Until recently, AIDS researchers and activists in the United States
tended to regard the denialists with derision, assuming they would
fade away. Unfortunately, this has not happened. Harper's Magazine
recently published an article by Celia Farber promoting the denialist
view. There is a real risk that a new generation of Americans could be
persuaded that H.I.V. either doesn't exist or is harmless, that safe
sex isn't important and that they don't need to protect their children
from this deadly virus. A resurgence of denialism in the United States
would have far reaching effects on the global AIDS pandemic, just as
it already has in South Africa.

The AIDS denialists use pseudoscience and non-peer-reviewed Internet
postings to bolster their false claims about H.I.V. The real facts
about this virus have been uncovered by scientists supported by the
National Institutes of Health, the British and South African Medical
Research Councils, the Pasteur Institute and many other national
research organizations. The public should seek AIDS truth from the
latter sources.

It is sad when selling magazines and vitamin supplements is considered
more important than promoting public health and scientific truth. The
truth is that H.I.V. does exist, that it causes AIDS and that
antiretroviral drugs can prevent H.I.V. transmission and death from
AIDS. To deny these facts is not just wrong -- it's deadly.

John Moore is a professor of microbiology and immunology at Cornell
University. Nicoli Nattrass is the director of the AIDS and Society
Research Unit at the University of Cape Town.
060604
NYT060605

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