"crack baby" <crack@backdoho.net> wrote in message

Thu Aug 17, 2006 5:43am ET

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's drive to promote garlic, lemon and beetroot as AIDS
treatments has fanned anger at home as activists accuse the government of misleading public
opinion at a global conference on the epidemic.

South Africa's exhibit at the Toronto AIDS conference -- featuring displays of garlic and other
natural foods along with anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs -- was stormed by supporters of the
Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), South Africa's most vocal AIDS activist group, local news
reports said on Thursday.

"We feel that the display of garlic and lemon is ... an insult to the South African AIDS
crisis," TAC General Secretary Sipho Mthathi told SABC radio from Toronto.

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has made nutrition and natural remedies a cornerstone
of her AIDS policy, infuriating the TAC and other activist groups who say ARVs are the only way
South Africa can hope to treat the country's estimated five million HIV-positive people.

Health Ministry spokesman Sibani Mngadi said the Toronto protesters had attempted to seize the
garlic and other foodstuffs from the display, damaging part of the exhibit.

"The minister of health represents government policy," Mngadi told the SABC, accusing the TAC
of being "preoccupied" with ARV drugs.

"There are anti-retrovirals displayed there, which is one option that is available to people at
a particular level of the progression of HIV and AIDS ... for those people with CD4 counts
higher than 200, we are saying that they need to deal with maintaining their health."

Experts generally say that patients should start treatment when their CD4 cell count, a measure
of immune system response, drops below 350.

Both President Thabo Mbeki and Tshabalala-Msimang have in the past expressed doubts about the
efficacy of ARV drugs, and campaigners such as the TAC say the government drug program launched
in 2003 remains insufficient.

South African officials say their drug program now reaches more than 120,000 people and is
among the biggest in the world.

The TAC's Mthati said South Africa's official prescription of garlic, beetroot and olive oil as
a frontline defense against HIV/AIDS was costing lives.

"The health minister has in the country and outside consistently overemphasized her cocktails
over what is scientifically tested and well-known medicine," Mthati said.

"We need a health minister who is going to promote scientifically based medicines ... and none
of these untested alternatives she is supporting actually have any credence."

The health minister has maintained that good nutrition helps people with AIDS and that garlic
can boost the immune system.