MINORITY STATEMENT AND RECOMMENDATIONS
TO THE GOVERNMENT OF SOUTH AFRICA
7 May 2000
Given that the definitions of AIDS in the West and in Africa are so
different and have changed over time that in many cases an African
diagnosed with AIDS would not be considered an AIDS patient in the USA,
Europe and Australia, and that the critical question of whether Africans,
clinically diagnosed with AIDS are in fact HIV positive, the following
assertions are made:
1. AIDS is not contagious although many of the opportunistic manifestations
are,
2. AIDS is not sexually transmitted,
3. AIDS is not caused by HIV,
4. The admittedly toxic anti-HIV drugs are killing people,
5. The drug induced toxic effects are causing AIDS-defining conditions that
cannot be distinguished from AIDS.
These considerations lead to the following recommendations for the
treatment and prevention approaches to AIDS in South Africa and in other
African countries.
1. Devote the bulk of national and international biomedical and other
resources to the eradication and treatment of the predominant AIDS-defining
diseases in South Africa such as TB, malaria and enteric infections; the
improvement of nutrition; the provision of improved sanitation and clean
water.
2. Reject completely the use of anti-HIV drugs. These drugs inevitably
require significant amounts of compensatory medications and are claimed to
produce at best only short term benefits in seriously sick patients.
3. Promote sex education based on the fact that there are many STDs and
avoidable unwanted pregnancies.
4. Suspend dissemination of the psychologically destructive and false
message that HIV infection is invariably fatal.
5. Suspend HIV testing until its relevance is proved especially in the
African context, given the evidence of false positive results in a tropical
setting and the fact that most assumptions and predictions about AIDS in
Africa are based on HIV-tests.
H. Bialy
E. de Harven
P. Duesberg
C. Fiala
R. Giraldo
A. Herxheimer
K. Koehnlein
R. Kothari
S. Mhlongo
D Rasnick