Mandela: HIV Causes AIDS
In what was widely seen as a rebuke of current South African president Thabo Mbeki, former South African President Nelson Mandela gave an interview to a magazine in which he reiterated that “the dominant opinion which prevails throughout the world” is that HIV causes AIDS, and he would believe that unless someone could show him scientific proof otherwise. Mandela appeared to take a swipe at Mbeki’s position saying, “I would like to be very careful because people in our positions, when you take a stand, you might find that establish principles are undermined, sometimes without scientific backing.”
Mbeki, meanwhile, committed himself further to the view that HIV cannot be responsible for AIDS. An interviewer for Time magazine asked him if he was prepared to acknowledge a link between HIV and AIDS to which Mbeki replied, “This is precisely where the problem starts. No, I am saying that you cannot attribute immune deficiency solely and exclusively to a virus.”
Mbeki says he will only accept the HIV/AIDS connection if a panel he has appointed agrees with that “thesis” (Mbeki’s word), but he has stacked the deck of that panel with fringe skeptics who believe that AIDS is caused by some other mechanism than HIV, usually habitual drug use, as well as conspiracy theorists who think that AIDS was created by Western scientists to reduce Africa’s population.
The only cabinet minister to publicly dissent from this view was Labor Minister Membahtisi Mdladlana, who had the courage to say outright that HIV causes AIDS.
Sources:
Mandela repudiates Mbeki on AIDS stance. Reuters, September 29, 2000.
AIDS: Mandela takes on Mbeki. The BBC, September 29, 2000.
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