Word: duesberg
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Peter Vogt and Peter Duesberg identify the first cancer-causing gene, in a virus...
...Duesberg has been so thoroughly discredited among AIDS researchers in the U.S. that this is equivalent to South Africa trying to import out-of-date medicines," says TIME medical correspondent Christine Gorman. "If South Africa approaches this question in good faith they'll find out what everybody else has figured out, which is that HIV causes AIDS - but in the meantime hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people will suffer because of some misplaced distrust of medical authority...
...South African government maintains the drugs are too expensive and potentially harmful. As the protests escalated, Mbeki and his aides have invoked Duesberg's theories and his claim that AZT does more harm than good, and have accused their critics of promoting profiteering pharmaceutical corporations. And the president has rationalized his stance by invoking Duesberg. While proclaiming himself undecided on Duesberg's arguments, Mbeki insists that they ought to be debated and instructed his AIDS advisory panel to consider questions ranging from the merits of treatments such as AZT to "whether there's this thing called AIDS, what...
...overwhelming majority of South Africa's HIV sufferers - and of their government, which would have to spend its entire medical budget on providing the drug cocktails. But AZT is a lot more within their reach. And scientists fear that attempting to resurrect the credibility of skeptics such as Duesberg sends a message that could prove disastrous to education efforts to stop the spread of the virus in South Africa. "If the problem with supplying people with AZT is financial, that needs to be said up front," says Gorman. "But for a government to be seen questioning whether HIV actually causes...
...Mbeki's position reportedly derived from reading Duesberg's ideas while trawling the Internet for information on HIV. And as a proud intellectual and instinctive contrarian, he won't easily be cowed by the howls of protest. In the end, though, Mbeki's flirtation with weird science may prove to be an embarrassment to a government that hopes to lead a continent-wide African renaissance. But that embarrassment will be nothing compared with the human suffering that could result from challenging the fundamentals of AIDS science in a country with one of the world's highest incidences...