MOVE TO REINVESTIGATE HIV LINK
WITH AIDS SHOCKS DOCTORS

The Star (SA) 1 March 2000

Cape Town -- The possibility that an international panel of experts convened by the Ministry of Health may reappraise scientific evidence that HIV causes AIDS was outrageous and laughable, doctors said yesterday.

"This is the most retrograde step anybody could make," said Dr. Ashraf Grimwood, chairperson of the non-governmental National Council on AIDS in South Africa.

Outspoken public health doctor Costa Gazi said: "I'm outraged to see another lousy initiative on the part of the Ministry of Health that will lead nowhere."

They were reacting to a statement by Dr. Ian Roberts, a special advisor to Health Minister Dr. Manto Tshabalala-Msjmang, that the department was looking into the feasibility of getting a panel of international experts to look into AIDS in Africa.

The new panel would "surely" reappraise the scientific evidence that HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, caused AIDS, he said.

Among so-called AIDS dissidents, one of the most outspoken has been Professor Peter Duesberg of the University of California, who maintains that AIDS is not a contagious syndrome caused by one conventional virus or microbe.

Grimwood said Duesberg's theories had been totally discredited, and no one believed him anymore.

"HIV exists, we can show it exists, kids die of it," he said.

An associate professor at the University of Cape Town's department of pubic health, Dr. Leslie London, said that if Roberts had been reported correctly, the project was astonishing.

"It's a travesty that the public money will be spent reinvestigating that issue." - Sapa