[escepticos] COBRA, el sida y demás

[Luis Alfonso Gámez <vader@...>]

El mensaje del corralero Josep Catalá me ha recordado esta noticia que
sacaba hace unos días The New York Times sobre el asesoramiento de los
"heterodoxos" respecto al origen del sida a la hora de atajar la enfermedad
en Sudáfrica.
Saludos,

Luis Alfonso Gámez

March 19, 2000

South Africa in a Furor Over Advice About AIDS

By RACHEL L. SWARNS
OHANNESBURG, March 18 -- President Thabo Mbeki's decision to seek advice
from two Americans who argue that H.I.V. does not cause AIDS has touched off
an outcry at home and abroad and raised fears that South Africa's already
soaring infection rate will climb still further.

News that Mr. Mbeki recently consulted the Americans, a scientist and a
professor of African history, leaked out this month, and is the latest of
several disputes over how to treat AIDS in a country of 44 million people
with one of the highest H.I.V. infection rates in the world.

Mr. Mbeki and his officials spoke with David Rasnick, a biochemist, and
Charles Geshekter, a professor of African history at California State
University, Chico, as the president was considering strategies to combat the
virus, which has infected 12.9 percent of the nation's adults. He plans to
convene international AIDS experts later this year, and telephoned the
scientists to assess various AIDS treatments and to reappraise the evidence
that concludes that H.I.V. causes AIDS.

"The president speaks to all scientists and to everyone who believes he's
got something to contribute," said Parks Mankahlana, the president's
spokesman. "Until all the questions that keep cropping up are answered, we
are not going to be able to say to a person who disagrees with the
conventional thinking, 'You are wrong or right.' Mbeki has never said H.I.V.
doesn't lead to AIDS," Mr. Mankahlana said.

Mr. Rasnick argues that H.I.V. does not cause AIDS, a view shared by Peter
Duesburg, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the
University of California at Berkeley. The United Nations AIDS program, the
World Health Organization and most scientists say the causal link between
H.I.V. and AIDS is already well established.

"At first, we were thinking we would just ignore it, but now we think this
confusion can really undermine all the efforts people have made to prevent
this disease," Dr. Awa Coll-Seck, the director of the United Nations'
Department of Aids Policy in Geneva, said in a telephone interview of Mr.
Mbeki's move.

"People will reassure themselves, perhaps, that they can continue risky
behavior because H.I.V. is not the real cause of AIDS," Dr. Coll-Seck said.
"It's becoming a real issue."

Earlier this month, government officials scrambled to explain how $6.2
million of the country's $17 million AIDS budget went unspent last year.
They said the money would be rolled over into next year's budget.

And five months ago, Mr. Mbeki stunned health experts by questioning the
safety of the standard anti-AIDS drug AZT. This week, Health Minister Manto
Tshabalala-Msimang said the government had decided the drug should not be
distributed in public hospitals.

"There is not enough information for me as the minister of health to expose
women to a drug that we do not know about," Ms. Tshabalala-Msimang said.

Concerns about AZT, particularly for children, have been raised in the
United States. One study found that pregnant mice treated with AZT gave
birth to babies with tumors. But after reviewing the mouse study and others
like it, the National Institutes of Health determined in 1997 that the
benefits of the drug far outweighed the potential side effects.

One two-year study found that a short course of AZT treatment for women who
did not breast-feed their babies reduced transmission of the virus by 50
percent.

But Mr. Mankahlana says South Africa cannot afford to accept the West's
conventional wisdom about AIDS without investigating carefully since Western
scientists have yet to discover a cure for the disease.

"The fact of the matter is, there is so much that is still unknown about
H.I.V. and AIDS," said Mr. Mankahlana, who added that the government would
spend an additional $11 million this year on research.

Mr. Rasnick said he received a telephone call from Mr. Mbeki after he
replied to faxed questions from the president about AIDS. Mr. Rasnick and
his colleagues say AIDS is typically caused by recreational drug use and
malnutrition.

Prominent scientists say this thesis, which is most prominently advanced by
Mr. Duesberg, relies mostly on the data of other scientists and that those
scientists disagree with this interpretation of their work. But on Jan. 21,
Mr. Mbeki called Mr. Rasnick directly, to hear for himself.

"He wanted our views, and we gave them to him," said Mr. Rasnick in a
telephone interview from his home in Saratoga, Calif. "He had read
everything we had written, everything that was available on the Internet. He
knows there are some serious questions out there."

"I think he's courageous," Mr. Rasnick said. "You start looking like a
lunatic if you question the AIDS axioms. Knowing this in advance, he put his
neck out there anyway. He wants to have a free and public hearing about all
things related to AIDS."