Senator Obama says to get African HIV test?|?Health?|?Reuters.co.uk
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – Barack Obama, the only black U.S. senator, criticized South African leaders on Monday for their slow response to AIDS and said he planned to be tested for HIV while visiting Kenya later on his African trip.
I love Obama. But it still shocks me that he’s still the only black senator. That is so, so wrong. I hope that he’s not alone come the first Wednesday in November. Is anyone else black running, from either party?
South African AIDS activists say Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has created confusion by pushing traditional medicines and a recipe of garlic, beetroot, lemon and African potatoes to combat AIDS while underplaying the role of anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs.
Confusion? I’d say Minister Manto is creating a lot of dead South Africans who smell kind of tasty before they waste away.
Obama said Tshabalala-Mismang was making a terrible mistake.
He is being much too kind. I love him, but he needs to tell it like it is: Minister Tshabalala-Mismang is a complete and total idiot.
“On the treatment side the information being provided by the minister of health is not accurate,” he told reporters outside an AIDS clinic in Cape Town’s Khayelitsha township.
“It is not an issue of Western science versus African science, it is just science and it’s not right.”
Diplomatically put, Senator. Others have not been as tactful.
Obama later told local AIDS activists that he planned to take an HIV test during the Kenya portion of his trip, winning immediate praise from South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
“That would be very good,” Tutu said after holding talks with Obama. “It encourages other people who may be less brave to want to do that. It also helps to deal with the question of the stigma.”
Aww, I love Archbishop Tutu, too.
Obama’s blast at South Africa’s AIDS policies follows an week of criticism by activists over its decision to promote garlic and lemon as a solution to its AIDS crisis at last week’s global AIDS conference in Toronto.
Tshabalala-Msimang has frequently questioned the efficacy and safety of ARVs and says her approach is aimed at promoting basic nutrition as a bulwark against becoming ill.
South Africa has one of the world’s highest HIV/AIDS caseloads with one out of nine people — or five million South Africans — infected.
The government relented to pressure in 2003 and launched a public ARV program which officials describe as one of the largest in the world. But activists say drugs still only reach a fraction of those living with AIDS, which still kills more than 800 South Africans every day.
Tshabalala-Msimang has a lot to answer for – and an indefensible position to defend. She remains… incredibly, unbelievably, wrongheadedly defiant. What a shame she is so stubborn, what a pity for the people of South Africa.