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May 13, 2005
Dr. Garlic's Beauty Tips for Dying PWAs
by Staff
Her name is Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, but during her seven years as South Africa’s controversial health commissioner, her many critics have called her Dr. No, Dr. Who and Dr. Doolittle. This week, after once again extolling the health benefits of native-grown naturals such as beets while exaggerating the toxicities of the white man’s HIV meds for her nation’s 5.3 million HIVers, she can add Dr. Garlic to her dubious honors.
When Tshabalala-Msimang meets the press to discuss AIDS, her statements are so outrageous and the international headlines so negative that most observers agree that she is reading from President Thabo Mbeki’s script. She has suggested that AIDS is a worldwide conspiracy introduced into Africa to control birth rates. She stubbornly refuses to confirm the causal link between HIV and AIDS. Above all, she has proved remarkably adept at creating ever-new obstacles to the rollout of combo therapy to HIVers nationwide.
At a crowded press conference in Cape Town, South Africa, this week, Tshabalala-Msimang did not disappoint. She announced that the government, after accepting millions in funds to establish the groundwork for the agreed-upon rollout, “would not be pushed or pressurized by a target of 3 million people on antiretrovirals by 2005," referring to the UNAIDS and WHO joint 3X5 campaign for the developing world—a modest goal believed necessary to prevent the epidemic from reaching a tipping point toward catastrophe. “I don’t see why South Africa should be the scapegoat of the rest of the world for missing the target,” she added, playing her signature South-Africa-as-victim card.
Tshabalala-Msimang was apparently responding to a recent dire warning by WHO HIV/AIDS Programme Director Dr. Jim Yong Kim, who announced at February’s big Retrovirus Conference in Boston that the 3X5 target will be almost impossible to hit, singling out South Africa, India and Nigeria as the top foot-draggers in supplying HIV meds to their people. South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign, which views the health commissioner as public enemy number one, estimates that 90 percent of the nation’s HIVers are without treatment and that 500,000 are likely to die if they do not get on meds fast.
What Tshabalala-Msimang proceeded to offer these people instead of hope or life was a beauty tip. "Raw garlic and a skin of the lemon—not only do they give you a beautiful face and skin but they also protect you from disease," she said, and then as if by rote: “Antiretrovirals cause side effects. I have no information that nutrition has got side effects…your garlic, your lemon, your olive oil, your beetroot.”
called her Dr. No, Dr. Who and Dr. Doolittle. This week, after once again extolling the health benefits of native-grown naturals such as beets while exaggerating the toxicities of the white man’s HIV meds for her nation’s 5.3 million HIVers, she can add 
