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Govt 'not forced to use drug'
18/12/2004 13:57 - (SA)
Johannesburg - The government was trying to blame everyone else for its decision to use nevirapine in its mother-to-child HIV prevention programme, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) said on Saturday.
It was responding to biting commentary in the ANC's weekly newsletter, which said US health officials had used African's as guinea-pigs for the anti-retroviral drug nevirapine.
The article, which was not signed, also claimed that non-governmental organisations under the control of the pharmaceutical companies had, (with the collusion of the ConCourt), forced the government to roll out nevirapine before it felt satisfied of its safety.
"The Constitutional Court order did not bind the health department to the use of nevirapine, and also paved the way for them to change their regimen as they saw fit," Mark Heywood a spokesperson for TAC said on Saturday. 'Government decided on nevirapine'
"We always maintained that there were better regimens. At the time our drug of choice was AZT. "It was the South African government that decided to use nevirapine, largely on the basis of the Uganda trial," Heywood said.
It is this very Uganda trial for nevirapine - conducted by the US's national institute of health (NIH) - that has come under the spotlight this week because of flaws and irregularities in the research.
The ANC's letter was particularly scathing about the TAC, which has always been a thorn in the side of the health department about Aids.
The anonymous author suggested that TAC was more interested in serving the interests of the pharmaceutical companies than the health and lives of Africans.
This was nonsense, Heywood said: "You won't find one cent of drug company money in the bank accounts of TAC. We are not in the pockets of any pharmaceutical company. "Our interest are in health."
The letter in the ANC's newsletter, however, implied that there had been numerous deaths due to nevirapine that had been covered up by the US authorities to promote their own ends. Mbeki accused of hiding behind letter
TAC chair Zackie Achmat accused Mbeki of hiding behind the anonymous article, saying: "President Mbeki does not have the courage to publicly declare his views on HIV."
ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama denied the letter was the view of President Thabo Mbeki, but said was an "opinion piece" from an unidentified member of the party.
"Since it was carried in the ANC's weekly newsletter it certainly has his endorsement, so we hold him responsible unless another author comes forward," Heywood said.
"The TAC doesn't mind taking knocks here and there, but it is very inappropriate for the president of the country to speak a language that threatens a major public health programme."
He admitted that there were people who died during the Uganda trial, but said there was evidence that it was due to a single dose of nevirapine.
- SAPA
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