The Virus, Vitamins and Vegetables Inaugurates a New Era of SA’s Public Discourse on AIDS
The mood at the first launch of The Virus, Vitamins and Vegetables: The South African HIV/AIDS Mystery – lavishly hosted at the Durban Hilton by the Fourth Southern African AIDS Conference – was relaxed and celebratory. Quite different, as speaker Professor Salim Abdul Karim put it, from previous AIDS Conferences, where there had been more heckling, and less to be glad about.
Karim praised journalist and book editor Kerry Cullinan, from Health E-News, for making sure the story of AIDS denialism in SA, which saw a democratic government questioning the link between HIV and AIDS and disputing the efficacy of antiretroviral drugs, has been told accurately and dispassionately.
He reiterated earlier speaker Nozizwe Madala Routledge’s call for a Truth Commission on HIV/AIDS. He said he hoped this book would kick start work on addressing personal and national pain, and facilitating healing.
Taking the podium, Cullinan described the book as a collaborative effort by those who had witnessed the SA AIDS denialism debacle firsthand, explaining that it “is a cautionary tale, and that we must continue to put our demands on the agenda so that this never happens again”. Madlala-Routledge seconded this, saluting Cullinan and the other contributors to the book – Zachie Achmat and Pregs Govender amongst them – for their courage.
She said that although “political access” to HIV treatment has been won in SA, the challenge now is to ensure continued rollout, and in this she emphasised the importance of a robust, involved media and an active civil society.
Karim added that it was a sign of the strength of SA public culture that such a challenging book about people who hold a lot of power could be published in the first place.
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- The Virus, Vitamins and Vegetables: The South African HIV/AIDS Mystery edited by Kerry Cullinan and Anso Thom
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EAN: 9781770096912
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