South Africa Appoints New Health Minister
Kgalema Motlanthe sworn in as South Africa’s president replacing Thabo Mbeki has appointed Ms Barbara Hogan as Minister of Health and Dr Molefi Sefularo as the Deputy Minister of Health.
Barbara Hogan who was pushed out of Parliament in 2003 in part for her refusal to accept Mbeki’s denialist stance on AIDS, is taking over Manto Tshabalala-Msimang more commonly known as “Dr Betroot” for promoting the value of lemons, garlic and betroot instead of antiretroviral medicines to combat the spread of AIDS.
In a statement, the Treatment Action Group (TAC) said Barbara Hogan “has a reputation for being hard-working, competent and principled. Hogan has a long record of struggle for human rights. Twenty-seven years ago, she was detained and tortured by the apartheid security Police. She was tried for treason as an ANC member and spent eight years in prison” (Interview of B. Hogan before her appointment).
TAC recalls that 300,000 AIDS-deahts could have been avoided if Mbeki and Msimang had not pursued “a policy of politically supported AIDS denialism and undermined the scientific governance of medicine“.
There is now hope and great expectations that the period of politically supported AIDS denialism has ended in South Africa.
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[...] hope that Hogan will reverse some of this damage. A post on peripheries points out that many people expect that the period of politically-supported AIDS denialism in South Africa is [...]
[...] kwamba Hogan atarekebisha mambo yaliyoharibika kwa sehemu fulani. Makala katika Peripheries inaonyesha kwamba watu wanatarajia kwamba wakati wa kuwa na ukanaji wa UKIMWI huku ukipewa nguvu na msukumo wa kisiasa [...]
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