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Some South African politicians are heavily into AIDS denial.
by inglor_cz 4y ago
Some South African politicians are heavily into AIDS denial.
- whatshisface 4y agoUsing certain types of denial that western politicians have a history of as a reference, are they doing that because that's what the voters want to hear?
- zx76 4y agoInterestingly I wouldn't say it seemed so. AIDS devastated the political base of the politician in question and people who fought for the right to treatment were also politically popular. I think it may have just been a strange ideological bent in a specific set of political circle. Thankfully these ideas and policies have been pretty much entirely consigned to history now. The consequences were terrible though, nearly a million children were orphaned because of both parents dying of AIDS. I can't find a specific source to cite a specific number, they all reference much higher numbers across the whole Southern African region.
- buyx 4y agoThabo Mbeki was an AIDS denialist, he's been out of power since 2008 and largely discredited. Jacob Zuma came to power partially because he wasn't an AIDS denialist, and one of the few things Zuma can claim credit for was widespread availability of anti-AIDS drugs, and the resultant recovery in South Africa's life expectancy. AIDS denialism is pretty-much dead in South Africa....it only ever was a pique of Thabo Mbeki, and because of his power as head of the ANC, the rest of the leadership had to be sycophantic.
- inglor_cz 4y agoThe legacy is over a quarter million unnecessary deaths, of mostly young people, though. Which means that as far as loss of human life goes, Thabo Mbeki belongs to the same category as Vladimir Putin with his war of conquest against Ukraine. Only the process wasn't as overtly violent, so the world didn't particularly care.