HIV Denial and the Access to Antiretrovirals in Thabo Mbeki’s South Africa
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-8034.2023.e85680Keywords:
AIDS denialism, Thabo Mbeki, South Africa, AnthropologyAbstract
This paper focuses on the lawsuit for access to nevirapine – an antiretroviral drug to prevent the Mother- to-Child Transmission of HIV. The litigation took place in South Africa in the early 2000s, and it can be considered the trigger for the so-called South African “AIDS controversy”. In an unusual situation in the history of the epidemic, the controversy involved activists, scientists and politicians against the government of the then President Thabo Mbeki – accused of supporting the AIDS denialism. I describe the judicial, scientific and moral consequences of this confrontation and suggest that, while studying litigation and controversies like this, an anthropology of science, if it is taken radically seriously, must be strictly understood as a political anthropology.
References
BAILEY, Kristin. Treatment Action Campaign v. Minister of Health – A Case Study. University of Toronto, 200-. Disponível em: http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/diana/TAC_case_ study/CaseStudy.pdf. Acesso em: 20 dez. 2020.
BASTOS, Cristiana. Ciência, poder, acção: as respostas à SIDA. Lisboa: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais; Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa, 2002.
BERGER, Jonathan M.; KAPCZYNSKI, Amy. The story of the TAC case: The potential and limits of socio-economic rights litigation in South Africa. In: HURWITZ, Deena R.; SATTERTHWAITE, Margaret L. (ed.). Human rights advocacy stories. New York: Thomson Reuters/Foundation Press, 2009. p. 1-30.
BOLTANSKI, Luc; THÉVENOT, Laurent. De la justification – Les économies de la grandeur. Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1991.
BOLTANSKI, Luc. El amor y la justicia como competencias – Tres ensayos de sociología de la acción. Trad. Inés María Pousadela. Buenos Aires: Amorrortu, 2000 [1990].
BURTON, Rosie; GIDDY, Janet; STINSON, Kathryn. Prevention of mother-to-child transmission in South Africa: an ever-changing landscape. Obstetric Medicine, [s.l.], v. 8, n. 1, p. 5-12, 2015.
CAMERON, Edwin. Witness to AIDS. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2005.
CEFAÏ, Daniel. Publics, problèmes publics, arènes publiques.... Questions de Communication, [s.l.], v. 30, p. 25-64, 2016.
CHIGWEDERE, Pride et al. Estimating the lost benefits of antiretroviral drug use in South Africa. JAIDS Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, [s.l.], v. 49, n. 4, p. 410-415, 2008.
CLAVERIE, Élisabeth; BOLTANSKI, Luc. Du monde social en tant que scène d’un process. In: BOLTANSKI, L. et al. (ed.). Affaires, scandales et grandes causes. Paris: Stock, 2007. p. 395-453.
COLVIN, Christopher J. True Believers or Modern Believers: HIV Science and the Work of The Dr Rath Foundation. In: LEVINE, Susan Levine (ed.). Medicine and the Politics of Knowledge. Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council Press, 2012. p. 33-54.
COOVADIA, Ashraf. Courting mortality: the fight to prevent Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission. In: CULLINAN, Kerry; THOM, Anso (ed.). The virus, vitamins & vegetables – The South African HIV/AIDS mystery. Auckland Park: Jacana, 2009. p. 58-76.
CULLINAN, Kerry; THOM, Anso (ed.). The virus, vitamins & vegetables – The South African HIV/AIDS mystery. Auckland Park: Jacana, 2009.
DAS, Veena; POOLE, Deborah (ed.). Anthropology in the Margins of the State: Comparative Ethnographies. Santa Fe: James Currey/School of American Research Press, 2004.
ELIAS, Norbert. Scientific establishments. In: ELIAS, Norbert. MARTINS, Herminio; WELLEY, Richard (ed.). Scientific establishments and hierarchies. Dobrecht, Boston, London: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1982. p. 3-69.
EXAME. Justiça dos EUA aciona Novartis por subornar médicos. Publicado em 27 de abril de 2013. Disponível em: https://exame.com/mundo/justica-dos-eua-aciona-novartis-por- subornar-medicos-4/. Acesso em: 19 jul. 2022.
FARMER, Paul. AIDS & acussation. Haiti and the geography of blame. Atualizado com um novo prefácio. Berkeley, Los Angeles (CA); London: University of California Press, 2006/1996.
FASSIN, Didier. When bodies remember: Experiences and politics of AIDS in South Africa. Trad. Amy Jacobs & Gabrielle Varro. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
FLINT, Adrian. 2009. Mbeki’s Holocaust? Assessing the Effects of AIDS Denialism in South Africa. Politics Department, University of Bristol. PSA Conference Proceedings. Disponível em: http://www.psa.ac.uk/2009/Pdetails.asp?panelid=50. Acesso em: 12 jul. 2009.
FOUCAULT, Michel (coord.). Eu, Pierre Rivière, que degolei minha mãe, minha irmã e meu irmão... Um caso de parricídio do século XIX apresentado por Michel Foucault. Trad. Denize Lezan de Almeida. Rio de Janeiro: Graal, 1977.
GEFFEN, Nathan. Debunking delusions: The inside story of the Treatment Action Campaign. Auckland Park: Jacana Media, 2010.
GEVISSER, Mark. A Legacy of liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the future of the South African dream. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009.
GREBE, Edward; NATTRASS, Nicoli. AIDS conspiracy beliefs and unsafe sex in Cape Town. AIDS and Behavior, [s.l.], v. 16, n. 3, p. 761-773, 2012.
GREEN, Lesley J. F. Beyond South Africa’s ‘Indigenous Knowledge – Science’ Wars. South African Journal of Science, [s.l.], v. 108, n. 7/8, #631, p. 10, 2012.
HERWITZ, Daniel. Sida, savoir et réinvention de la société civile en Afrique du Sud. Politique Africaine, [s.l.], v. 3, n. 103, p. 46-60, 2006.
HEYWOOD, Mark. Preventing Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission in South Africa: background, strategies and out-comes of the Treatment Action Campaign case against The Minister of Health. South African Journal of Human Rights, [s.l.], v. 19, p. 278-315, 2003.
HEYWOOD, Mark. The price of denial. Interfund Development Update, [s.l.], v. 5, n. 3, p. 93-122, 2004.
HEYWOOD, Mark. South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign: Combining law and social mobilization to realize the right to health. Journal of Human Rights Practice, [s.l.], v. 1, n. 1, p. 14-36, 2009.
HODES, Rebecca. HIV/AIDS in South African documentary film, c. 1990-2000. Journal of Southern African Studies, [s.l.], v. 33, n. 1, p. 153-171, 2007.
HODES, Rebecca. How health systems research championed South Africa’s roll-out of antiretroviral treatment. In: HODES, Rebecca. Young Researchers for Health 2010 – Health Systems Research: Towards Universal Health Coverage. Geneva: Global Forum for Health Research, 2010. p. 48-54.
KALICHMAN, Seth C. Denying AIDS. Conspiracy Theories, Pseudocience, and Human Tragedy. Foreword by Nicoli Nattrass. New York: Springer, 2009.
KANT DE LIMA, Roberto. Antropologia jurídica. In: LIMA, Antonio Carlos de Souza (org.). Antropologia & Direito – Temas antropológicos para estudos jurídicos. Brasília, DF; Rio de Janeiro: ABA; Laced; Contra Capa, 2012.
KUNDA, John-Eudes Lengwe; TOMASELLI, Kenya. Confusing public health with militant nationalism: South Africa’s AIDS policy under Thabo Mbeki. In: IGE, Segun; QUINLAN, Tim (ed.). African Responses to HIV/AIDS – Between speech and action. Durban: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2012.
MBALI, Mandisa. AIDS discourses and the South African state: government denialism and post-apartheid AIDS policy-making. Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa, [s.l.], v. 54, p. 104-122, 2004.
MYBURGH, James. The African National Congress under the Presidency of Thabo Mbeki (1997-2002). 2007. 333p. Thesis (D. Phil., Politics and International Relations) – St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, Oxford, 2007.
MYBURGH, James. In the beginning there was Virodene. In: CULLINAN, Kerry; THOM, Anso (ed.). The virus, vitamins & vegetables – The South African HIV/AIDS mystery. Auckland Park: Jacana, 2009. p. 1-15.
NATTRASS, Nicoli. Mortal combat – AIDS denialism and the struggle for antiretrovirals in South Africa. Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2007.
NATTRASS, Nicoli. AIDS and the scientific governance of medicine in Post-Apartheid South Africa. African Affairs, [s.l.], v. 107, n. 427, p. 157-176, 2008.
NATTRASS, Nicoli; GREBE, Edward. Prevalence and determinants of AIDS conspiracy and AIDS denialist beliefs and implications for risky sexual behaviour among young adults in Cape Town, South Africa. In: XXVIII INTERNATIONAL AIDS CONFERENCE, Vienna, 2010. Anais [...]. Vienna, 2010.
NATTRASS, Nicoli. The AIDS Conspiracy: Science fights back. Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2012.
RIJN, Kiran van. The politics of uncertainty: the AIDS debate, Thabo Mbeki and the South African government response. Social History of Medicine, [s.l.], v. 19, n. 3, p. 521-538, 2006.
ROBINS, Steven. ‘Long live Zackie, long live’: AIDS activism, science and citizenship after apartheid. Journal of Southern African Studies, [s.l.], v. 30, n. 3, p. 651-672, 2004.
SAHLINS, Marshall. História e cultura – Apologias a Tucídides. Tradução de Maria Lucia de Oliveira. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar Editor, 2006.
SHAPIN, Steven. A Social History of Truth. Civility and Science in Seventeenth- century England. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994.
SEIDMAN, Gay. Is South Africa different? Sociological comparisons and theoretical contributions from the land of apartheid. Annual Review of Sociology, [s.l.], v. 25, p. 419- 440, 1999.
SESANTI, Simphiwe. Thabo Mbeki’s “AIDS Denialism”. Contradicting pan-Africanism and the African Renaissance? Theoria, [s.l.], v. 65, n. 156, p. 27-51, 2018.
SITZE, Adam. Denialism. The South Atlantic Quarterly, [s.l.], v. 103, n. 4, p. 769-811, 2004.
SUNSTEIN, Cass R.; SCHEKADE, David; ELLMAN, Lisa Michelle. Ideological voting on Federal Courts of Appeals: A preliminary investigation. Virginia Law Review, [s.l.], v. 90, n. 1, p. 301-354, 2004.
UNAIDS – PROGRAMA CONJUNTO DAS NAÇÕES UNIDAS SOBRE HIV/AIDS. Guia de terminologia do UNAIDS. Brasília, DF: UNAIDS, 2017.
VEGA SANABRIA, Guillermo. Ciência, justiça e antropologia no debate sul-africano da AIDS: produção de sensibilidades e regulação moral entre especialistas. Sexualidad, Salud y Sociedad, [s.l.], v. 26, p. 191-212, 2017.
VEGA SANABRIA, Guillermo. Science, stigmatisation and afro-pessimism in the South African debate on AIDS. Vibrant: Virtual Brazilian Anthropology, [s.l.], v. 13, n. 1, p. 22- 51, 2016.
VEGA SANABRIA, Guillermo. Ciência, justiça e cultura na controvérsia sul-africana sobre as causas e tratamentos da AIDS. 2013. 275 p. Tese (Doutorado em Antropologia Social). PPGAS, Museu Nacional, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro: 2013.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Ilha Revista de Antropologia
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Os autores cedem à Ilha – Revista de Antropologia – ISSN 2175-8034 os direitos exclusivos de primeira publicação, com o trabalho simultaneamente licenciado sob a Licença Creative Commons Atribuição Não Comercial Compartilhar Igual (CC BY-NC-SA) 4.0 International. Esta licença permite que terceiros remixem, adaptem e criem a partir do trabalho publicado, desde que para fins não comerciais, atribuindo o devido crédito de autoria e publicação inicial neste periódico desde que adotem a mesma licença, compartilhar igual. Os autores têm autorização para assumir contratos adicionais separadamente, para distribuição não exclusiva da versão do trabalho publicada neste periódico (ex.: publicar em repositório institucional, em site pessoal, publicar uma tradução, ou como capítulo de livro), com reconhecimento de autoria e publicação inicial neste periódico, desde que para fins não comerciais e compartilhar igual.
