By Marcel
Girodian
Special
Correspondent for the Mail and GarbageIn, South Africa
Cape Town, Dec 2. Treatment Action Campaign chairman Zachie Ackmat called on governments today to make HIV-fighting antiretroviral medicines (ARVs) widely available in commercial food products.
"The
denialists Mbeki and Manto have only gotten 25,000 people onto ARVs," he
said to a special WHO working session on the African AIDS crisis. "Because
our government is being run by murderers, we have to find alternative means of
getting these life-saving medicines to the millions of people who need
them."
Noting
that "children are now drinking milk that is fortified with harmful
vitamins like D, C and E," Ackmat proposed removing those vitamins and
replacing them with antiretroviral medicines like Nevirapine, 3TC, AZT and
Combivir.
His
proposal was greeted with enthusiasm by Dr. Pontius Piot, head of the UN's AIDS
program. "We've been looking for a way to get the deadly vitamins and
minerals out of milk, and to get more ARVs into the Africans who desperately
need them," he said. "Zachie's idea seems to accomplish both
objectives."
Former
President Bill Clinton, head of the Clinton Foundation and a strong supporter
of ARVs, said in a speech that Ackmat's idea was a good start but that "we
need to do more”.
"Right
now we only put essential nutrients like fluoride, PCBs, dioxin and pesticides
into Africans' drinking water," said Clinton.
"If we could also add ARVs to the reservoirs, think of all the little
children whose lives we could save."
Clinton was paid US $800,000 for his five minute talk. He later denied that his foundation was funded by drug and chemical interests.
Clinton's idea stimulated the conference and soon other participants were making suggestions excitedly. Professor Marc Wainberk of the International Aids Society suggested putting ARVs in the ice cream that children buy at convenience stores. "We should target the really luscious flavors like chocolate coconut and strawberry sundaes...the ones these kids can't resist," he said.
Dr. Robert
Jello, discoverer of the Aids virus, proposed that ARVs be used as condiments. "If
we could get someone to write an ARV cookbook in Zulu, it would be a
best-seller," said the legendary scientist. He suggested that fast food
restaurants in black South African villages be subsidized to provide foods like
"arvburgers" at low cost, and even promote them to children with
clowny characters like "Arvey McGarvey."
Famed Aids
expert Dr. David Ha liked that idea and also suggested covertly slipping ARVs
into salt and pepper shakers in black neighborhoods of South Africa.
Dr.
Anthony Faust of the US National Institutes of Health blurted that they could
tell South Africans that the pills are penis enlarger pills but then quickly
withdrew his suggestion. "What would be the point of a pill like that? Their
penises are already so big you could use them as telephone poles," he
said.
Hoo Wiang
Lee, PhD, of the WHO's Shanghai office said that Chinese manufacturers could
package "A-Z Tea" specially for the South African export market.
Clinton was emphatic that the
ARV-containing food products must not be labelled. "Just as with my
administration's policy of not labelling foods as genetically modified,
similarly we must not label these foods as containing ARVs. That would only worry the people unnecessarily,"
he said.
Dr.
Poopalot Kwanuzalata of the WHO proposed an "ARVs for Vitamins" swap,
a program that would encourage the biotechnology industry to use genetic
modification to strip the dangerous vitamins, minerals and amino acids from
food and replace them with healthful, life-giving ARVs at the molecular level. "Then
they are in every cell of the food, and you don't need to plant the medicines
surreptitiously," he said. "This is more efficient."
The
meeting was interrupted by the sudden, uninvited appearance of German
sauerkraut vendor Matthias Rath, dressed in lederhosen and wearing a Nazi
armband. Rath's Foundation is trying to kill South Africans by giving them
vitamins and denying them ARVs.
"You
people are crazy," yelled the huffing, puffing, perspiring robber baron. "These
ARVs are poison. They cause liver failure, muscle wasting, anemia, vomiting,
diarrhea, cancer, blindness, bone disintegration, heart attacks, strokes, nerve
damage, skin death and immune cell destruction. This is well documented in the
medical literature. Vitamins, on the other hand, are essential to life on earth
and proven to combat many lethal diseases including Aids."
Ackmat
immediately accused Rath of impersonating a scientist. "This man is going
around making speeches, claiming to be a distinguished medical doctor,"
Ackmat screamed. "He's making wild claims, saying he worked with two-time
Nobel laureate Dr. Linus Pauling and has many publications in scientific
journals. All lies! We know they're lies because we've never read these alleged
'facts' in our newspapers. Our newspapers and TV sets tell us the truth -- that
Rath is a pickle salesman and vitamin hawker."
Rath has
flung reckless accusations at TAC and the Medicines Control Council, claiming
they are being funded by the pharmaceutical industry. He has even implied that
the pharmaceutical industry is interested in making profits from ARVs, and is
not motivated solely by humanitarian concerns.
Ackmat,
who is HIV positive and on ARVs, recently suffered a heart attack and also had
nerve damage in his legs so severe that he was unable to walk, due to the toxic
vitamins in the milk he drinks. The Nobel Peace Prize nominee evoked memories
of great humanitarians like Dr. Martin Luther King when he reiterated
passionately that the TAC is not a "pharmaceutical industry front,"
rather is the front line of defense for the human rights of black South
Africans. "We have a dream," he said. "We want to help little Cletus and Lungili to get the ARVs they need so they can grow up to be productive
basketball players and tap dancers."
Rath
stands to earn over 970 billion dollars in 2006 by peddling his deadly vitamins
in South Africa,
informed sources tell the Mail and GarbageIn. Rath is also rumored to be wanted
on child molestation charges in the Republic
of Malivia, according to
our information. His dog Martha has fleas and Rath likes to dance the Beer
Barrel Polka naked with former strippers involved in ethnic cleansing in Croatia.
While
gorging on one of his oversized knockwursts heavy with sauerkraut and dripping
drool down his cheeks, the Hitler-worshipping Rath babbled that the media,
South Africa's noble watchdogs of freedom, democracy and impartiality, are
slanting their reporting against him.
His
spokesman, noted denialist mouthpiece Anthony ("Tony Baloney") Brink,
a man known to have had sex with women repeatedly, to have practiced philately,
and rumored to have even sucked his own mother's breasts, insisted that the
media are in league with the pharmaceutical interests and are deliberately
trying to discredit Rath and his associates. He also claims that mutant
lizard-cowboys from the planet Saturn were behind the JFK assassination, no
doubt.
As the WHO
meeting concluded, Dr. Pontius Piot commented, "It was a most productive brainstorming
session. That's what happens when you get the finest, most dedicated minds in
science together in one room."
"Now
we need to find a way to make sure that these ARV-fortified foods get on the
shelves in the supermarkets in black townships, only the black ones, not the
white ones, because it's the black townships that need the help."
"The
first priority is to get more funding to get these programs underway," he
said.
© 2006 by Marcel Girodian
Marcel Girodian is a satyr -- I mean a satirist -- who specializes in objective reporting about the "scientific community." His application for a $5 million grant to write about the AIDS establishment was recently turned down by the NIH. [Otis]
M. Girodian's "satire", in which western capitalist values are portrayed as having corrupted my African brethren and enticed them once again into trading what might be left of their souls for a few "bread", is repeated in all essentials by this piece from that temple of occidental culture and learning, the "highly esteemed", BBC. The fact that it is "real" makes it that much more terrible.
When the Missionaries arrived, the Africans had the Land and the Missionaries had the Bible. They taught how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible. Jomo Kenyatta
Posted by: Osagyefo from "The Pearl" | December 02, 2006 at 10:21 AM
And here is another example of that well known adage, "truth is more horrible than fiction".
Posted by: Hollywood | December 02, 2006 at 11:24 AM
Here are two snapshots I just received from an anonymous source. One of them features the "real" Prof. William "Magkoba" flanked by two dread denialists and not looking very happy about it.
The other, I am told, was taken moments before Prof. Montagnier referred to Simon Wain-Hobson as "Simple Simon" loud enough for all at the table to hear, and certainly remember.
Posted by: Otis | December 02, 2006 at 11:51 AM
I add to the bizarre admixture of AIDS reportage this piece, the likes of which I don't think I have ever seen before. And having lived through a quarter century of AIDS madness that is saying quite a lot.
Posted by: Celia Farber | December 03, 2006 at 01:17 AM
I know this has little to do with the article under which I am posting, but please take some time to view this link (and leave a comment).
The CBC is known for giving attention to alternative perspectives (i.e., the Fifth Estate). I think, it is at least worth a shot.
Posted by: GS | December 03, 2006 at 04:52 PM