Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa, questions the safety of AZT

Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa, questions the safety of AZT

-October 28, 1999-

"One rape that occurs is a rape too many. Through our concentrated action, we must make this clear to all that carry out this terrible crime. Accordingly, it is unnecessary and counter-productive for anybody to propagate untruths about the incidence of this crime in our country.

For example, in 1997 the S.A. Police Service published statistics alleging that only 1 rape out of 36 was reported. Whereas the number of rapes actually reported that year was just over 52 000, an extrapolation was then made that on the basis of the estimate of the extent of under-reporting, over 1.8 million rapes had in fact occurred.

You will be as surprised as I was to learn that in fact the S.A.P.S. itself does not know what the estimates of 1 out of 36 was based upon.

They can offer no explanation as to how they decided to publish figures which they cannot substantiate in any way whatsoever.
The tragedy is that many of us have taken these purely speculative figures as fact. Clearly, this will not help us properly to fight against the terrible crime of rape, as we cannot base our actions on untruths.

Similarly, we are confronted with the scourge of HIV/AIDS against which we must leave no stone unturned to save ourselves from the catastrophe which the disease poses.

Concerned to respond appropriately to this threat, many in our country have called on government to make the drug AZT available in our public health system. Two matters in this regard have to be brought to our attention. One of these is that there are legal cases pending in this country, the UK and the US against AZT, on the basis that this drug is harmful to health.

There also exists a large volume of scientific literature alleging that, among other things, the toxicity of this drug is such that it is in fact a danger to health.
These are matters of great concern to government, as it would be irresponsible for us not to heed the dire warnings which medical researchers have been making.

I have therefore asked Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, as a matter of urgency, to go into all these matters so that, to the extent that is possible, we ourselves, including our country's medical authorities, are certain of where the truth lies."
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