Political power and bad science is never a good combi-
nation. The Virus, Vitamins & Vegetables is a collection 
of essays that takes a look at the baffling government 
response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in post-apartheid 
South Africa and ‘the failure of those in powerful posi-
tions to acknowledge that a crisis was unfolding ...’. 
   
At first glance the book could be slightly deceptive 
(candy-coloured pulp-fiction cover, snappy alliterative 
title, and strap line, ‘The South African HIV/AIDS mys-
tery’). So you might be forgiven for expecting to settle 
down with something a bit satirical, perhaps with a 
few swipes at the former Health Minister’s promotion 
of the antiretroviral properties of beetroot. 
   
The introduction, however, delivers a better clue to its 
content. Here the editors – ‘long-time slow progres-
sors’ of HIV journalism from Health-e – describe how 
impossible it is to walk away or ‘unsee’ ‘... the match-
stick-bodies; the listless babies; the rasping whispers 
of those whose throats are raw from thrush ...’, i.e. the 
ravages delivered by untreated HIV/AIDS.
   
The authors, some of South Africa’s key writers, activ-
ists and doctors, take us down the bewildering path-
way of AIDS denialism (normally relegated to the rant-
ings of a lunatic fringe) placed firmly at the centre of 
government policy in the face of a massive epidemic. 
   
‘In the beginning there was Virodene’ – the book kicks 
off with James Myburg’s description of Mbeki and 
the ANC’s involvement in the controversial research 
agenda of the industrial solvent dimethylformamide, 
‘Viorodene’, promoted as an AIDS cure, though rejected 
by the scientific community. 
   
Michael Cherry’s chapter reveals how the giants of 
AIDS denialism were gathered together by government 
to make up the majority of a panel of experts, to ‘ex-
plore all aspects of ... developing prevention and treat-
ment strategies that are appropriate to the African 
reality’ – meanwhile denying the provision of proven 
antiretroviral prophylaxis strategies to reduce perina-
tal transmission in HIV-positive women.
   
‘Accidental activist’, also known as paediatrician Ashraf 
Coovadia, explains how ‘Becoming a doctor always felt 
right ... I wanted to use my medical skills to relieve 
pain, heal and, hopefully, make the world a better 
place. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that be-
ing a doctor in South Africa’s state sector would turn 
me into an activist, mediator, negotiator and protester.’ 

He describes the hoops he had to go through, including 
an application to the Constitutional Court with a group 
of activists and medical professionals, just in order to 
be able to get on with his job of doctoring.
   
Kerry Cullinan examines the ‘strange bedfellows’ that 
government chose as experts above internationally 
renowned South African researchers, clinicians and 
virologists, in particular the vitriolic, dissident lawyer 
Anthony Brink.
   
Anso Thom and Liz McGregor tell tales of charlatan 
vitamin peddler Mattias Rath and ‘Lazaras programme’ 
(liquidised vegetables, lemon juice, olive oil, ProNutro, 
and a mysterious magic ingredient named African So-
lution) chief, Tine van der Maas. These chapters reveal 
the tacit endorsement of quacks and their cures by the 
Minister of Health and the inevitable consequences.  
   
Former leaders of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) 
provide the closing chapters. Zackie Achmat remem-
bers the decade as a time of great losses and great tri-
umphs in a personal reflection of the years struggling 
for health, life and dignity for people with AIDS. Sipho 
Mthathi looks to a post-Mbeki and Manto era, with 
some trepidation about Zuma’s chauvinism, calling for 
social and economic programmes to properly address 
inequality and poverty.
   
All this and more left me with an overwhelming sense 
of exhaustion. In addition to stating the obvious, that 
too many people died unnecessarily while government 
questioned the link between HIV and AIDS and delayed 
their effective treatment, too many clever and inspir-
ing people were distracted during this time from what 
would still have been a monumental task without de-
nialism in the mix. 
   
The editors and authors are to be applauded in that lit-
tle space is wasted trying to rationalise the irrational. 
In the introduction the editors explain that in many 
ways Mbeki’s official biographer, Ronald Suresh Rob-
erts, spurred them on to put the book together, with 
his revisionism of a ‘poor misunderstood President’, 
who had ‘never been an AIDS dissident’.  More impor-
tantly the book documents an era in an attempt to 
try, as Justice Edwin Cameron writes, ‘to understand 
the extent of the calamity that befell us through the 
mismanagement of AIDS, and how it happened, so as 
to forewarn us against a repetition’.   
   
Polly Clayden 

The Virus, Vitamins & Vegetables: The South African HIV/AIDS Mystery. Edited by Kerry Cullinan and Anso Thorn. 
Johannesburg: Jacana, 2009. Pp. 232. Price R169.95. ISBN 978-1-77009-691-2.

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48 o cto b e r  2 0 0 9                              T H E  S O U T H E R N  A F R I C A N  J O U R N A L  O F  H I V  M E D I C I N E