[lbo-talk] Race

Matthew Snyder matthew at pobox.com
Tue May 6 07:22:26 PDT 2003


Carrol Cox writes:
> Matthew Snyder wrote:
> > It's an uncommon belief, to be sure, but there are scientists who question
> > whether HIV is the virus responsible for AIDS. I don't know enough about
> > that line of thinking to know if they're hiding some other agenda, or to
> > evaluate the strength of their claims, but they've attracted some relatively
> > prominent supporters:
> >
>
> None of whom have been willing to have HIV injected into their
> bloodstream.

That's what I thought, but I wonder if this "live, televised" challenge will ever happen:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/03/24/MN44200.DTL

Johannesburg -- In a morbid twist on South Africa's debate over the AIDS crisis, a controversial Bay Area academic and a South African computer scientist have challenged each other to a duel to the death -- using chemicals and the deadly AIDS virus as the choice of weapons.

AIDS "dissident" David Rasnick of the University of California at Berkeley has agreed to inject himself with HIV if South African Professor Philip Machanick takes a three-drug cocktail of anti-HIV medicine for the rest of his life.

Dismissed by many as a stunt that will never take place, the duel nevertheless highlights the disruptive nature of the conflict between mainstream AIDS science and the influential dissident view in South Africa, a country that faces an AIDS-related health catastrophe.

[...]

He wants the duel to take place live on television and is trying to raise funds to pay for the drugs and the cost of monitoring the event.

"There are no ethical questions about doing this, since both Machanick and I have agreed to participate in this experiment, just as thousands of other people continue to voluntarily participate in experiments around the world," Rasnick said. "To the best of my knowledge, there is no law against becoming HIV-positive."

At one point, Rasnick challenged Gazi to a similar duel. But Gazi, who was imprisoned and forced into exile by the former white-controlled apartheid government, declined.

-- Matthew Snyder Philadelphia, PA



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