The Cost of Ignoring AIDS Science in South Africa

A Johannesburg AIDS hospice in 2002.
Joao Silva; The New York Times

Source: "Study Cites Toll of AIDS Policy in South Africa," CELIA W. DUGGER, The New York Times, November 25, 2008.

"A new study by Harvard researchers estimates that the South African government would have prevented the premature deaths of 365,000 people earlier this decade if it had provided antiretroviral drugs to AIDS patients and widely administered drugs to help prevent pregnant women from infecting their babies.

"The Harvard study concluded that the policies grew out of President Thabo Mbeki’s denial of the well-established scientific consensus about the viral cause of AIDS and the essential role of antiretroviral drugs in treating it."

Comment: How much does failure to use knowledge for policy cost? One of the most obvious cases in recent decades of government leaders acting in ways counterindicated by scientific evidence was that of Mbeki's government HIV/AIDS policy in South Africa. This study suggests that failure cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Of course most of the lives lost were not those of the Mbeki government policy makers! JAD