Page 143 - A Widening Idea of Health and Health Research - The South African Medical Research Council from Creation to COVID

A Widening Idea of Health: The SAMRC from Creation to Covid

consequences, often in advance of the MAC’s more measured, behind-the-scenes
advice to the National Department of Health.
For instance, going by tales she heard of malnourished babies being admitted to the
Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital early in May 2020, she openly lambasted the way in
which rigid lockdown restrictions were causing unemployment, making it difficult for
poor families to afford sufficient food for their infants, while, when later that month
the tight lockdown was only slightly eased, she pre-empted the MAC and weighed in
fiercely and unequivocally against the continuation of a host of restrictions on school-
going, on the sale of certain foods, clothes and footwear, and on the time limit on
outdoor exercise. The case for these was ‘uncompelling’, she declared to the press.
The strategy was ‘not based in science and is completely unmeasured … almost as if
someone is sucking regulations out of their thumb and implementing rubbish, quite
frankly’. As far as she was concerned, the plan to lift restrictions month by month on
what seemed random grounds was ‘nonsensical and unscientific … Why have experts
[i.e. the MAC] if you don’t really care what they think?’
16
While the chair of the MAC, Professor Salim Abdool Karim, also believed that ‘the
government deserved to be castigated for the mess it created with the regulations’,
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he felt that such criticism should be voiced more prudently. In his opinion Gray had
initiated her attack precipitately, lacked sufficient hard evidence to support it, and
went ‘too far. That was an over-reach.’ 18
To her stinging attacks, Minister Mkhize and his acting director general of health,
Dr Anban Pillay, responded sharply, denying a rising incidence of malnutrition at the
Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital and seeking to put Gray and her institution in their
subordinate place for exceeding their brief as medical advisers. Mkhize rebutted her
charges as inaccurate and labelled her conduct ‘unprofessional and unbecoming’, before
adding that it ‘undermines and brings into disrepute the institution that Professor
Gray works for, which’, he observed pointedly, ‘is an entity of the Department of
Health, the MRC.’
19
Taking a leaf out of his minister’s book or perhaps acting at his behest, Pillay then
demanded that the MRC Board investigate its own president’s conduct, especially her
‘false allegations against the government’, which were calling into question its policies,
causing confusion ‘and [which] are likely to erode public support for behaviour
change’. Furthermore, in a scarcely veiled threat, he announced that he had also
20
received complaints about her conduct as president on other occasions too and would
be gathering evidence about these so as to take them further. A guest editorial in the
South African Medical Journal (SAMJ) made no bones about what in its opinion this
implied – it was a ‘choreographed chess move to precipitate the MRC’s President’s

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