Page 71 - 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

behaviour of the commercial enterprises!’ 68
As Makgoba averred, this was another example of the pressure put on the MRC
‘to toe the party line and become the trusted scientific voice that justifies unscientific
findings or pseudo-scientific ideas. There is an unwise and pernicious view that
sees institutions as extensions of the political machinery of the day.’ To Mokaba’s
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philippic, Makgoba’s response was contemptuous dismissal: ‘If I showed him a virus,
he would not be able to tell it from a bunch of flowers’, he gibed. To him Mokaba was
‘a psychotic man who wants to discredit others’.
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These acrimonious public exchanges only came to an end later that year when
pressure from a Cabinet fearful of the damage to the Government’s image caused by
such hardline denialism, persuaded the President henceforth to keep his views on
AIDS to himself. But the damage had been done, both to Mbeki’s reputation and to
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Makgoba’s career, for pro-Mbeki members of the Board made it clear that they would
not support the renewal of his appointment when his first five-year term expired in
2003. ‘It was the worst Board I encountered’, he believed. ‘It was spineless and willing
to kowtow to Government.’ In his view it had ‘become political rather than scientific
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and this troubled me a lot’. Consequently, he resigned at short notice later in 2002,
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at a time when the MRC was being labelled ‘notorious’ by some at grassroots level
because of its stance on HIV/AIDS. One MRC staffer even asked, ‘How do we clean
this stain?’
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Despite such criticism locally, the MRC found its international reputation had
been enhanced by its president’s and its own scientifically grounded opposition to
AIDS denialism. Standing its ground had significantly raised its status in the medico-
scientific world. With good reason its researchers felt pride in their contribution when
Makgoba was awarded the Academy of Science of South Africa’s ‘Science for Society’
gold medal in 2003 for being ‘the clarion voice of truth speaking amidst the siren
clamour of unscientific waywardness … [which] enhanced his standing as a medical
scientist faithful to his discipline and to canons of scientific enquiry’.
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Not that the exit of the two main protagonists in the South African AIDS debate,
Mbeki and Makgoba, from the central stage to the wings removed all controversies
involving the MRC and the AIDS epidemic in the country. The disease’s rising
incidence and death toll made it too urgent a matter for politely agreeing to disagree.
Thus, while the MRC continued with no little success to encourage its internal and
external research units to pursue or extend research into HIV/AIDS – by 2006, 50 per
cent of its in-house budget was being devoted to AIDS research – to take the lead in
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planning the state’s belated rollout of ARVT and improve its efficacy, and to facilitate
the integration of HIV/AIDS issues into local-level development programmes, at the

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