S African parliament to view AIDS claims

The Speaker and Chief Whip of the South African Parliament will decidethis month whether to allocate parliamentary time to an investigation into claims made by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang against pharmaceutical manufacturers over the provision of cheap HIV/AIDS drugs (Marketletter April 23).

The opposition Democratic Alliance tabled a motion to request such a multi-party probe after it came to light in court papers relating to the industry's now-abandoned case against implementation of South Africa's Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act of 1997 (Marketletters passim) that various offers of preferential treatment for HIV/AIDS drugs had in fact been made to the government by drugmakers. This was despite Dr Tshabalala-Msimang having "continuously maintained, in parliament and outside it, that there were no offers on the table," said the Alliance.

Meantime, South African President Thabo Mbeki has rejected growing demands for the government to provide antiretroviral drugs to HIV/AIDS patients, saying that the medicines had not been proven to be safe.