Perhaps it is still 1983 somewhere.

I just came across this story and I'm pretty much speechless.  And not in a good way.  

If you're too timepressed to read the quick news note, it states that South Africa's new health minister effectively ended 10 years of an "ostrich head in the sand" stance on AIDS by stating that HIV causes AIDS and must be treated with conventional medicine.  The former health minister and president have for a decade denied any sort of link between HIV and AIDS, denying that HIV is the cause.

What?!?

How many people around the world and how many millions of dollars have gone into research... and you're going to mislead an entire country and tell them that there is no link between HIV and AIDS???  That AIDS can be treated with garlic, lemon juice and beetroot?!?

I find this incredible.  These are the people running countries and running the health programs of those countries and you know what they have to show for it?  An estimated 5.4 MILLION people with HIV, the highest amount of people living with the virus in the world.

Now, I make a lot of backhanded comments about people when they make idiotic comments about HIV/AIDS (like vocalizing that an entire school in Zambia has AIDS just because many are orphans of AIDS and they're in Africa... in front of some of the students) and when they ask things like "So um, I can't get it from like, shaking their hands, right, it has to be blood, right?" I huff and puff about how this isn't 1983 and we don't have to wear gloves and masks to say hi, and I roll my eyes and shoot people my withering glance that I often don't know I'm sending.  For God's sake, this is America and we have lots of education and medical resources... we can't even make sure our citizens are aware of this?!?  If only so that we don't sound completely detached and ignorant of something a majority of the world struggles with?  And here is another country- totally in the dark about this virus.  And it's 2008.  But you want to know the difference?  In South Africa, scholars and medical professionals can now breathe a sigh of relief that they can now talk about the truth without fear and threats against them from the government.  

What's our excuse?