After South African health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang gave a speech at an AIDS conference held in Johannesburg's Caesar's Hotel, I followed her through the casino and out to her waiting car, asking her questions about President Thabo Mbeki's recent courting of AIDS dissidents. "He would be schizophrenic to say on the one hand intensify your AIDS program and on the other that HIV doesn't cause AIDS," said Tshabalala-Msimang. "The debate is a distraction." Later that evening, at her invitation, I phoned Tshabalala-Msimang at home so that we could have a calmer discussion. We ended up talking mostly about her government's decision not to provide anti-HIV drugs to infected, pregnant women, which I noted angered many South African researchers. "Those researchers have not come to me," she said.

(Photograph by Malcolm Linton)

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