rubbish balances nothing

In South Africa, one of the global epicentres of the AIDS epidemic, the health ministry was incredibly slow to dish out life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs in public clinics and hospitals.

Meanwhile, the South African health minister is known as Dr Beetroot, because she keeps advocating veggie cures.

Dr Beetroot (OK, properly known as Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang) should have been at reporter Ruth Pollard's talk today, called Rubbish Balances Nothing, on why journalists trying to be objective should consider ignoring AIDS dissidents.

Pollard was here at the journalist to journalist training along with Dr John Kaldor of the University of New South Wales, and Dr Mark Wainberg, professor of medicine and organiser of a couple of absolutely pivotal AIDS conferences. Hope IAS 2007, opening on Saturday, is also pivotal.