Science, politics, and the presidential aids 'cure'

African Affairs

Volumn 108, Issue 433, 2009, Pages 559-580

  Cassidy, Rebecca ^a   Leach, Melissa ^b  

^a Institute of Development Studies IDS   (United Kingdom)

^b ESRC STEPS (Social Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ACQUIRED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY SYNDROME; CULTURAL INFLUENCE; CULTURAL TRADITION; DISEASE TREATMENT; ETHNICITY; ETHNOPOLITICS; GOVERNANCE APPROACH; HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS; ISLAMISM; POLITICAL DISCOURSE; POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY; STATE ROLE; TRADITIONAL MEDICINE;

AFRICA;

EID: 70349542604     PISSN: 00019909     EISSN: 14682621     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/afraf/adp057     Document Type: Article

References (75)

1. 'Gambia expels UN envoy over criticism of AIDS treatment', 23 February 2007, Voice of America, (2 April 2008).
2. 'UN: No evidence for Gambian AIDS "cure"', United Press International, 16 March 2007, (4 April 2008).
3. However, due to the extreme sensitivity surrounding the controversy it has been necessary to protect informants' confidentiality. For this reason field-based evidence is used only at a very general level of specification, and many interview statements are anonymous.
4. Joseph Amon, 'Dangerous medicines: Unproven AIDS cures and counterfeit antiretroviral drugs', Globalization and Health 4, 5 (2008), (14 July 2009).
5. Maryam Yahya, 'Polio vaccines - no thank you! Barriers to polio eradication in Northern Nigeria', African Affairs 106, 423 (2007), p. 185.
6. Nicoli Nattrass, 'AIDS and the scientific governance of medicine in post-Apartheid South Africa', African Affairs 107, 427 (2008), pp. 157-76
7. Nicoli Nattrass, Mortal Combat: AIDS denialism and the fight for antiretrovirals in South Africa (University of Kwazulu-Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, 2007)
8. Didier Fassin, When Bodies Remember: Experiences and politics of AIDS in South Africa (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 2007)
9. Lisa-Ann Richey, 'Science, denial and politics: "boundary work" in the provision of AIDS treatment in South Africa', New Political Science 30, 1 (2008), pp. 1-21
10. Helen Schneider, 'On the fault-line: The politics of AIDS policy in contemporary South Africa', African Studies 61, 1 (2002), pp. 145-67.
11. Thank you to Steven Robins (personal comment) for this allusion, which refers aptly to Joseph E. Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents (Norton, New York, 2002).
12. Sheila Jasanoff (ed.), States of Knowledge: The co-production of science and social order (Routledge, London, 2004).
13. Melissa Leach, 'Taking dissent seriously', Nature 450, 483 (22 November 2007)
14. Melissa Leach and James Fairhead, Vaccine Anxieties: Global science, child health and society (Earthscan, London, 2007).
15. Presidential statement, , 17 January 2007 (14 July 2009).
16. Since this time he has made further claims to breakthroughs in healing other illnesses, including hypertension, diabetes, infertility, piles, and TB.
17. Dr A. B. S. Taal, 'Jammeh's AIDS cure, a victory for humanity', 22 June 2007, (14 July 2009).
18. 'President Jammeh announces to participate in the treatment of HIV/AIDS and asthma', 17 January 2007, (14 July 2009).
19. 'President Jammeh starts treatment for third batch ofHIV/AIDS patients', 17 April 2007, (14 July 2009).
20. See, for example, the President's speech reproduced on his own website, 'President's speech on the discharge of 13 cured HIV/AIDS patients', 17 June 2007, (9 June 2008).
21. The letters from the Senegalese laboratory are available to view with details of each patient's CD4 count and viral load - by clicking on the picture of each person; HIV test result from Cheikh Anta Diop Universty, .
22. See, for example, 'President's speech on the discharge of 13': 'I will get rid of the AIDS virus in your bodies. Those whowe think the virus is finished in their body, are those discharged. I made it clear. But if you even have 10 copies in your body, I will not let you go until these 10 copies are eliminated from your body. You will be surprise [sic] that you have 2 from the 3rd batch that has been discharge today. They stayed less than 3 months with us. Why?... I know we can discharge more from the third batch but we can't do that, because, most of them, we are still testing their samples. Some of them, the results will be out this week.'
23. Amon, 'Dangerous medicines', p. 5.
24. 'President Jammeh announces'.
25. Fassin, When Bodies Remember.
26. 'Inside the State House with Teeth Bite: Dr Mbowe says Jammeh is mad!', 28 February 2007, (14 July 2009).
27. Interview, Gambian health worker, January 2008.
28. Vinh-Kim Nguyen, 'Antiretroviral globalism, biopolitics, and therapeutic citizenship' in A. Ong and S. Collier (eds), Global Assemblages: Technology, politics and ethics as anthropological problems (Blackwell, London, 2005).
29. Leach and Fairhead, Vaccine Anxieties
30. Clare Madge, 'Therapeutic landscapes of the Jola, The Gambia, West Africa', Health and Place 4, 4 (1998), pp. 293-311.
31. 'Fourth batch of HIV/AIDS patients start President Jammeh's treatment', 9 August 2007, (14 July 2009).
32. Didier Fassin and Eric Fassin, 'Traditional medicine and the stakes of legitimation in Senegal', Social Science and Medicine 27, 4 (1988), pp. 353-7.
33. 'President Jammeh appointed Honorary President of WANTRAP', Daily Observer, 21 September 2007, (14 July 2009).
34. 'Honorary degree for President Jammeh', 20 February 2008, (14 July 2009).
35. Kebba Dibba, 'Beyond the confines of medical science: The President's AIDS cure debate', (14 July 2009).
36. 'President Jammeh discharges the first and second batches of HIV/AIDS cured patients', 31 July 2007, (14 July 2009).
37. This fund was publicized nationally in the state-run newspaper, and businesses large and small were encouraged to donate sums of money. Those donations received were publicized in the national newspaper with praise for the President's good works.
38. Taal, 'Jammeh's AIDS cure'.
39. Ibid.
40. Nicoli Nattrass, 'AIDS and the scientific governance of medicine'.
41. Ibid., p. 161.
42. 'Fourth batch of HIV/AIDS patients'.
43. 'President's speech on the discharge of 13'.
44. Interestingly, Iran's health minister also announced the discovery of a herbal AIDS treatment made from seven local Iranian herbs early in 2007, (4 April 2008)
45. see also Amon, 'Dangerous medicines', for discussion of this case.
46. 'No room for gays in the Gambia', Daily Observer, 19 May 2008, (25 July 2009).
47. Nattrass, 'AIDS and the scientific governance of medicine', p. 163.
48. 'Dr Mbowe bags new job', (14 July 2009)
49. 'President Jammeh's HIV/AIDS treatment gains more successes - four patients discharged', (14 July 2009)
50. 'Fourth batch of HIV/AIDS patients'.
51. 'More HIV/AIDS patients to benefit from President Jammeh's herbal cure', Daily Observer, 12 February 2007, reproduced on presidential website, (14 July 2009).
52. 'Lab test proves HIV cure: Dr Coumba Toure-Kane guilty of professional dishonesty', 23 February 2007,
53. (14 July 2009).
54. See also Mathew K. Jallow, 'The Gambia's growing agony', (14 July 2009).
55. See (25 July 2009).
56. HIV physician in The Gambia, personal communication, February 2007.
57. People living with HIV in informal discussion through 2007.
58. 'President's speech on the discharge of 13'.
59. Apart from the television coverage, images showing the treatment are also shown on the President's website, .
60. 'President Jammeh announces to participate'.
61. Steven Robins, 'Rights passages from "near death" to "new life": AIDS activism and treatment testimonies in South Africa' (IDS Working Paper No. 251, Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, 2005).
62. See also 'before and after' images from South Africa as used by the Treatment Action Campaign,
63. the World Health Organization '3 by 5' campaign,
64. and the Red campaign . Similar images from elsewhere have been used in international campaigns: For instance by the NGO Partners in Health in Haiti, (10 July 2009).
65. '19 HIV/AIDS patients discharged', Daily Observer, 24 October 2007, (14 July 2009).
66. '32 start HIV/AIDS treatment', Daily Observer, 13 August 2007, (14 July 2009).
67. See, for example, Marianne Ferme, The Underneath of Things (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 2002)
68. and James Fairhead and Melissa Leach, Misreading the African Landscape (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996) for examples of such discursive stock-in-trades from elsewhere in Mande-speaking West Africa.
69. '32 start HIV/AIDS treatment'.
70. Amon, 'Dangerous medicines'.
71. Ibid., p. 12.
72. The insecurity of those working in The Gambia is further emphasized by the heightened persecution of the press which has taken place in the past months; see
73. (14 July 2009).
74. Fassin, When Bodies Remember.