Peter Singer: The Tragic Cost of Being Unscientific

World-renowned bioethicist Peter Singer writes in New Europe about the tragic consequences of former South African president Thabo Mbeki's AIDS denialism:

Mbeki is culpable, not for having initially entertained a view held by a tiny minority of scientists, but for having clung to this view without allowing it to be tested in fair and open debate among experts. When Professor Malegapuru Makgoba, South Africa’s leading black immunologist, warned that the president’s policies would make South Africa a laughingstock in the world of science, Mbeki’s office accused him of defending racist Western ideas.

Since Mbeki’s ouster in September, the new South African government of Kgalema Motlanthe has moved quickly to implement effective measures against AIDS. Mbeki’s health minister, who notoriously suggested that AIDS could be cured by the use of garlic, lemon juice, and beetroot, was promptly fired. The tragedy is that the African National Congress, South Africa’s dominant political party, was so much in thrall to Mbeki that he was not deposed many years ago.