Thabo Mbeki believed that HIV was not the cause of AIDS and refused a nationwide rollout of Antiretroviral drugs in South Africa. Whether he was right or wrong, many of us still don't know how Mbeki reached the conclusions he did. Let's look at some facts on HIV
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Firstly, what is HIV?
HIV is a retrovirus. A retrovirus reproduces by attaching itself to the host's CD4 T-cells, penetrating the cell and encoding its RNA into the cell's DNA. As the infected cell multiplies, so too does the virus
(mRNA COVID-19 vaccines...🤔? OK nevermind)
Like any other viral infection, HIV reproduces quickly through the cells immediately after infection. This is what leads to the production of antibodies that track down infections until all invading germs are dead/inactive. This is how we heal & become immune to future infections
It is very important to note that HIV like all other viruses becomes inactive and harmless after the body has produced antibodies against it, this is why we never hear of recognisable "HIV symptoms", unlike flu and other viruses with identifiable symptoms, for instance
Now, when you give blood to test for HIV, you are not testing for the virus, instead, you are testing for the antibodies generated by your body to stop it. So, when you test positive for HIV it means you have produced antibodies, meaning you are now immune to the virus
For the virus to kill a person it needs to escape the antibodies, and disease only emerges BEFORE the host produces antibodies. Yes, some diseases come back after immunity...
...however, there is no disease that causes illness ONLY AFTER the body produces antibodies. This is how HIV is said to work. It is said to wait until there are antibodies before causing the disease (AIDS). This goes against how microbes, antibodies and esp. retroviruses work
AIDS patients get progressively sick because they lose CD4 T-cells, and because these are the cells HIV infects, it was concluded that it was HIV that was killing them. However many scientists grow the HIV retrovirus on T-cells precisely because it grows well on them
Thabo Mbeki's advisor Dr Peter Duesberg became suspicious when it was said HIV was killing T-cells when it had always been known that retroviruses are the only viruses that don't kill the cells they infect
Scientists agree that HIV does not infect enough T-cells to do what it is said to do, i.e cause AIDS, because as soon as the body produces HIV antibodies the billions of virus particles become dormant until they can't be detected in T-cells. Meanwhile, the T-cells multiply daily
By the time the antibodies are done with HIV, it only infects as little as 1 in 100K cells. Therefore, HIV cannot kill enough T-cells quickly enough to bring down the immune system to cause a syndrome, because to get sick and die from a retrovirus it needs to infect 1 in 2 cells
AIDS patients have AIDS because they lack CD4 T-cells. Robert Gallo, the doctor who linked HIV to AIDS could not find any virus in the T-cells of the AIDS patients he monitored, only the antibodies against it. So what is killing the T-cells, then? Anyway...
HIV has no "AIDS gene", i.e it has no unique reason to cause AIDS. Genetically, HIV is identical to every other retrovirus in the human body, and there are up to 100 of these retroviruses in every healthy human body, all under the control of antibodies.
All these retroviruses behave the same in how they mutate, become dormant and reactivate. In fact, none of the other retroviruses causes disease, so what is so special about HIV? Conversely, If HIV causes AIDS why don't all the others? What is so special about HIV?
HIV/AIDS supporters say HIV is a "slow virus", taking up to 12 years after infection to cause AIDS. This hypothesis was formulated by HIV/AIDS founders Gallo and Daniel Gajdusek to effectively buy time when HIV failed to produce AIDS
The slow virus hypothesis was said to be based on the herpes virus which lies dormant for years and then causes disease in people who can't generate immunity due to ACTIVE viral levels causing specific symptoms. HIV is INACTIVE, but suddenly causes 30 random diseases 10yrs later
Not all viruses cause disease. Those that do, it happens within days, maybe weeks as a direct function of the time a virus needs to infect a cell, generate new viruses in enough quantities to overcome T-cells. So, whatever a retrovirus can possibly do has to happen within weeks.
(Sidebar: You know what causes a new disease pandemic? A new virus. Using virus dating methods used on all viruses since the 19th century reveals that HIV cannot be a new virus. Even HIV proponents have not bothered to address this specific issue objectively)
Now for some statistics: in the US, HIV is evenly distributed between males and females. However, after 15 years, AIDS remained at 90% males and 10% female. Why would it keep bypassing females for over 15 years if it was an infectious sexually transmitted disease?
As we have seen with recent "pandemics", a viral pandemic affects people similarly everywhere it goes. However, AIDS statistics are different in developed countries than in Africa. e.g. in the US, AIDS patients are 90% male, but in Africa, it's 50/50 between men and women...
...in America, AIDS is directly linked to specific risk groups (drug users, homosexuals, etc), but in Africa, there are no risk groups, anyone and everyone seems to be getting it. Also, AIDS-related diseases (i.e the symptoms) are vastly different between the US and Africa.
Furthermore, in many cases, AIDS occurs without HIV and most people with HIV never develop AIDS. The hypothesis that HIV causes AIDS comes about because people with AIDS test positive for HIV antibodies so, "HIV must be causing AIDS". Correlation. Hence it's being called HIV/AIDS
In the end, whether what the media and AIDS industry says about HIV and AIDS is true or not, everyone needs to do thorough research and make up their mind if we're to make the correct decisions for ourselves because what's best for corporations is not always best for the public
South Africa is not on the brink of collapse. It is collapsing—slowly, carefully—under the supervision of its ruling elites. This is a managed collapse strategy: the deliberate acceptance of economic stagnation and slow degradation to protect existing wealth structures
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Under South Africa’s managed decline, public investment, industrial policy or breaking up monopolies have been ruled out. Instead, the government embarks on minimalist crisis management, designed not to solve economic and social decay but to spread it out over decades.
The pattern is not difficult to see: Budget cuts gradually hollow out the state, avoiding dramatic collapse but eroding public services over time. Alongside this, the government regularly announces reforms with no meaningful implementation, creating the illusion that change may be around the corner.
When people talk about South Africa’s high crime rate, they often blame it on poverty. But the thing is, many countries with even higher poverty rates experience significantly lower crime levels🧵🧵
The discrepancy in crime rates between SA and others is because the real problem in South Africa is inequality—you know, the vast gap between rich and poor. South Africa has one of the biggest wealth gaps in the world.
Poverty and crime are often linked in the public imagination, but the relationship is more complex. Numerous poorer countries—including many in Africa, Asia and Latin America—report lower crime rates than South Africa. What sets South Africa apart is not merely widespread poverty but the obscene gap between the rich and the poor.
Here’s a brutal truth: South Africa could have the cleanest, most efficient government on earth—and would still remain poor. This is because poverty is not an administrative problem. It’s a structural issue. And it has only one solution: mass industrialisation🧵🧵
Mass industrialisation means building an economy where large numbers of people are employed to transform raw materials into finished products across many industries. Steel plants, car assembly lines, textile mills, agro-processing hubs, chemical plants, electronics, etc.
Someone might say South Africa has industries, mines, cars and some factories. However, the difference between what South Africa is doing now and true mass industrialisation is scale, focus and purpose. South Africa is stuck in a mining-export trap, not real industrialisation.
Today, on Freedom Day, the dominant culture still teaches that many South Africans are poor because of personal failure—a lack of effort, discipline or talent. It tells a seductive story: that opportunity is equal, success is earned and failure is deserved. This is a lie🧵🧵
People often say that for the economy and the country to work, people must be hired on merit. However, the truth is that although widely held, the belief that merit rather than luck determines success or failure in the world is demonstrably false.
The idea that people attain success, power and influence based on their proven abilities and merit is an attempt to erase South Africa’s historical legacy by shifting the blame for racial inequality onto those still suffering its consequences—while allowing the privileged to feel righteous and self-made.
The South African government & private sector repeatedly claim the high unemployment rate is due to a “skills shortage”. This is not only misleading but also deflects from the real issue: South Africa lacks the industrial capacity to absorb its labour🧵
For years, we’ve been told that the problem isn’t the economy’s failure to create jobs, but rather a “skills mismatch.” If only workers were better trained, the thinking goes, they’d find employment. But here’s the truth: You can’t train your way out of an unproductive economy.
Deindustrialisation has hollowed out South Africa’s economy since the 1990s. Manufacturing—once a growing sector under import substitution industrialisation (ISI)—has been replaced by a financialised, export-dependent model designed to serve global capital, not local workers.
Most of us grow up thinking taxes pay for everything the government does—schools, roads, hospitals, etc. We’re told that if we want better services, the government has to “raise money” through taxes. But here’s the truth: That’s not how it works.
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The government isn’t like a household. It doesn’t need to earn money before it can spend. It creates the money, spends it into the economy and then it collects taxes afterward. So, it’s not a matter of “how will we pay for it?”—it’s “how will we manage the money we’ve created?”
This idea might sound wild, but it’s been around for a long time. In 1946, the head of the American central bank said in an article called “Taxes for Revenue Are Obsolete” that the government did not need taxes to raise money. Why? Because it could create money. What taxes were really for, he said, was to manage the economy—to control inflation and reduce inequality.