Mandela and AIDS

No saint:

A recent article (free registration required) in the Lancet by Dr. Paul Zeitz, head of the Global AIDS Alliance, lays out the damning history. Although then-Vice President Thabo Mbeki (for years, an AIDS denialist) deserves most of the direct blame for South Africa's 1990s AIDS disaster, it was Mandela who was ultimately in charge at the time. In 1996, his government spent 20 percent of its annual AIDS budget on "a contract for a theatre company to produce a show with questionable public-health messages," according to Zeitz. Following that error in judgment, Mbeki pushed Virodene, an AIDS medicine produced in Africa, through the government's approval process. Virodene was later deemed to be "unfit for human consumption."