Debunking Delusions

Anso Thom – Health-e News Service (10 March 2010)
It is fitting that one of the sharpest minds and committed leaders of South Africa’s illustrious AIDS activist movement has documented not only the atrocities perpetuated by the Mbeki-Manto reign, but also the evolution of one of the greatest civil society activist movements in our country’s history.
Nathan Geffen has literally given his blood, sweat and tears to the cause. Journalists and those who have followed the battle between the Treatment Action Campaign and our former denialist Government interacted with Geffen on almost a daily basis and his dedication and absolute belief in what he was doing never wavered… (read more)

Maureen Isaacson – Sunday Independent (4 April 2010)
Aaron Motsoaledi, the Health Minister; said last week that a “revolution” would unfold this month in South Africa’s response to HIV and Aids as the largest-ever testing and counselling campaign kicked off.
Amid the applaus this received, Nathan Geffen’s new book, Debunking Delusion, offers ample reason for us to celebratethe efforts of the health minister and the government to “take the bull by the horns”, as Motsoaledi told a press briefing…(read more)

Eusebius McKaiser – Sunday Independent (9 May 2010)
Nathan Geffen”s admirably balanced and meticulously crafted Debunking Delusions; The inside story of the Treatment Action Campaign is a proverbial page turner.
The book is a permanent public record of our country”s shameful recent history of state-sponsored Aids denialism, and highlights the proliferation of quack remedies for HIV and Aids.
You walk away with a palpable sense that we ought, in Mandela-speak, “never again” to allow a South African government to get away with callous disregard for evidence-informed health policy interventions in the face of a public health challenge… (read more)

Christopher Merrett – WITNESS (23 June 2010)
What is striking about this book is the extent to which it reflects the best and the worst of the old and new South Africas. Nathan Geffen describes how the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) courageously carried on the tradition of civic grassroots struggle that grew up under apartheid. In a chilling rerun of National Party rule, he recounts state-sponsored lawlessness; the government indulged Matthias Rath’s unauthorised medical trials and untested claims about the medicinal power of his vitamins…(read more)