President Thabo Mbeki has been accused of misrepresenting new guidelines issued by the United States government's Centre for Disease Control (CDC) on the use of anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs).
Mbeki told parliament on Wednesday that the US government had revised its guidelines partly "because experience had shown them that these drugs had toxicities which had not been foreseen.
"They radically revised these and issued other guidelines about what needs to happen before you dispense any such drugs - a very, very detailed brief on what doctors should do."
Mbeki advised MPs using anti-Aids drugs to make sure they were fully informed about the toxicity risks.
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This was after Pan Africanist Congress MP Patricia de Lille claimed that MPs were using the drugs while poor people had no access to them.
Mbeki referred De Lille to the CDC website and said he hoped that if any MPs were taking ARVs, they too would look at guidelines "to advise their own medical practitioners how to proceed.
"Otherwise they are going to suffer negative consequences. That's real, that's actual, that's not a matter of propaganda."
Political opposition, activists and medical researchers have slammed Mbeki for misrepresenting the new guidelines issued by the CDC on the use of anti-retrovirals.
Kobus Gous, DA spokesperson on HIV/Aids, said: "Nowhere in the CDC report does it suggest it is unwise to use ARVs."
All medicines were toxic - "even Disprin can kill you. It is very, very low, immoral and hypocritical to use science to make ARV drugs suspect."
De Lille said one of the reasons advanced by government for not providing ARV drugs was that they were too toxic.
She asked: "Why is it toxic only for the poor people of this country who cannot afford it, but not toxic for many MPs who are using the same anti-retroviral drugs?
"Why are we not taking it off the shelves of the pharmacies, and the doctors, if it is so toxic, so that nobody can have access to anti-retroviral drugs?"
Professor Salim Abdool-Karim, deputy vice chancellor for research at the University of Natal, said while Mbeki's concerns about toxicity and resistance were real and genuine, they could be dealt with and were not concerns unique to anti-retrovirals.
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