drunkeness thievery and health south

Drunkeness, thievery and health: the South African soap opera continues

In regard to ethics and health, what can South Africa do for an

encore? It is not enough that its President, Thabo Mbeki, has

consistantly failed to distance himself from those who deny that HIV

causes AIDS. It is also not enough that his health minister, Manto

Tshabalala-Msimang, is already infamous for her promotion of the use

of lemons and garlic rather than anti-retroviral drugs to control

AIDS. Over the last three months, Tshabalala-Msimang has been accused

of stealing from medical patients in the past (as a hospital director

in Botswana), loudly boozing it up while a patient herself (for a

shoulder operation), and receiving special priority for a liver

transplant despite violating the requirement of not drinking alcohol

6-12 months before surgery. She has been seen drinking since.

The new twist in the tale is that the journalists of the Sunday Times,

the Johannesburg newspaper which broke the stories of ministrial

drunkness and thievery, are accused of obtaining and publishing

Tshabalala-Msimang's medical records without her consent and are

threatened with arrest. An alleged represenative of the medical

community, speaking on anonymity, states that such uses of medical

records are simply unethical, even if what they reveal is itself

unethical behavior. Defenders of the journalists cite press freedom,

while pointing out that the journalists and the newspaper seem to be

subject to special government pressure: the journalists are now being

watched by the South African secret service, and the government is

threatening to withhold its advertizing from the Sunday Times.

Interestingly, the executive director of the Freedom of Expression

Institute argues that disclosure of private information can be

justified in the light of a significant public health threat, and

Tshabalala-Msimang should be considered just such a threat. It is

unusual that a Minister of Health is viewed as analogous to multi-drug

resistant tuberculosis or a toxic waste spill. But in South Africa,