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Treatment Action Campaign
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Treatment Action Campaign
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) is a South African HIV/AIDS activist organisation which was co-founded by the HIV-positive activist Zackie Achmat in 1998. TAC is rooted in the experiences, direct action tactics and anti-apartheid background of its founder. TAC has been credited with forcing the reluctant government of former South African President Thabo Mbeki to begin making antiretroviral drugs available to South Africans.
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) was launched on 10 December 1998, International Human Rights Day. Zackie Achmat, whom The New Yorker calls "the most important dissident in the country since Nelson Mandela", joined with a group of ten other activists to found the group after anti-apartheid gay rights activist Simon Nkoli died from AIDS even as highly active antiretroviral therapy was available to wealthy South Africans. Shortly thereafter, prompted by the murder of HIV-positive activist Gugu Dlamini, HIV-positive and HIV-negative members of the new group began wearing the group's now-famous T-shirts with the words "HIV Positive" printed boldly in front, a strategy inspired by the apocryphal story of the Danish king wearing the yellow star marking Jews under Nazi occupation. Achmat also became famous for his pledge to not take antiretroviral medicines until all South Africans could obtain them.
Quickly outgrowing its start among a small group of Cape Town activists, a number of whom had political roots in the Marxist Workers Tendency of the ANC, TAC became a much more broadly based group, with chapters in many regions of the nation and a largely black and poor constituency.[page needed] The group campaigns for greater access to HIV treatment for all South Africans by raising public awareness and understanding about issues surrounding the availability, affordability and use of HIV treatments.[citation needed]
The Treatment Action Campaign produces Equal Treatment, a magazine dedicated to HIV and health issues.
The TAC first confronted the South African government for not ensuring that mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) prevention was available to pregnant mothers. It won this case on the basis of the South African constitutional guarantee of the right to health care, and the government was ordered to provide MTCT programs in public clinics. TAC also assisted the government by defending it in the case brought against the government by the pharmaceutical industry. TAC entered the case as an amicus curiae, submitting a brief in favour of the government's position. Although the withdrawal of the pharmaceutical companies from this case resulted in a government victory, the government showed no interest in providing access to the generic antiretroviral medications that its victory allowed.[citation needed]
Indeed, far from embracing their common victory against the patent rights of multinational companies who were not making affordable drugs available, President Thabo Mbeki began promoting the AIDS denialist view that HIV might not cause AIDS, and that AIDS medications were more toxic than helpful, inviting foreign AIDS denialists to advise his government.[page needed]
According to TAC's founder, two million South Africans died prematurely of AIDS during the term of former President Mbeki, and many of these deaths could have been prevented by timely implementation of access to anti-HIV drugs.
Following their legal victories, and facing continuing refusal by the government to make antiretrovirals available, TAC began a campaign for universal access to AIDS treatment through the public health system. In a national congress in 2002, the group decided to confront the government on this issue, first enacting a thousands-strong march on Parliament in February 2003, and then beginning a civil disobedience campaign in March 2003. After assurances from people within the government that a treatment plan would be forthcoming, TAC suspended its civil disobedience campaign.
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Treatment Action Campaign
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) is a South African HIV/AIDS activist organisation which was co-founded by the HIV-positive activist Zackie Achmat in 1998. TAC is rooted in the experiences, direct action tactics and anti-apartheid background of its founder. TAC has been credited with forcing the reluctant government of former South African President Thabo Mbeki to begin making antiretroviral drugs available to South Africans.
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) was launched on 10 December 1998, International Human Rights Day. Zackie Achmat, whom The New Yorker calls "the most important dissident in the country since Nelson Mandela", joined with a group of ten other activists to found the group after anti-apartheid gay rights activist Simon Nkoli died from AIDS even as highly active antiretroviral therapy was available to wealthy South Africans. Shortly thereafter, prompted by the murder of HIV-positive activist Gugu Dlamini, HIV-positive and HIV-negative members of the new group began wearing the group's now-famous T-shirts with the words "HIV Positive" printed boldly in front, a strategy inspired by the apocryphal story of the Danish king wearing the yellow star marking Jews under Nazi occupation. Achmat also became famous for his pledge to not take antiretroviral medicines until all South Africans could obtain them.
Quickly outgrowing its start among a small group of Cape Town activists, a number of whom had political roots in the Marxist Workers Tendency of the ANC, TAC became a much more broadly based group, with chapters in many regions of the nation and a largely black and poor constituency.[page needed] The group campaigns for greater access to HIV treatment for all South Africans by raising public awareness and understanding about issues surrounding the availability, affordability and use of HIV treatments.[citation needed]
The Treatment Action Campaign produces Equal Treatment, a magazine dedicated to HIV and health issues.
The TAC first confronted the South African government for not ensuring that mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) prevention was available to pregnant mothers. It won this case on the basis of the South African constitutional guarantee of the right to health care, and the government was ordered to provide MTCT programs in public clinics. TAC also assisted the government by defending it in the case brought against the government by the pharmaceutical industry. TAC entered the case as an amicus curiae, submitting a brief in favour of the government's position. Although the withdrawal of the pharmaceutical companies from this case resulted in a government victory, the government showed no interest in providing access to the generic antiretroviral medications that its victory allowed.[citation needed]
Indeed, far from embracing their common victory against the patent rights of multinational companies who were not making affordable drugs available, President Thabo Mbeki began promoting the AIDS denialist view that HIV might not cause AIDS, and that AIDS medications were more toxic than helpful, inviting foreign AIDS denialists to advise his government.[page needed]
According to TAC's founder, two million South Africans died prematurely of AIDS during the term of former President Mbeki, and many of these deaths could have been prevented by timely implementation of access to anti-HIV drugs.
Following their legal victories, and facing continuing refusal by the government to make antiretrovirals available, TAC began a campaign for universal access to AIDS treatment through the public health system. In a national congress in 2002, the group decided to confront the government on this issue, first enacting a thousands-strong march on Parliament in February 2003, and then beginning a civil disobedience campaign in March 2003. After assurances from people within the government that a treatment plan would be forthcoming, TAC suspended its civil disobedience campaign.
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