[Newspoetry] What causes AIDS?

[William Gillespie]

What Causes AIDS in South Africa?



What do you think causes AIDS,
President Thabo Mbeki
of South Africa?

American researchers who dispute the link between the HIV virus and AIDS
cause AIDS.

Inhaling poisonous dust in a diamond mine causes AIDS

Peter Duesburg, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the
University of California at Berkeley, causes AIDS.

The bootheel of the oppressor causes AIDS.

Statements like "Until all the questions that keep cropping up are
answered, we are not going to be able to say to a person who disagrees
with the conventional thinking, 'You are wrong or right.'" cause AIDS.

Imperialism, colonialism, and apartheid cause AIDS.

David Rasnick, a biochemist, and Charles Geshekter, a professor of
African history at California State University, Chico, cause AIDS.

Movies filmed in Los Angeles cause AIDS.

The IMF and the World Bank cause AIDS.

Sweatshop labor causes AIDS.

Your Health Ministry's refusal to pay for drug treatment of HIV/AIDS
patients, even to rape victims, causes AIDS.

The New York Times causes AIDS.

American pharmaceutical companies, who refuse to license South African
companies to make generic, less expensive versions of anti-AIDS drugs,
cause AIDS.

A vegetarian diet causes AIDS.

US Vice President Al Gore, who commented in a memo that the protection
of pharmaceutical patents should be "a central focus" in upcoming talks
with South Africa's then-Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, stating that the
Clinton administration was concerned about the law's vagueness and
asking the South African government to assure it would "not undermine
legal protections" for patent holders, causes AIDS.

The trade "watch list" causes AIDS.

Political prisoners cause AIDS.

The unspent $6.2 million of your country's $17 million AIDS budget for
the year 1999, causes AIDS.

Condoms cause AIDS.

The lawsuit brought against your 1997 Medicine Act by 40 pharmaceutical
companies claiming violations of their World Trade Organization
intellectual property rights, causes AIDS.

Communism causes AIDS.

Your recent decision to remove anti-AIDS drug AZT from the market,
declaring it unsafe, causes AIDS.

Soccer causes AIDS.

Your country's staggering AIDS epidemic (12.9% of the adult population,
6 million people, infected; 1,500 new cases reported every day; more
than 60 percent of beds at state hospitals filled with AIDS patients)
causes AIDS.
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