The Virodene scandal is one of the most morally repugnant episodes in ANC history — and a direct precursor to the AIDS denialism that would kill an estimated 330,000 South Africans.
On 22 January 1997, three Pretoria scientists — cryogenics researcher Olga Visser and cardiothoracic surgeons Dirk du Plessis and Kallie Landaure — presented "Virodene P058" to the South African Cabinet as a potential cure for HIV/AIDS. Deputy President Thabo Mbeki and Health Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma enthusiastically endorsed the drug and supported the researchers' request for R3.7 million in research funding.
There was one critical problem: the drug's main ingredient was dimethylformamide — an industrial solvent used in dry cleaning that causes severe liver damage. The Medicines Control Council (MCC) refused to approve human trials on safety grounds.
But the political support for Virodene was not driven by science. It was driven by money. Channel 4 News in Britain subsequently obtained Virodene company documents showing that the ANC would have received a 6% share of projected annual profits of £100 million had the drug succeeded. Joshua Nxomalo — a personal friend of Mbeki and former ANC military cadre — had arranged the meetings between the researchers and senior government officials, and was among investors who had bought into the Virodene rights.
When the MCC blocked the trials, Mbeki and Dlamini-Zuma did not accept the scientific finding. Instead, they began a campaign against the MCC itself. This confrontation between political power and scientific authority laid the groundwork for Mbeki's full-blown AIDS denialism from 1999 onwards.
The Virodene scandal reveals the intersection of corruption and ideology that made South Africa's AIDS response so catastrophic. The ANC's financial interest in a fraudulent drug led its leaders to distrust legitimate science, which in turn led to the denial of proven AIDS treatments, which killed hundreds of thousands of people.