Controversy Shadows AIDS Summit. South African President Thabo Mbeki’s wrong-headed rejection of the expensive but effective protease inhibitors (which have been a revolutionary breakthrough in treatment of AIDS in the first world) even with subsidies from pharmaceutical manufacturers, and his reliance on advisors skeptical that HIV causes AIDS, sit squarely in the face of the onrushing South African AIDS epidemic. The opening of the 13th International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, the first time it occurs on the African continent or indeed in the developing world, is sure to highlight tensions in the face of impending tragedy. 95% of the world’s people with AIDS live in developing countries.