Yes, it does exist

Barbara Hogin as Minister of Health is the best news those working in the health field have had for a very long time. The exile duo Min Manta Tsabalala-Msimang and former President Thabo Mbeki had done monstrous damage to our ability to manage the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

We thank Hogin for being willing to pick up the pieces and must help her where we can along the way. It will though take a monumental national effort to turn the HIV/AIDS pandemic around, in part because a monumental effort is required by government to use the best science available to deal with all manner of developmental problems.

Mbeki was a master at using and abusing science to serve ends other than promoting national welfare. He flirted with the pseudo-science of HIV/AIDS. His health minister Tsabalala lacked understanding of the virology of human immuno-deficiency, partly because she was miseducated in genetics in the former Soviet Union.

The bigger problem we have to address is to restore the nation’s faith in the use of the best science humanity has to offer to deal with our developmental problems. Science does not have all of the answers because, by its very nature, it explores and finds answers by experimentation and rational fact-based progress.

It is perhaps ironic that the man who wanted to modernise South Africa drove its health policies into the middle ages. There are countries in Africa far poorer by far – like Botswana, Rwanda and Tanzania – who have as a national priority adopted science applications to deal with development ends.

When Nobel Laureate David Baltimore came to give the 2007 Nelson Mandela Science Lecture on the topic of viruses, he went from Johannesburg back to Los Angeles via Rwanda. The Minister there had asked Baltimore to spend 10 days there to give advice on how to use modern science to deal with their health issues.

Former President Nelson Mandela received David Baltimore for what was an inspiring conversation about what we all ought to be doing. But no one in our government noticed Baltimore’s presence or had the courtesy to receive him. This is the man who, at 34, received a Nobel for figuring out the genetics of retroviruses like HIV.

So what should we do? First, we should say that our national priority is to use and support the best science to deal with our problem, which is infectious disease. This does not mean that we do not invest in astronomy or physics or downgrade these essential activities. It simply says that the national effort is to deal with disease.

Brazil tackled one of their national problems – a bug called xylella fastidioso that attacked one of their biggest export oranges – in this manner. They invested in a laboratory infrastructure involving every state in their federation, hired the best scientists and populated their laboratories with post-graduate and post-doctoral students.

It revolutionised Brazilian biological science. State of the art well equipped laboratories, human resource development and science leadership resulted in the annotation of the orange bug’s genome and the development of remedies that effectively tackled the problem.

Second, the driver for the effort must of course be the Department of Science and Technology (a well-run department under Min Mosibudi Mangena) but other department with science applications or relevance from health to agriculture must be a part of it.

Third, to maximise coordination we would do well to emulate the British with the highly respected institution of the Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA), who serves as the personal adviser on science and technology-related activities and policies to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet and is the head of the Government Office for Science.

The current CSA is Professor John Beddington. Past SCAs include the South Africans Sir Solly Zuckerman (1964-1971) and Sir David King (2000-2008) the latter now at Oxford University. CSAs have a significant public role as the government's most visible scientific expert.

Many individual UK government departments have their own departmental chief scientist. The CSA and departmental chief scientists sit on a Chief Scientific Adviser's Committee, a cross-departmental forum for the discussion of science issues, chaired by the CSA.

Finally, it would be desirable to detach universities from the Department of Education and migrate the responsibility to the Department of Science & Technology, with a budget that works both by rational formula, specialised interventions in line with our need to develop high-level skills such as in engineering and can pay our scientists a decent salary.