Dave Prince joined PCRL along with his wife Tanesha in the late 1990's. He presented a lively Gospel program that interlinked music and interviews with local community workers, talking about Black social life in general.
He would also sometimes sit-in with the popular 'Talk-Back' program (Sunday evenings 8-Late) that was famous for over-running, sometimes two hours or more if important factors were being discussed by the the Black community.
He was also a strong supporter of the African AIDS cure Mariandina that the late Prof. Charles Ssali brought to PCRL and Europe, he helped market it for a while. The Observer wrote: "Four years after Prof. Charles Ssali’s death, Mariandina, the drug he formulated to help AIDS patients, is still on market.According to his widow, Margaret Nansamba Ssali, the drug is now available at several outlets in town. However, the Mariandina clinic that was once housed in Kamwokya is no more; the building is now leased to an NGO known as YEAH.
However, there is a signpost standing next to a kiosk at the old site, where the drugs are now sold. The Mariandina drugs are prepared by his children in the UK and shipped to Uganda and 14 other countries.
The Mariandina drugs first suffered a market setback in 1994 after the government decided to stop their sale, following Prof. Ssali’s refusal to share his formula with health officials. The good doctor had refused to admit that his were merely food supplements that allowed the weakened HIV-positive patients to regain some energy.
Instead, Prof. Ssali claimed that some of his patients had actually been cured of HIV/AIDS.
At the time, the Health Minister, Dr. Crispus Kiyonga, who himself had been a student of Prof. Ssali at Makerere’s Medical School in the 1960s, called for the drug to be banned.
“There has never been a cure for a disease caused by a virus in medical history and he knows that,” Dr. Kiyonga said then.
But Ssali further claimed that HIV was a Western conspiracy to exterminate the Black population. He accused American researcher Robert Gallo and his French counterpart, Luc Montagner, of deception in their discovery of the virus. Ssali’s claims were dismissed by Luc Montagner when he visited Uganda in 1999".
He was also a strong supporter of the African AIDS cure Mariandina that the late Prof. Charles Ssali brought to PCRL and Europe, he helped market it for a while. The Observer wrote: "Four years after Prof. Charles Ssali’s death, Mariandina, the drug he formulated to help AIDS patients, is still on market.According to his widow, Margaret Nansamba Ssali, the drug is now available at several outlets in town. However, the Mariandina clinic that was once housed in Kamwokya is no more; the building is now leased to an NGO known as YEAH.
However, there is a signpost standing next to a kiosk at the old site, where the drugs are now sold. The Mariandina drugs are prepared by his children in the UK and shipped to Uganda and 14 other countries.
The Mariandina drugs first suffered a market setback in 1994 after the government decided to stop their sale, following Prof. Ssali’s refusal to share his formula with health officials. The good doctor had refused to admit that his were merely food supplements that allowed the weakened HIV-positive patients to regain some energy.
 |
| Prince, Beni Brown & Prof. Ssali in PCRL studio loft |
At the time, the Health Minister, Dr. Crispus Kiyonga, who himself had been a student of Prof. Ssali at Makerere’s Medical School in the 1960s, called for the drug to be banned.
“There has never been a cure for a disease caused by a virus in medical history and he knows that,” Dr. Kiyonga said then.
But Ssali further claimed that HIV was a Western conspiracy to exterminate the Black population. He accused American researcher Robert Gallo and his French counterpart, Luc Montagner, of deception in their discovery of the virus. Ssali’s claims were dismissed by Luc Montagner when he visited Uganda in 1999".
Dave along with his wife were with PCRL right up to it's closure in 2004. He later joined Newstyle Radio in Birmingham (that had been set-up by the Government as a replacement for PCRL) and had been running for about three years before PCRL closed. Dave can still be found even today broadcasting 10-1 am on Wednesdays with his 'Connecting Communities' show. Read more on his page.
Dave Prince & Chris Coxone on Newstyle 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment