South African’s ruling political party, the African National Congress, has charged the US government of treating Africans as “guinea pigs” by sending unsafe AIDS drugs to Africa. The party’s accusations came days after the Associated Press revealed the Bush administration had hid evidence that the AIDS drug nevirapine was a dangerous drug in order to allow it to be used to treat unsuspecting patients in Africa.

Meanwhile in this country, the Rev. Jesse Jackson has called for a congressional investigation into the matter and for the Bush administration to immediately halt the distribution of the drug in Africa. He likened the drug’s distribution in Africa to the U.S. government’s 40-year syphilis experiment using poor African-Americans in Tuskegee, Ala., after World War II.

The Associated Press report came out just two weeks after the BBC broadcast a groundbreaking documentary exposing how New York City health officials are using African-American and Latino children to text experimental AIDS drugs.