Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-06-08

CHAIRPERSON: No, no, that's R560 000.  That seems to me to be R560 000 because how do you explain that 18, is it R18 000 or R180?  It seems to me that looks like R560 000.

DR VAN RENSBURG: No this is - no such money was spent on a project like that.  It must be R5 600.

WENDY ORR: I don't want to get into an argument about the money, do you have any idea what this research was about?

DR VAN RENSBURG: Sampioen?

WENDY ORR: Yes.

DR VAN RENSBURG: No.  I don't know that one at all.  This is biotechnology.  It sounds like a code name to me.

WENDY ORR: Thank you.  I have no further questions.

CHAIRPERSON: Any other questions from the panel?  Advocate Potgieter.

UNKNOWN: Thank you Chairperson.  Dr van Rensburg just on that last point that you made, this has to be rands because I see there's one that's 700 on 1361, which means it's R7,00 -just by the way.  I don't really think ...(intervention)

DR VAN RENSBURG: Well what is the time.

UNKNOWN: ....debate about that.

DR VAN RENSBURG: Ja but there's one hour, it looks like R700, yes.

UNKNOWN: Ja, so we are talking about rands there, not about cents, it seems.

DR VAN RENSBURG: The average running funds towards the end of the Institute it's just annual budget without capital purchases, nothing, it was round about R10 million a year.

UNKNOWN: No no I was just, I was just adding to the point that Dr Orr was making, but what I really want to come to is the question of fertility, the fertility project.

DR VAN RENSBERG: Yes.

UNKNOWN: And I think you had said to us that that is the only project, or the only real project that you were involved in.

DR VAN RENSBERG: That's right.

UNKNOWN: ..in this...(intervention)

DR VAN RENSBERG: In a purely advisory capacity.

UNKNOWN: ...lab.

DR VAN RENSBERG: It was not done for directors to stand at the bench.

UNKNOWN: That instruction emanated from Dr Basson, you said.

DR VAN RENSBERG: Yes. Originally...

UNKNOWN: Yes.

DR VAN RENSBERG: ...and with considerable encouragement from Dr Swanepoel.

UNKNOWN: And if I understood you correctly you had said that all of the CBW instructions emanated, amongst others, from Basson?

DR VAN RENSBERG: I can't say they all came from there, I really only overheard a few instructions in groups, I was never personally given an instruction apart from the fertility project.  They would come, undoubtedly some would come via Dr Swanepoel, the managing director, who had regular connections also with the CCB people.  Some might have come shall we say a request than instructions for products might have come direct from agents from via the CCB to Dr Immelman.

UNKNOWN: Yes.

DR VAN RENSBERG: I can't say that Dr Basson was involved in all of them, most certainly not.

UNKNOWN: Yes, no no I do understand you. But this particular project, this fertility project, was that a

<UNKNOWN>: , was it a CBW...(intervention)

DR VAN RENSBERG: At that time they were being classified, we went on to a different system, it was "R".

UNKNOWN: Alright.

DR VAN RENSBERG: No it was not considered really an

<UNKNOWN>: project although it was a confidential one.  As I say from an academic and commercial point of view it was a good project.

UNKNOWN: Yes it had commercial potential but it was really, in terms of the instruction, it was part of the ...(intervention)

DR VAN RENSBERG: In terms of the instructions it would be an H project.
ADV POTGIETER

<UNKNOWN>: project, right?

DR VAN RENSBERG: Well it came from that sector, yes. In fact they wanted the product even though it had not been tested for safety or efficiency would indicate that.

UNKNOWN: So one has to assume that it was intended for use within the CBW programme?

DR VAN RENSBERG: Yes.  To some extent anyway.

UNKNOWN: Yes now you had said, in fact you had made an unelicited explanation and you said this had nothing to do with black fertility or something to that effect,  now, now what was that really, what was that story?

DR VAN RENSBERG: Nothing to do with what fertility?

UNKNOWN: Black. Ethnic black.

DR VAN RENSBERG: Black - yes there had been a lot of newspaper reports which are really science fiction that we were making compounds that would cause infertility just in blacks.  My point is that physiologically, biochemically, endocrinologically blacks are identical to whites or to Chinese or to anybody else.  There are no differences in the biochemistry or the immune system that you can use to make a product which will work on one ethnic group and not the other one. So that was never even considered.

UNKNOWN: Yes.  So the product itself, it can never be ethnic specific but you can apply it - to target a particular group of people.

DR VAN RENSBERG: You can apply it to whoever group you target, right.

UNKNOWN: Now were you suspecting that that was one of the underlying intentions?

DR VAN RENSBERG: Absolutely.  One would expect anything from previous experience and what these people do.

UNKNOWN: And the idea was to, was it a vaccine that would diminish ...(intervention)

DR VAN RENSBERG: That would be a vaccine. There are various
approaches, you can either make the male sterile, which is actually easier, you get sperm specific antigens and in fact these things happen spontaneously in certain individuals and they go very sterile, now that is if sperm leaked into the tissue and there was an immunological reaction for instance because there are certain proteins and immunogens which are specific, you only get them in sperm.  
 Dr Borman was more keen on this approach, I was a little bit more keen, although we worked on both approaches, to get a female vaccine and you target a protein compound, or a hormone-like compound, it's only produced by the embryo and usually in the placenta.  There's unique proteins there and if you have antibodies against that the little developing embryo cannot implant and it's expelled when it's still too small to see.

UNKNOWN: Yes I, I'm cautious, I don't want to have the proliferation debate to be...(intervention)

DR VAN RENSBERG: There are many commercial groups which were way ahead of us already,...(intervention)

UNKNOWN: What I wanted to hear was, was it supposed to be a covert kind of thing, not a vaccine that you sort of apply to people quite openly?

DR VAN RENSBERG: It was generally considered very much covert and it would be for instance too politically sensitive at that time for the government to go to the Medical Research Council and say here's R5 million a year, we want you to do this project, at that time it would have been far too politically sensitive for the Medical Research Council to be involved in something like that.

UNKNOWN: But was the idea that it must be something that you can apply clandestinely or covertly or was the intention that it must be something that you can apply to people quite openly?

DR VAN RENSBERG: The intentions stated by the people who requested it were, as I have said,  to use it again on Savimbi's lady soldiers and in the refugee camps.  That is what they said.  What they intended is speculation, but we had our fears.

UNKNOWN: And the idea was to decrease or to stop fertility completely.

DR VAN RENSBERG: To decrease the birth rate.  Preferably you got a 90%  plus effectiveness, so the type of vaccine that it would have been would be sort-of one to five years effectiveness, it will wear off.  In fact you can give antibodies, you can neutralise those of them that are there, it could be reversible.  You're not doing permanent damage to these people, but you can delay birth for a few years at the best, that's the best it would have worked.

UNKNOWN: Can I just find out, I just want to understand, I just want to know if I heard you properly.  Was the idea that it was something that could have been applied to people covertly without them knowing ...(intervention)