Jacob Zuma

Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma (; born 12 April 1942) is a South African politician
who served as the fourth democratically elected President of South Africa from the 2009 general election until his resignation on 14 February 2018. Zuma is also referred to by his initials JZ (pronounced "jay-zee") and his clan name Msholozi.
Zuma served as Deputy President of South Africa from 1999 to 2005, but was dismissed by President Thabo Mbeki in 2005 after Zuma's financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, was convicted of soliciting a bribe. Zuma was elected President of the African National Congress (ANC) on 18 December 2007 after defeating Mbeki at the ANC conference in Polokwane. On 20 September 2008, Mbeki announced his resignation after being recalled by the ANC's National Executive Committee. The recall came after South African High Court Judge Christopher Nicholson ruled Mbeki had improperly interfered with the operations of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), including the prosecution of Jacob Zuma for corruption.
Zuma led the ANC to victory in the 2009 general election and was elected President of South Africa. He was re-elected as ANC leader at the ANC conference in Mangaung on 18 December 2012, defeating challenger Kgalema Motlanthe by a large majority, and remained president of South Africa after the 2014 general election, although his party suffered a decline in support, partly due to growing dissatisfaction with Zuma as president.
Zuma faced significant legal challenges before and during his presidency. He was charged with rape in 2005, but was acquitted. He has fought a long legal battle over allegations of racketeering and corruption, resulting from his financial advisor Schabir Shaik's conviction for corruption and fraud. On 6 April 2009, the NPA dropped the charges against Zuma, citing political interference, although the decision was successfully challenged by opposition parties, and the charges were before the NPA for reconsideration. After extensive state-funded upgrades to his rural homestead at Nkandla, the Public Protector found that Zuma had benefited improperly from the expenditure, and the Constitutional Court unanimously held in 2016's "Economic Freedom Fighters v Speaker of the National Assembly" that Zuma had failed to uphold the country's constitution, resulting in calls for his resignation and a failed impeachment attempt in the National Assembly. Zuma's rule is estimated to have cost the South African economy R1 trillion (approximately US$83 billion). He has also been implicated in reports of state capture through his friendship with the influential Gupta family. He survived multiple motions of no confidence, both in parliament and within the ANC.
On 18 December 2017, Cyril Ramaphosa was elected to succeed Zuma as President of the ANC at the ANC Conference at Nasrec, Johannesburg. Subsequent months saw growing pressure on Zuma to resign as President of South Africa, culminating in the ANC "recalling" him as President of South Africa. Facing a motion of no confidence in parliament, Zuma announced his resignation on 14 February 2018, and was succeeded by Ramaphosa the next day. In October 2019, Ramaphosa stated that corruption under Zuma had cost South Africa more than R500Bn.
Early life and political career.
Zuma was born in Nkandla, Natal Province (now part of the province of KwaZulu-Natal). His father was a policeman, who died when Zuma was five, and his mother was a domestic worker. His middle name, Gedleyihlekisa, means "one who smiles while causing you harm" in Zulu. He received no formal schooling.
As a child, Zuma constantly moved around Natal Province and the suburbs of Durban. He has two brothers, Michael and Joseph.
Imprisonment and exile.
Zuma began engaging in politics at an early age, and joined the African National Congress (ANC) in 1959. He became an active member of Umkhonto we Sizwe in 1962, following the South African government's banning of the ANC the previous year.
That year, he was arrested with a group of 45 recruits near Zeerust in the western Transvaal, currently part of the North West Province. Convicted of conspiring to overthrow the apartheid government, a government led by the white minority, Zuma was sentenced to ten years imprisonment, which he served on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela and other notable ANC leaders also imprisoned during this time. Whilst imprisoned, Zuma served as a referee for prisoners' association football games, organised by the prisoners' own governing body, Makana F.A.
After his release from prison, Zuma was instrumental in the re-establishment of ANC underground structures in the Natal province. During this time Zuma joined the African National Congress's Department of Intelligence where he later became the department's Head of Intelligence.
Zuma first left South Africa in 1975, and met Thabo Mbeki in Swaziland, and proceeded to Mozambique, where he dealt with the arrival of thousands of exiles in the wake of the Soweto uprising. He became a member of the ANC National Executive Committee in 1977. He also served as Deputy Chief Representative of the ANC in Mozambique, a post he occupied until the signing of the Nkomati Accord between the Mozambican and South African governments in 1984. After signing the Accord, he was appointed as Chief Representative of the ANC.
He served on the ANC's political and military council when it was formed in the mid-1980s, and was elected to the politburo of the SACP in April 1989.
In December 1986, the South African government requested Mozambican authorities expel six senior members of the ANC, including Zuma. As a result of the pressure applied by the apartheid government on Mozambique, he was forced to leave Mozambique in January 1987. He moved to the ANC Head Office in Lusaka, Zambia, where he was appointed Head of Underground Structures and shortly thereafter Chief of the Intelligence Department.
Zuma was also a member of the South African Communist Party (SACP); he joined in 1963, briefly serving on the party's Politburo, and left the party in 1990.
Return from exile.
Following the end of the ban on the ANC in February 1990, Zuma was one of the first ANC leaders to return to South Africa to begin the process of negotiations.
In 1990, he was elected Chairperson of the ANC for the Southern Natal region and took a leading role in fighting political violence in the region between members of the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). He was elected the Deputy Secretary-General of the ANC the next year, and in January 1994, he was nominated as the ANC candidate for the Premiership of KwaZulu Natal.
The IFP, led by Mangosuthu Buthelezi, put particular emphasis on Zulu pride and political power during this period. In this context, Zuma's Zulu heritage made his role especially important in the ANC's efforts to end the violence, to emphasise the political (rather than ethnic) roots of the violence, and to win the support of Zulu people in the region.
MEC of Economic Affairs and Tourism.
After Nelson Mandela was elected president and Thabo Mbeki his deputy, Zuma became the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Economic Affairs and Tourism in his home Province of KwaZulu-Natal.
Deputy presidency.
After the 1994 general election, with the ANC becoming a governing party but having lost KwaZulu-Natal province to the IFP, he was appointed as Member of the Executive Committee (MEC) of Economic Affairs and Tourism for the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government.
In December 1994, he was elected National Chairperson of the ANC and chairperson of the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal, and was re-elected to the latter position in 1996. He was elected Deputy President of the ANC at the National Conference held at Mafikeng in December 1997, and he was subsequently appointed executive Deputy President of South Africa in June 1999.
During this time, he also worked in Kampala, Uganda, as facilitator of the Burundi peace process, along with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. Museveni chairs the Great Lakes Regional Initiative, a grouping of regional presidents overseeing the peace process in Burundi, where several armed Hutu groups took up arms in 1993, against a government and army dominated by the Tutsi minority that they claimed had assassinated the first president elected from the Hutu majority.
Criminal charges.
Corruption charges.
Zuma became embroiled in a corruption controversy, one of many, after his financial advisor, Schabir Shaik, was charged with corruption and fraud. Bulelani Ngcuka, the national director of Public Prosecutions at the time, investigated both Zuma and the Chief Whip of the ANC, Tony Yengeni, after allegations of abuse of power were levelled against them. This concerned improper influence in the controversial arms deal, and the question of financial benefit as a result of such influence. While Yengeni was found guilty, the case was dropped against Zuma, with Ngcuka stating, "...that there was prima facie evidence of corruption, but insufficient to win the case in court."
In 2004, Zuma became a key figure mentioned in the Schabir Shaik trial. Shaik, a Durban businessman and his financial advisor, was questioned over bribery in the course of the purchase of Valour class frigates for the South African Navy, a proposed waterfront development in Durban, and lavish spending on Zuma's residence in Nkandla. In the trial, Shaik was shown to have solicited a bribe of R500,000 per annum for Zuma in return for Zuma's support for the defence contractor Thomson-CSF, documented in the infamous "encrypted fax". On 2 June 2005, Shaik was found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Judge Hilary Squires elaborates in detail on the numerous transactions that transpired between Zuma and Shaik, summarising with "all the accused companies were used at one time or another to pay sums of money to Jacob Zuma". The media mis-quoted Squires with the phrase "A generally corrupt relationship" (existed between Zuma and Shaik), whereas these exact words do not appear in the court transcripts. To the defence of the originators of this phrase, the full transcript of the judgment against Shaik actually does mention Zuma 471 times, uses word "corrupt" or "corruption" 54 times, and contains 12 sentences with both the word "corrupt" and the name "Zuma". Media sources later switched to the phrase "mutually beneficial symbiosis", from the judgment's paragraph 235: "It would be flying in the face of commonsense and ordinary human nature to think that he did not realise the advantages to him of continuing to enjoy Zuma's goodwill to an even greater extent than before 1997; and even if nothing was ever said between them to establish the mutually beneficial symbiosis that the evidence shows existed, the circumstances of the commencement and the sustained continuation thereafter of these payments, can only have generated a sense of obligation in the recipient."
After twelve days of intense media speculation about his future, President Thabo Mbeki relieved Zuma of his duties as deputy president on 14 June 2005. Mbeki told a joint sitting of parliament that "in the interest of the honourable Deputy President, the government, our young democratic system and our country, it would be best to release the honourable Jacob Zuma from his responsibilities as Deputy President of the republic and member of the cabinet." Zuma then resigned as a member of parliament.
In the aftermath of the Shaik trial, Zuma was formally charged with corruption by the NPA. The case was struck from the roll of the Pietermaritzburg High Court, after the prosecution's application for a postponement (petitioned in order to allow the NPA to secure admissible forms of documentation required as evidence) was dismissed. In dismissing the application for postponement, the Court rendered moot the defence's application for a permanent stay of proceedings which would prevent Zuma from being criminally prosecuted.
Zuma's legal team continued to delay proceedings and in spite of Zuma's claim that he desired the matter to appear in court, succeeded in making critical evidence unavailable to the court resulting in the prosecution making an application for postponement on the set date. As the prosecution was not ready, the case was struck from the roll after the prosecution's application for a postponement was dismissed, however Zuma's legal team was unsuccessful in its attempts to have the courts grant a permanent stay of proceedings (which would have rendered Zuma immune to prosecution on the charges). This left Zuma open to being recharged with corruption as soon as the NPA completed preparing its case.
On 8 November 2007, the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the NPA with respect to appeals relating to various search and seizure exercises performed by them, and rejected four appeals made by Zuma's defence team. This ruling pertained to the NPA obtaining the personal diary of senior member of a French arms company, which may have provided information relating to Zuma's possible corrupt practices during the awarding of an arms deal.
On 28 December 2007, the Scorpions served Zuma an indictment to stand trial in the High Court on various counts of racketeering, money laundering, corruption and fraud. A conviction and sentence to a term of imprisonment of more than one year would have rendered Zuma ineligible for election to the South African Parliament, and consequently he would not have been eligible to serve as President of South Africa.
Charges declared unlawful.
Zuma appeared in court on 4 August 2008. On 12 September 2008, Pietermaritzburg Judge Chris Nicholson held that Zuma's corruption charges were unlawful on procedural grounds in that the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) did not give Zuma a chance to make representations before deciding to charge him (a requirement of the South Africa Constitution), and directed the state to pay legal costs. Nicholson also added, however that he believed political interference played a significant role in the decision to recharge Zuma, although he did not say this was the reason why he held that the charges brought against Zuma were unlawful, though it was implied. Nicholson also stressed that his ruling did not relate to Zuma's guilt or innocence, but was merely on a procedural point. Various media reports had incorrectly reported that the charges against Zuma had been dismissed. This was not the case. It remained competent for the NDPP to recharge Zuma, however, only once he had been given an opportunity to make representations to the NDPP in respect of the NDPP's decision to do so. In paragraph 47 of the Judgment, Judge Nicholson wrote:
The obligation to hear representations forms part of the "audi alteram partem" principle. What is required is that a person who may be adversely affected by a decision be given an opportunity to make representations with a view to procuring a favourable result. The affected person should usually be informed of the gist or the substance of the case, which he is to answer.
The Court held that the NDPP's failure to follow the procedure outlined in Section 179(5)(d) of the Constitution rendered the decision by the NDPP to recharge Zuma unlawful. Judge Nicholson found that there were various inferences to be drawn from the timing of the charges levelled against Zuma (such as the fact that he was charged soon after he was elected president of the ANC) which would warrant a conclusion that there had been a degree of political interference by the Executive arm of government. Judge Nicholson writes in paragraph 210 of his judgement:
The timing of the indictment [of Zuma] by Mr Mpshe on 28 December 2007, after the President suffered a political defeat at Polokwane was most unfortunate. This factor, together with the suspension of Mr Pikoli, who was supposed to be independent and immune from executive interference, persuade me that the most plausible inference is that the baleful political influence was continuing.
In paragraph 220 of the Judgement Judge Nicholson went on to write:
There is a distressing pattern in the behaviour which I have set out above indicative of political interference, pressure or influence. It commences with the "political leadership" given by Minister Maduna to Mr Ngcuka, when he declined to prosecute the applicant, to his communications and meetings with Thint representatives and the other matters to which I have alluded. Given the rules of evidence the court is forced to accept the inference which is the least favourable to the party's cause who had peculiar knowledge of the true facts. It is certainly more egregious than the "hint or suggestion" of political interference referred to in the Yengeni matter. It is a matter of grave concern that this process has taken place in the new South Africa given the ravages it caused under the Apartheid order.
Prior to the hearing, there had been a spate of criticism of the South African Judiciary by Zuma supporters, amongst whom were some prominent legal minds, such as Paul Ngobeni. In that context, the irony was that this was the third time the South African Judiciary had found in his favour, including Zuma's acquittal of the rape charge brought against him. The NDPP soon announced its intention to appeal the decision.
Charges reinstated on appeal.
Thabo Mbeki filed an affidavit and applied to the Constitutional Court to appeal Pietermaritzburg High Court Judge Chris Nicholson's ruling:
It was improper for the court to make such far-reaching "vexatious, scandalous and prejudicial" findings concerning me, to be judged and condemned on the basis of the findings in the Zuma matter. The interests of justice, in my respectful submission would demand that the matter be rectified. These adverse findings have led to my being recalled by my political party, the ANC – a request I have acceded to as a committed and loyal member of the ANC for the past 52 years. I fear that if not rectified, I might suffer further prejudice.
Tlali Tlali, NPA spokesman, stated by phone from Pretoria, on 23 September, "We have received the papers. It's under consideration."
The judgement for the appeal was handed down on 12 January 2009 at the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein. Deputy Judge Louis Harms had to rule on two aspects of the appeal. The first aspect was whether or not Zuma had the right to be invited to make representations to the NPA before they decided to reinstate charges of bribery and corruption against him. The second aspect was whether Judge Nicholson was correct in implying political meddling by the then President Thabo Mbeki with regards to the NPA's decision to charge Zuma.
On the question of the NPA's obligation to invite representations when reviewing decisions, Harms found that Nicholson's interpretation of section 179 of the Constitution was incorrect in that the NPA did not have such an obligation and thus was free to have charged Zuma as it did. On the question of Nicholson's inferences of political meddling by Mbeki, Harms found that the lower court "overstepped the limits of its authority".
Charges dropped.
On 6 April 2009, the NPA dropped all charges against Zuma, as well as co-accused French arms company Thint, in light of new revelations about serious flaws in the prosecution.
The revelations were in the form of intercepted phone calls which Zuma's lawyers claimed showed that the head of the Scorpions, Leonard McCarthy, and the former National Director of Public Prosecutions, Bulelani Ngcuka, had conspired over the timing of the charges laid against Zuma, to the political advantage of Zuma's political rival, President Thabo Mbeki.
The announcement of the withdrawal of charges was made by the acting head of the NPA, Mokothedi Mpshe, who however stressed that the withdrawal was due to abuse which left the legal process "tainted", and did not amount to an acquittal.
Just before the NPA's announcement, however, at least two political parties intimated that they would consider legal action of their own should the charges be dropped.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) subsequently filed for a judicial review of the NPA's decision, with party leader Helen Zille stating that Mpshe had "not taken a decision based in law, but [instead had] buckled to political pressure". The case was set to be heard on 9 June 2009.
While Zuma filed his responses timely, Mpshe delayed the hearing of the matter, requesting two extensions to file the NPA's response. NPA spokesperson Mthunzi Mhaga said he could not file papers because there were "outstanding matters" to be resolved. Zille contended that Zuma's response was fundamentally wrong and "devoid of any constitutional basis".
Whilst the legal challenges continued, a survey showed that, as at June 2009, more than half of South Africans believed President Jacob Zuma was doing a good job. The poll, conducted by TNS Research Studies in the last half of June 2009, revealed that Zuma's approval ratings had steadily improved. Around 57% of the people polled said they thought Zuma was a capable leader – this was up 3% from April 2009 when the president was inaugurated. In November 2008, just months after Mbeki was recalled and when Zuma was facing graft charges, only 36% of South Africans were positive about him.
On Friday, 29 April 2016, the High Court in Pretoria has said the decision taken by former NPA head Mokotedi Mpshe to drop corruption charges against President Jacob Zuma in 2009 was irrational. Judge Aubrey Ledwaba found three contradictions in Mr Mpshe's affidavits explaining his decision to withdraw the charges against President Zuma:
On Friday 13 October 2017, The Supreme Court of Appeal upheld the 29 April 2016 judgement handed down by the High Court stating that the decision to dismiss the case against Jacob Zuma was not upheld by any jurisprudence. Judge Eric Leach's ruling was made after an application was brought before the court by Zuma and the NPA to review the original judgement, resulting in them having to pay the costs of the failed application.
This ruling lays the path for charges to be brought against Zuma, who was given a 30 November deadline to present reasons to the NPA as to why 783 charges against him should not be reinstated.
Continued support after corruption charges.
While serving as deputy president, Zuma enjoyed considerable support in parts of the left wing of the ANC, including many in the ANC Youth League, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). While Zuma faced corruption charges, these organisations remained supportive of him.
Zuma's dismissal was interpreted in two ways. Many international observers hailed it as a clear sign that the South African government was dedicated to rooting out corruption within its own ranks. On the other hand, some within South Africa focused on the fact that Zuma and Mbeki represent different constituencies within the African National Congress. Some left-wing supporters claimed that Mbeki and his more market-oriented wing of the party had conspired to oust Zuma to entrench their dominance in the ANC.
Zuma's cause rallied large crowds of supporters at each of his corruption-related court appearances in 2005. At one court date, Zuma supporters burned T-shirts with Mbeki's picture on them, which earned the condemnation of the ANC; Zuma and his allies urged a return to party discipline for subsequent gatherings. At the next court date in November, Zuma supporters numbering in the thousands gathered to support him; he addressed the Durban crowd in Zulu, urging party unity and singing the apartheid-era struggle song "Lethu Mshini Wami" with lyrics that translate literally as "bring me my machine" but understood to refer to a machine gun. At an October tour for the ANC Youth League elsewhere in the country, Zuma also earned the cheers of large crowds. While his political strength was at least partly based on his relationships within intra-party politics, one analyst argued that his supporters' loyalty could be explained as rooted in a Zulu approach to loyalty and mutual aid.
Because of his support among elements of the party, Zuma remained a powerful political figure, retaining a high position in the ANC even after his dismissal as the country's deputy president. A panel of political analysts convened in November 2005 agreed that if he was to be found innocent of the corruption charges brought against him, it would be hard for any other potential ANC candidate to beat Zuma in the race for the country's presidency in 2009. However, these analysts also questioned whether Zuma was indeed a left-wing candidate of the sort that many of his supporters seem to seek, and noted that the global and national economic constraints that have shaped Mbeki's presidency would be no different in the next presidential term.
Rape charges.
In December 2005, Zuma was charged with raping a 31-year-old woman at his home in Forest Town, Gauteng. The alleged victim was from a prominent ANC family, the daughter of a deceased struggle comrade of Zuma, and also an AIDS activist who was known to be HIV-positive. Zuma denied the charges and claimed that the sex was consensual.
Even before charges were filed, as rumours about rape accusations surfaced later in November, Zuma's political prospects began to appear to take a turn for the worse. Most of his higher-level political supporters could not respond to these new charges the way they had the corruption charges. In a hearing prior to the rape trial, a group of thousands of his supporters gathered near the courthouse, as a smaller gathering of anti-rape groups demonstrated on behalf of the alleged rape victim. As he did throughout the trial, Zuma sang "Lethu Mshini Wami" ("Bring me my machine gun") with the crowd, and ANC Youth League and SACP Youth League spokesmen spoke in support of Zuma.
As the rape trial proceeded, reports surfaced that the SACP was severely divided over how to address the issue of Zuma and the SACP's relationship to him. Many members of the party's youth wing supported Zuma while others in the SACP were sceptical about the value of rallying behind a particular person as opposed to emphasizing principles of governance.
Despite the defection of some former supporters, many Zuma supporters continued to rally outside the courthouse, arousing criticism by anti-rape groups for regular attacks on the integrity and moral standing of Zuma's accuser, insults yelled at a close friend of the accuser, and even stones thrown at a woman that members of the crowd mistook for the accuser. Zuma's defence team introduced evidence relating to the woman's sexual past, and asserted that the sex that took place was consensual. The prosecution asserted that her lack of resistance was due to a state of shock, and that the relationship between the two was like that of a 'father-daughter' pair.
The trial also generated political controversy when Zuma, who at the time headed the National AIDS Council, admitted that he had not used a condom when having sex with the woman who now accuses him of rape, despite knowing that she was HIV-positive. He stated in court that he took a shower afterwards to "cut the risk of contracting HIV". This statement was condemned by the judge, health experts, and AIDS activists. The popular South African comic strip, Madam & Eve, and well known political cartoonist, Zapiro, repeatedly lampooned the matter. HIV educators emphasised that this would do nothing to prevent HIV transmission.
On 8 May 2006, the court acquitted Zuma of rape, finding that the sexual act in question was consensual, but also censuring Zuma for having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman who was not his partner.
As his rape trial ended, many South Africans wondered how their political system would recover from the rifts that Zuma's trials have exposed. A "Mail & Guardian" analysis saw these events as especially troubling:The political damage is incalculable, with the ruling African National Congress now an openly divided and faltering movement. This has had a domino effect on the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions, which have floundered and fractured in the face of damaging charges against a man they ardently backed as the country's next president.The trial has been fought against the backdrop of a bitter succession war between Mbeki and Zuma. ... Mbeki's support in the ANC has crumbled, with the party faithful refusing to accept that he will anoint a leader... But even Zuma's most diehard supporters privately acknowledge that he cannot now be president, regardless of the trial outcome.Nonetheless, "Business Day"'s Karima Brown told "The Guardian" after the rape trial's verdict was handed down: Jacob Zuma is back. This poses a serious dilemma for the ANC leadership. Now Zuma is marching back into Luthuli House [the ANC party HQ]. He will demand to be reinstated as deputy president and the others will find it difficult to block him … This is a major victory for Zuma's political career.The prospect of Zuma's return as a contender for the presidency caused concern for international investors. An Independent analyst suggested, "The fear of seeing Zuma and his crowd marching to the Union Buildings wielding machine guns is unnerving mostly to the middle class and businessmen, according to recent surveys."
As a backlash to the frenzied media following his rape trial, Zuma filed a series of defamation lawsuits on 30 June 2006 against various South African media outlets for publishing content that allegedly besmirched his public profile, in the form of cartoons, commentary, photos and parody pieces. The media outlets that came under fire were "The Star" for R20 million, "Rapport" for R10 million, Highveld Stereo for R6 million, "The Citizen" for R5 million, "Sunday Sun" for R5 million, "Sunday Independent" for R5 million, and "Sunday World" for R5 million.
Zuma appointed former Conservative Party MP advocate Jurg Prinsloo, as well as Wycliffe Mothuloe, to tackle his so-called "crucifixion by the media". Zuma said:
For a period of five years my person has been subjected to all types of allegations and innuendo, paraded through the media and other corridors of influence without these allegations tested. I have thereby been denied my constitutional right to reply and defend myself.
2018 corruption charges.
On 16 March 2018, it was confirmed by the director of public prosecutions that Zuma would face 18 charges of corruption, including more than 700 counts of fraud and money laundering. Zuma's political allies within the ANC and Tripartite Alliance protested the prospect of a corruption trail. Some allies such as Julius Malema (then leader of the African National Congress Youth League) and Zwelinzima Vavi stated that they would "kill for Zuma" whilst other Zuma allies stated that the trail would threaten South Africa's political stability. Judge Nicholson set aside the National Prosecuting Authority' case against Zuma stating that he could not rule out political interference in it.
South African cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro published a controversial cartoon criticising Zuma's allies actions comparing it to the rape of Lady Justice.
On 3 February 2020, a court issued an arrest warrant for former president Zuma on corruption charges.
Thales arms dealing charges.
On January 22, 2020, the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Pietermaritzburg ruled that Zuma and the French arms company Thales could be criminally tried for alleged activities of illegal arms dealings.
Rise to the Presidency.
On 14 June 2005, President Thabo Mbeki removed Zuma from his post as Deputy President due to allegations of corruption and fraud related to the $5-billion weapons acquisition deal by the South African government in 1999. Zuma's successor as Deputy President of South Africa was Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the wife of Bulelani Ngcuka. Mlambo-Ngcuka had been Minister of Minerals and Energy since 1999. While her appointment was widely welcomed by the business community, she was booed publicly at many ANC rallies by Zuma supporters between the time corruption charges had been filed but before rape charges were made, with the first booing taking place in Utrecht.
Election as ANC president.
In terms of party tradition, as the deputy president of the ANC, Zuma was already in line to succeed Mbeki. Mbeki however sought a third term as ANC president, though the South African Constitution would not have allowed him a third term as President of South Africa. The party structures held their nominations conferences in October and November 2007, where Zuma appeared favourite for the post of ANC President, and, by implication, the President of South Africa in 2009. With then-incumbent ANC- and South African President Thabo Mbeki as his opposition, Zuma was elected President of the ANC on 18 December 2007 with 2,329 votes, beating Mbeki's 1,505 votes.
On 28 December 2007, the NPA served Zuma an indictment to stand trial in the High Court on various counts of racketeering, money laundering, corruption, and fraud.
Zuma was re-elected as ANC leader at the ANC conference in Manguang on 18 December 2012, defeating challenger and then Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe by a large majority.
President of South Africa (2009–2018).
In September 2008, the breakdown in the relationship between the ruling ANC and its presidential appointee, Thabo Mbeki, reached a tipping point, with the ANC NEC's decision to recall Mbeki. Mbeki elected not to challenge this decision and resigned as President of South Africa. The ANC announced that the party's deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe, would become president until 2009 general elections, after which it was intended that Zuma would become president. Zuma declared that he would prefer to only serve one term as president.
The ANC won the national election on 6 May 2009 and Zuma was sworn in as President of South Africa on 9 May 2009.
Release of Shaik on parole.
In March 2009, Schabir Shaik was released from prison just 28 months into his fifteen-year sentence. He had been granted medical parole, a leniency meant only for the terminally ill, despite the opinion of his doctors that he was fighting fit and free for hospital discharge. Media speculation had it that Zuma may have played a role in this eventuality, but the ANC President's spokesman firmly denied it. Only days before, however, he had publicly stated that, as President of South Africa, he would personally ensure Shaik's release.
Ngcobo's nomination as Chief Justice.
On 6 August 2009, Zuma nominated Sandile Ngcobo as Chief Justice of South Africa, drawing criticism from four opposition groups. On 1 October 2009, the appointment was confirmed. The Democratic Alliance, the Congress of the People, the Inkatha Freedom Party and the Independent Democrats accused Zuma of failing to consult properly ahead of his nomination of Ngcobo. The opposition urged Zuma to restart the process from scratch saying they would prefer current Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke for the post.
Failure to disclose assets.
As President of South Africa, Zuma was required to declare his financial interests within 60 days of taking office. But, as of March 2010, he had failed to do so, nine months after taking office. This led to calls for him to do so by opposition parties, and ANC alliance partner COSATU. ANC spokesman, Brian Sokutu, stated that Zuma constituted a "special case", because of his "large family" making it difficult to declare his assets. The ANC later distanced itself from this statement. Zuma disclosed his interests shortly after.
Death of Nelson Mandela.
Zuma officially announced the death of Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first democratically elected president, in a press conference on 5 December 2013. Zuma was booed and heckled by the crowd at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela. Al Jazeera reported that "for many South Africans, Zuma represents some of the nation's least appealing qualities. They consider their deeply flawed president and faltering government and mutter dark thoughts about a failing state and a banana republic."
Second term.
On 18 January 2014, it was reported that Zuma would be the sole candidate for the ANC in the upcoming national election. It was reported that, in spite of speculation to the contrary, because of the controversies surrounding him, the ANC was "united behind Zuma" and would not field another candidate for the presidency in the upcoming national election. ANC Deputy Secretary General Jesse Duarte stated "The policy is that the president of the ANC is always the candidate for the election. We don't have another candidate and there will be no other candidate. Let us be clear."
On 26 January 2014, it was reported that at least four of the 11 ANC regional leaders in KwaZulu-Natal had confirmed the existence of a "resolution" taken to approach Zuma to ask him not to run for a second term as the country's president. The resolution had reportedly gained momentum in November 2013 when the ANC was preparing for the national list conference, however, it "lost traction" after the death of Nelson Mandela.
On 21 May 2014, following the 2014 general elections, in which the ANC retained their majority, Zuma was elected for a second term as president by the National Assembly.
Research group IPSOS has in part credited Jacob Zuma's presidency for the rise of populism in South Africa. Nedbank, one of South Africa's largest banks, estimates that poor policy decisions, maladministration, and corruption during Zuma's second term cost the South African economy R470 billion (US$33.7 billion).
Foreign policy.
Zuma congratulated Bashar al-Assad on winning the 2014 Syrian presidential election.
In 2015, Zuma stated that the exodus from Libya had been caused by NATO military intervention, approved by Barack Obama and David Cameron, in the civil war in Libya in 2011.
Political-economic orientation.
Zuma has described himself as a socialist and became president with the support of a left-wing coalition of trade unions and the South African Communist Party, as well as the ANC Women's League and the ANC Youth League. However, "The Guardian" (UK) has also reported that Zuma has tried "to reassure foreign investors their interests will be protected".
Zuma and Zimbabwe.
The African National Congress, of which Zuma was president, historically has considered the ZANU-PF party a natural ally, born out of mutual struggle against white minority rule. Former South African president Thabo Mbeki had never publicly criticised Mugabe's policies – preferring "quiet diplomacy" rather than "megaphone diplomacy", his term for the harsh Western condemnations of Mugabe's leadership. However, the left of the party and extra-party organisations such as the ANC Youth League, the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) have advocated for a tougher stance on Zimbabwe. It was from these organisations that Zuma derived his support.
Zuma's stance on Zimbabwe was mixed. In a 2006 interview with the German magazine "Der Spiegel", he expressed more sympathetic sentiments towards Mugabe, saying that "Europeans often ignore the fact that Mugabe is very popular among Africans. In their eyes, he has given blacks their country back after centuries of colonialism." He continued: "The people love him, so how can we condemn him? Many in Africa believe that there is a racist aspect to European and American criticism of Mugabe. Millions of blacks died in Angola, the Republic of Congo and Rwanda. A few whites lost their lives in Zimbabwe, unfortunately, and already the West is bent out of shape."
However, by December 2007, he was more forthright in criticising Zimbabwe's leadership, increasingly defining his own policy in contrast to that of Mbeki:
It is even more tragic that other world leaders who witness repression pretend it is not happening, or is exaggerated. When history eventually deals with the dictators, those who stood by and watched should also bear the consequences. A shameful quality of the modern world is to turn away from injustice and ignore the hardships of others.
Zuma criticised Mbeki, accusing him of being lenient on dictators.
Following the disputed elections in Zimbabwe on 29 March 2008, he became critical of the election process in Zimbabwe referring to delays in the outcome as "suspicious". In a press conference on 24 June, he asserted: "We cannot agree with ZANU-PF. We cannot agree with them on values. We fought for the right of people to vote, we fought for democracy." At an ANC dinner in July, he rebuked Mugabe for refusing to step down.
Nkandla homestead and Public Protector findings.
After Zuma became president, his private homestead at Nkandla in rural KwaZulu-Natal was substantially upgraded by the state. In November 2013 opposition parties accused Zuma of having used taxpayer funds not only for security improvements, but also private additions and improvements to his home. Zuma answered in parliament that he was unaware of the scale of the work, but agreed to two investigations, one to probe its rising costs, and another to determine any breaches of parliamentary spending rules. The Public Protector's report "Secure in Comfort" found that Zuma and his family had benefited improperly from the upgrades, that a swimming pool (claimed to be a "fire pool"), amphitheatre, cattle kraal and chicken run were not security features, and that Zuma had violated the executive ethics code and had not asked "questions regarding the scale, cost and affordability of the Nkandla project." After rival reports by the police's Special Investigative Unit and a parliamentary ad hoc committee attempted to exonerate Zuma, opposition parties went to the Constitutional Court to establish whether the Public Protector's report was binding. Shortly before the Constitutional Court hearing in February 2016, Zuma's attorneys recognised that the Public Protector's findings were binding and said that Zuma was ready to pay back part of the cost of the upgrade. On 31 March 2016, the Constitutional Court delivered a unanimous judgement in "Economic Freedom Fighters v Speaker of the National Assembly and Others" stating that the Public Protector's report was binding and that Zuma and the National Assembly had failed to uphold the country's constitution. The court ordered National Treasury to determine the amount that Zuma must pay back and ordered Zuma to do so within 45 days of the court's approval of the National Treasury report.
In the immediate wake of the judgment, Julius Malema and Mmusi Maimane, the leaders of the two victorious applicants in the case, called for Zuma to step down.[47][48][49] However, Zuma sought to downplay the judgment. In a press statement the following evening, he said he welcomed the judgment and had always accepted the Public Protector's reports were binding, and noted that the Court found he had been entitled to institute a parallel investigative process and had acted "honestly" and "in good faith".[50] Legal commentators condemned these claims as serious misrepresentations of the judgment.[51][52] They pointed out that it could not possibly have been the case, as Zuma claimed, that he was merely adopting the High Court's approach to the powers of the Public Protector in its "DA v SABC" judgment, because that was handed down six weeks "after" Zuma signaled his intention not to comply with her report.[43] Commentators also condemned the Presidency's statement[53][54] that the Court had never found Zuma breached his office, since that was the judgment's unmistakable implication.[55][56]
But the ANC continued to support Zuma. The ANC Women's League had released a statement hours after the judgment saying its faith in Zuma "remains unshaken". Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe, speaking on behalf of the so-called Top Six, said he "welcomed" Zuma's apologetic statement but that calls for his impeachment were "over-exaggerated". Chief Whip Jackson Mthembu and Deputy Minister of Justice John Jeffery took the view that, although Zuma had breached the Constitution, the breach was not "serious". The impeachment bid by opposition MPs on 5 April 2016 failed by over 120 votes. Some were surprised that even Zuma's opponents within the ANC like Cyril Ramaphosa and Pravin Gordhan had voted against the motion. The Congress of the People, an opposition party, said it would boycott parliamentary proceedings in light of the National Assembly's failure to implement the Court's judgment.
Nevertheless, many analysts said the judgment might prove a fatal blow to Zuma, although factional battles within the ANC would be the ultimate decider. One suggested that powerful ANC members had lost faith in Zuma and might move to oust him at a more opportune moment. The South African Communist Party, part of Zuma's own Tripartite Alliance, had been skeptical about the adequacy of his response to the judgment. Some ANC members booed Zuma at his next subsequent appearance. And several prominent members of civil society and former ANC insiders, including Ahmed Kathrada, Ronnie Kasrils, Trevor Manuel, Cheryl Carolus, and retired Constitutional Court judge Zak Yacoob, called for Zuma's resignation, prompting a backlash from certain Zuma allies. The South African Council of Churches did the same, saying Zuma had "lost all moral authority". The Gauteng ANC, led by noted Zuma critic Paul Mashatile, formally resolved that Zuma must resign; doubts were raised about Zuma's leadership even within his traditional strongholds like the ANC's Limpopo branches; and an internal ANC memorandum sent by party veterans to the Top Six allegedly demanded Zuma's recall and compared him to detested apartheid-era President P. W. Botha. Finally, members of the Gupta family, thought to be Zuma's long-standing allies and crucial financial backers, resigned from their major holding company and fled South Africa for Dubai in the week after the judgment – leaving Zuma, in the opinion of some analysts, extremely vulnerable. In the wake of these developments, Malema said it was now time to "crush the head of the snake". On 12 April 2016, Max du Preez said the key question, "now that the balance of power has turned irrevocably against Zuma", was how to ensure he makes a managed – and non-violent – exit.
Gupta family relationship.
Zuma's close and allegedly corrupt relationship with the Gupta family has been a major source of discontent within both his own party – the ANC – and the South African public. The portmanteau "Zupta", a combination of "Z" from "Zuma" and the "upta" from "Gupta", was first coined by the Economic Freedom Fighters at the 2016 South African presidential state of the nation address when they disrupted the event by repeatedly chanting "Zupta must fall" to express their dissatisfaction with this relationship.
South African Opposition parties have made claims of "State Capture" following allegations that the Guptas, said to be close to President Jacob Zuma, his family and other ANC leaders, had insinuated themselves into a position where they could offer Cabinet positions and influence the running of government. These allegations were made in light of revelations by Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas and former MP Vytjie Mentor that they had been offered Cabinet positions by the Guptas at the family's home in Saxonwold, Johannesburg.
Dismissal of Nhlanhla Nene.
On 9 December 2015, President Jacob Zuma issued a statement replacing Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene with the little-known Des van Rooyen. It was widely suspected that Nene was replaced for reasons all related to him vetoing suspect and/or controversial uses of public funds including the vetoing of South African Airways (SAA) chairperson Dudu Myeni's attempt to purchase 5 Airbus A330s through an unnamed third party, not approving a proposed SAA direct flight route between Sudan and South Africa, Nene's resistance to approving funding for a nuclear deal with Russia, not approving the purchase of a new R4 billion Boeing 787 presidential plane, and the downgrading of South Africa's credit rating to just above 'junk' status by international rating agencies.
Strong links between both of Van Rooyen's top two advisers and the Gupta family came to light a few months later, prompting concerns that Nene's firing was an attempt at state capture by political and business associates of the Zuma family.
The dismissal of Nene caused a public outcry and a strongly negative reaction by international markets causing the rand to lose 10% of its value and the withdrawal of an estimated R180 billion from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in the two days following the announcement. In addition to the public and opposition political parties the business community, COSATU and other trade unions, the Communist Party of South Africa, as well as many within the ruling ANC called for Zuma to reverse the decision. Four days after the announcement on 13 December a senior ANC delegation met with Zuma and told him to reinstate Nene or appoint former minister of finance Pravin Gordhan. A few hours later Zuma announced that van Rooyen would be replaced by the better known and trusted Pravin Gordhan. This event is thought to have increased the rift between Zuma and the rest of the ANC including Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, something that Ramaphosa denied. Ranjeni Munusamy of the "Daily Maverick" stated that this has exposed President Zuma as a "weak leader who acted recklessly without proper advice" indicating that the firing of Nene has greatly damaged Zuma's political standing. In 2019 testimony into government corruption at the Zondo Commission of Inquiry the chief director of macro-economic policy at the National Treasury stated that Nene's dismissal had an immediate and long term negative impact on the South African economy.
Dismissal of Pravin Gordhan.
In the early hours of 31 March 2017, the Presidency announced a major cabinet reshuffle in which Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and his deputy Mcebisi Jonas were dismissed, with Malusi Gigaba appointed as the new Finance Minister. The reshuffle affected 10 cabinet ministers, 5 of whom were dismissed, and 10 deputy ministers. The reshuffle was strongly criticised by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and other senior ANC and SACP leaders, and led to increased calls for Zuma to resign, including opposition calls for a motion of no confidence and impeachment. The SACP's Second Deputy General Secretary Solly Afrika Mapaila indicated that ANC members of Parliament should themselves raise the prospect of a vote of no confidence in the President. Shortly after the removal of Pravin Gordhan, ratings agency Standard and Poor's downgraded South Africa's sovereign debt to BB+, commonly known as junk status. Partly in response to the dismissal of the Gordhan marches and protests were held on 7 April 2017 in South Africa's major cities with a total of 60,000 protesters taking part. The largest of the protests occurred in Cape Town with an estimated 12,000 to 80,000 participants and Pretoria with an estimated 25,000 joining protests at the Union Buildings.
2017 motion of no confidence.
On 7 August 2017, Speaker Baleka Mbete announced that she would permit a motion of no confidence in Zuma's government to proceed in the National Assembly via secret ballot. It was the eighth motion to be brought against Zuma in his presidency and the first to be held via secret ballot. After the vote was held the next day, the motion was defeated 198–177, with 25 abstentions. Around 20 ANC MPs voted in favor of the measure.
Succession and resignation.
From 2015, Jacob Zuma was understood to favour his ex-wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, to succeed him both as President of the African National Congress and as President of South Africa, in order to retain his control of the ANC and the state through her, and to avoid prosecution for still pending criminal charges. In December 2017, Dlamini-Zuma was defeated by Cyril Ramaphosa in the election for the ANC Presidency at the ANC Conference at Nasrec, Johannesburg.
Following the end of Zuma's term as ANC President, pressure grew for Zuma to be replaced as President of South Africa. The annual State of the Nation Address scheduled for 8 February was postponed indefinitely 2 days beforehand. After a week of discussions within ANC structures and between Ramaphosa and Zuma, the ANC announced on 13 February that Zuma had been requested to resign, but had refused, and that the ANC was therefore "recalling" him from the Presidency. Facing a motion of no confidence in Parliament scheduled for 15 February, Jacob Zuma announced his resignation with immediate effect in a late night address on 14 February. In July 2018, "City Press" reported that elements in the South African National Defence Force and State Security Agency had been unsuccessfully lobbied to launch a revolt to prevent Zuma's removal as President of the country during this period.
On 15 February, the National Assembly held an indirect presidential election, electing Ramaphosa unopposed. Ramaphosa was sworn in, and delivered the State of the Nation Address the following day.
Post-presidency.
Zuma was invited to attend the first State of the Nation Address by the new President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa along with former South African Presidents F.W De Klerk and Thabo Mbeki, but did not attend. He did attend a farewell cocktail party in his honour hosted by President Cyril Ramaphosa for his contribution to South Africa during the nine years of his presidency.
Zuma actively campaigned for the African National Congress' voter registration for the South African 2019 general elections in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal.
In March 2018 National Prosecuting Authority director, Shaun Abrahams announced that he would be reinstating corruption charges against Zuma.
On 6 April 2018, Zuma made his first appearance in the Durban Magistrates Court for charges of corruption. On 8 June 2018, Zuma appeared before the KwaZulu Natal High Court. His court was postponed to 27 July 2018 after his legal team requested for more time to seek clarity on his legal fees funding.
In July 2019, following Duduzane Zuma's acquittal of culpable homicide, Zuma confirmed that he would testify in front of the Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture or, simply, Zondo Commission. He started his testimony on 15 July 2019. On the first day of testimony, Zuma claimed that he was the "victim" and that the commission was part of an intelligence plot to oust him as president. His supporters protested outside the venue in Johannesburg. Zuma soon halted his testimony.
On 11 October 2019, a South African high court denied Zuma a motion to strike down 16 criminal charges of fraud, racketeering and money laundering related to an illegal $2.5bn (£1.98bn) arms deal which allegedly was undertaken in the late 1990s in order to ensure that South Africa's armed forces could buy 30bn rand of European military hardware. In December 2020, Deputy Chief Justice of South Africa Raymond Zondo ordered Zuma to resume testifying before his Zondo Commission. Zondo also served two summonses which arranged for Zuma's required 2021 testimony to occur from January 18-22 and February 15-19. On January 28, 2021, after Zuma skipped his first court-ordered testimonies, the Constitutional Court of South Africa issued a ruling which ordered Zuma to testify before the Zondo Commission.
Controversies.
Alleged abuses by bodyguards.
In 2010, Zuma's bodyguards were implicated in multiple incidents involving members of the public and journalists.
In February, a Cape Town student, Chumani Maxwele, was detained by police after allegedly showing Zuma's motorcade a "rude gesture". Maxwele, an active ANC member, was released after 24 hours, having provided a written apology to police, which he later claimed was coerced. He also claimed that his home had been raided by plain-clothes policemen, and that he had been forced into the vehicle at gunpoint. Maxwele later instituted legal action against the police, and a complaint was filed on his behalf to the Human Rights Commission. The incident led to a heated dispute when it was discussed in Parliament.
In March, journalist Tshepo Lesole was forced to delete pictures of Zuma's convoy from his camera by police, and two photographers were detained by police when photographing Zuma's Johannesburg home. Sky News reporter Emma Hurd claimed she had been pushed, manhandled and "groped" by Zuma's bodyguards in 2009.
"Shoot the Boer" song.
In January 2012, Zuma gave a speech at the ANC Centennial 2012 celebrations in Bloemfontein and, afterwards, sang the controversial song "Dubul' ibhunu" ("Shoot the Boer").
"The Spear" painting.
In 2012, Zuma was featured in a satirical painting by Cape Town-based artist Brett Murray, who depicted him in his painting "The Spear", in a pose similar to Lenin, but with his genitals exposed. The ANC responded by threatening court action against the gallery showing the painting, and further demanding that the image should be removed from online sources. The subsequent aggressive sharing of the image through social networks can be considered a form of the Streisand effect. On 22 May 2012, the painting was vandalised while it was hanging in an art gallery in Johannesburg. The face and genitals of Zuma were painted over.
Panama Papers revelations.
Clive Khulubuse Zuma, the nephew of Jacob Zuma, was named in the Panama Papers as a result of his links to oilfields in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Shortly after president Jacob Zuma met with DRC president Joseph Kabila, Khulubuse Zuma's company Caprikat Limited secured a R100 billion rand oil deal in the DRC.
Personal life.
Wives.
Jacob Zuma is a polygamist who has been married six times. In 2012 "The Daily Telegraph" estimated Zuma to have 20 children, whereas "The Guardian" in 2014 stated he had 21.
In June 2012, activists, including some from the ANC itself, complained about the amount the state paid to support Zuma's wives, especially in the context of the country's widespread poverty. In 2009–10 Zuma received a budget of £1.2m for "spousal support", almost twice the amount paid during the terms in office of Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe, leading to suggestions that only Zuma's first wife should receive state support.
Fiancées.
Zuma paid 10 cattle as lobola for Swazi Princess Sebentile Dlamini in 2003.
2009 "love-child".
In January 2010, "The Sunday Times" reported that Sonono Khoza, the daughter of Irvin Khoza, gave birth to Zuma's 20th child on 8 October 2009, a daughter called Thandekile Matina Zuma. Zuma confirmed that he had paid "inhlawulo", acknowledging paternity. He protested the publishing of the child's name, saying it was illegal exploitation of the child. He denied that the incident had relevance to the government's AIDS programme (which promotes marital fidelity as a mechanism for preventing the disease), and appealed for privacy. On 6 February, Zuma said he "deeply regretted the pain that he caused to his family, the ANC, the alliance and South Africans in general." The office of the presidency's comment was that it was a private matter, and the ANC defended Zuma, saying it saw no links between its policies on HIV/AIDS and Mr Zuma's personal life. ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema said "We are Africans and sitting here all of us, Zuma is our father so we are not qualified to talk about that". Malema said the ANCYL would emphasise its HIV programme and "one boyfriend, one girlfriend" stance in an awareness campaign across the country. ANC Women's League deputy president Nosipho Dorothy Ntwanambi said: "it is not right to have an extramarital affair if you have committed to yourself to a marriage. But under the Customary Marriages Act, if the first wife agrees, and if all these issues are discussed with her, we can't do anything." On 5 February, the ANC acknowledged the widespread disapproval by saying that the experience had "taught us many valuable lessons", and they had listened to the people. COSATU, an ANC alliance partner, passed no judgment but hoped that it will be "a matter on Zuma's conscience" Vavi reiterated Zuma's appeal then that he be accorded his "right to privacy" and the child protected from undue publicity.
Helen Zille of the Democratic Alliance said Zuma contradicted his public message of safe sex to South Africans, who have a high incidence of AIDS and HIV infection. She said it was wrong to say it was purely a private matter, and elected public officials had to embody the principles and values for which they stand. The African Christian Democratic Party said Zuma was undermining the government's drive to persuade people to practise safe sex to combat HIV and AIDS. while the Congress of the People (COPE) said Zuma could no longer use African cultural practices to justify his "promiscuity". Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille, said Zuma was asking people "to do as I say and not as I do".
Jacob Zuma Foundation.
Zuma started the Jacob Zuma Foundation to send children to school and build houses for people living in poverty. The former chairperson of the Foundation is Dudu Myeni, who was also the chairperson of South African Airways. She resigned her memberships of the boards of directors of these and other bodies because she was declared a delinquent director for life in May 2020, by the Pretoria High Court.


William Howship Dickinson

William Howship Dickinson (9 June 1832 – 9 January 1913) was a British doctor. He was educated at Cambridge and later trained at St George's Hospital.
He wrote one of the first accounts of familial kidney disease. Affected family members had proteinuria but did not have typical features of the condition known as Alport syndrome.
He worked at Great Ormond Street Hospital where he was particularly interested in children with neurological conditions. He also worked as a censor and curator of the museum at the Royal College of Physicians. He also served as an examiner in medicine to the Royal College of Surgeons, and to the universities of Cambridge, London and Durham.
He was President of the Pathological Society of London from 1889 to 1891.


Harry Campbell (physician)

Harry Campbell (1860 – 8 July 1938) was a British physician, pathologist and writer.
Biography.
Campbell was born in Margaretting. He was educated at Carshalton and in Neuwied. He qualified from St Bartholomew's Hospital and obtained MRCS (1881), MBBS (1882) and M.D. (1885). He married Nora Lacy. He worked as a physician and pathologist at North-West London Hospital (1886–1909) and West End Hospital for Nervous Diseases (1896–1924). He was a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute. He retired as physician in 1919. From 1918 to 1933, he was the editor of the "Medical Press and Circular". Campbell was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1896.
Cambell was a member of the British Medical Association and contributed articles to the "British Medical Journal". In 1904, Campbell authored a series of articles, "The Evolution of Man's Diet" in "The Lancet" journal. He also contributed articles to the book, "A System of Diet and Dietetics" which was positively reviewed in the "Journal of the American Medical Association".
Campbell authored the book "What is Wrong With British Diet?", in 1936. Campbell argued that the British diet was too heavy in cereal foods, cooked vegetables and puddings which provided inadequate mastication. He believed that habitual consumption of soft "pappy" foods and "pultaceous puddings" caused undersized jaws and dental disease. He recommended a pre-agricultural diet that consisted of animal products and raw vegetables. He wrote that the "British diet errs mainly in containing an excess of cereals and starchy foods generally, and a dearth of animal and raw vegetable foods."
Campbell wrote several medical research papers on mastication and the physiology of the jaw bones, jaw muscles and teeth formation in children and this is reflected in the series published in "The Lancet", Observations on Mastication I-III in 1903.
He died in Norwood, North Yorkshire.
Bickiepegs.
Campbell established in 1925, after he retired from the medical profession, manufacturing natural rusks which he called Bickiepegs in Welwyn Garden City. Bickiepegs biscuits are made from wheat flour, wheat germ and water. The finger shaped product was designed to help babies cut the back and front teeth whilst exercising the jaw muscles, bones and gums. The company Bickiepegs Healthcare still exists 95 years on and bakes to the original recipe from its factory in Aberdeenshire.


Jill Bargonetti

Jill Bargonetti is an American professor at the City University of New York with dual appointments at Hunter College and The Graduate Center. Her research is focused on tumor suppressor protein p53 and its role as an oncogene when it is mutated in breast cancer.
Early life and education.
Born on October 10, 1962, in New York Hospital, Jill Bargonetti is the daughter of Adah Askew and Arthur Bargonetti. Jill was the product of an interracial union between a Black mother and an Italian American father. She grew up in a strategically multi-ethnic and culturally diverse Mitchel-Lama housing development on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Bargonetti attended three of New York City’s special public schools: Hunter College Elementary School, Hunter College High School and The Bronx High School of Science. She went on to attend the State University of New York at Purchase where she majored in biology and dance and earned a B.A. in Biology. She then received her Masters from New York University in 1987 followed by her Ph.D. from NYU in 1990. She did a postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University from 1990 until 1994, where she worked alongside Dr. Carol Prives. There, she characterized important functions of p53 needed for tumor suppression and that they were lost when p53 is mutated in cancer.
Career.
Bargonetti’s first professional positions in the 1980s were as a dancer with a Harlem-based dance company called "Dianne McIntyre’s Sounds in Motion" and as a research technician at Rockefeller University. Following her doctoral and postdoctoral training, in 1994 Bargonetti became an assistant professor at The City University of New York with appointments at Hunter College and The Graduate Center. She chose the City University of New York in part to be a role model for other people from groups underrepresented in the sciences. In 1997, she was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from President Bill Clinton for “scholarly work in cancer related studies of cell growth and gene expression and involvement of undergraduate, graduate and especially minority students in the discovery process.”  She became a full professor at Hunter College in 2007 and the Chair of the MCD PhD subprogram of the CUNY Graduate Center in 2009.
Bargonetti has served on numerous National Committee’s to evaluate science and policy. Some of her appointments include a 2012-2018 Membership in The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Tumor Cell Biology Study Section Review Committee and a working as a member of The National Cancer Policy Board from 2002 to 2005.
Bargonetti was featured on a PBS series called "American Graduate Day" in 2015. Additionally, she spoke at a TedX "Borders and Belonging" event at City University of New York (CUNY) in 2016. She was noted as a New York University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences: Distinguished Alumna  and a SUNY Purchase Presidential Distinguished Alumna. In 2017, Jill Bargonetti was inducted into the Bronx Science High School Hall of Fame.


James Hogarth Pringle

James Hogarth Pringle (born 26 January 1863 in Parramatta, Australia – died 24 April 1941 in Killearn, Scotland) was a surgeon in Glasgow, Scotland, who made a number of important contributions to surgical practice. He is most famous for the development of the Pringle manoeuvre, a technique still used in surgery today.
Early life.
He was the only son of George Hogarth Pringle (1830–1871) a well known surgeon in Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia. Before emigrating to Australia George Hogarth Pringle had worked in Edinburgh with Joseph Lister and had been responsible for the introduction of antiseptic surgical practice into Australia. After his father died in 1872, James returned to Britain to school at Sedbergh in Cumberland and from there entered the University of Edinburgh Medical School to study medicine, graduating in 1885.
After graduation he was able travel to Europe to study surgical practice at Hamburg, Berlin and Vienna. This visit to European centres was to prove important because he maintained links particularly with German, Austrian and Swiss surgeons, keeping up to date with their literature. He had training in ophthalmology at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London before becoming house surgeon under Professor Thomas Annandale (1838–1907) in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, and then house surgeon under Sir William Macewen (1848–1924) in Glasgow Royal Infirmary. In 1892, he became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (FRCSEng) and was appointed Surgeon to Glasgow Royal Infirmary in 1896. He became a Fellow of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 1899.
Supporter of women in medicine.
Pringle and Sir William Macewen were among the few senior figures in medicine at that time who were sympathetic to women in medicine, readily accepting women students into their clinics. Some of these were to become well known figures in later life including Louise McIlroy (1874–1968), Elsie Inglis (1864–1917), and Helen Wingate (1895–1985). In 1899, Pringle was appointed Lecturer in Surgery and Demonstrator in Anatomy to Queen Margaret College which had been established for women students and opened in 1868 and began to teach women medical students in 1890–91.
Fracture treatment.
Pringle made a particular study of the treatment of fractures, where he was at an advantage because X-rays had been introduced very early into clinical practice in Glasgow Royal Infirmary, an innovation that allowed Pringle to gain wide personal experience of fractures and their management. His colleague John Macintyre (1857–1928) had established the world's first x-ray service for patients in Glasgow Royal Infirmary in March 1896. This allowed James Hogarth Pringle an early, perhaps unique experience in fracture diagnosis and management using x-rays, and formed the basis for his book on fractures and their treatment.
He had the added advantage of working in the hospital where Joseph Lister had first introduced antisepsis and would surely have been aware of his own father's work on antisepsis in introducing Listerian antisepsis into Australia. He was, like Sir William Macewen, an early exponent of aseptic technique in surgery. Both of these factors undoubtedly contributed to his expertise and success with fracture management.
He was a pioneer of treating fractures by fixation and had impressive results with an amputation rate for sepsis of only 2.6%, a dramatic reduction on the norm for the time.
“There are few cases," he wrote, " which afford a better test of aseptic methods." But it was his policy of fixation of long fractures in an age when treatment by traction was the norm that marked him out as a pioneer. "... In every case," he wrote, "I have employed some form of 'fixation' of the bone fragments; the 'fixation' being effected in some instances by wiring the main fragments, in others by the use of 'plates' and in others generally in the case of a small fragment (e.g. a portion of an articular surface) which has been fractured off and the use of a screw to fix the small to the large segment of the bone."
In 1910, he published "Fractures and their Treatment", a textbook which became a standard and authoritative work on fracture treatment for more than a generation.
Hindquarter amputation.
He was also a pioneer of hindquarter amputation, a radical operation involving division of the pubic symphysis and the sacroiliac joint, performing the first successful such amputation in Britain in 1900 for tuberculosis of the hip which had spread to the pelvis. He was the first in the world to perform the one stage procedure for sarcoma of the thigh. The size and relative success of Pringle's series may be judged by comparison with the subsequent experience of Sir Gordon Gordon-Taylor, widely regarded as a pioneer of the technique, who was generous in his praise of Pringle's technique and results.
Head injury.
Pringle developed expertise in head injury, working as assistant to Macewen, a pioneer of neurosurgery. Pringle's casebooks demonstrate the standard skull charts he devised for the recording of head injuries and the precise site and extent of skull fractures. In these casebooks he recorded the levels of consciousness, meticulous neurological examinations and fundoscopy which he had performed in such cases. These casebooks, neatly written and with meticulous coloured illustrations, offer an insight into the mind of a surgeon who was both painstaking and methodical.
Malignant melanoma.
In 1908, Pringle published the first description of en-bloc excision for malignant melanoma, reporting the procedure in two patients. Some thirty years later he was able to publish a follow-up reporting two of these cases alive and well, 30 and 38 years on. His description of en-block excision is much as is practised today and appears to be the first description of what was to become an accepted surgical treatment.
Reconstructive arterial surgery.
Pringle was the first surgeon in Britain to carry out a free vein graft. He did this using a saphenous vein graft to restore continuity after excision of a syphilitic aneurysm of the popliteal artery and characteristically in this paper he duly acknowledged the "splendid work of Carrel". Alexis Carrel had been the first surgeon to make an arterial anastomosis, work which led to his being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912. The technical quality of Pringle's operative technique is demonstrated by the fact that in this pioneering operation "not one drop of blood escaped at either of the lines of suture and distal pulses were instantly restored".
The Pringle manoeuvre.
It is for the Pringle manoeuvre that his name remains known throughout the surgical world. The technique of occluding the portal triad to control haemorrhage in liver trauma which he described in the "Annals of Surgery" in 1908 is still widely used in modern hepatic surgery to minimise blood loss. Pringle's paper attests to the originality and logic of his thinking, often flying in the face of mainstream opinion. In describing his experience in dealing with liver injury he observed that portal triad occlusion controlled the bleeding from the liver sufficient to allow suturing or packing. "An assistant," he wrote, "held the portal vein and the hepatic artery between a finger and thumb and completely arrested all bleeding.”
Later life.
Pringle served in the First World War as a major in the RAMC at number 4 General Hospital at Stobhill, Glasgow. He retired from surgical practice in 1923 at the age of 60 and was elected Visitor (Vice-President) of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in that year. He was a founder member of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland and of the Moynihan Chirurgical Club. He died at his home in Killearn, Scotland, on 24 April 1941 at the age of 78


Michael J. Kuhar

Michael J. Kuhar (born 1944), is an American neuroscientist, author, and Candler Professor of Neuropharmacology at The Yerkes National Primate Research Center of Emory University. He is a Georgia Research Alliance eminent scholar, and a senior fellow in the Center for Ethics at Emory. He was previously a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and branchchief at the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Over his career, he has made discoveries in studies of drugs and the brain for which he has received a number of awards, and has contributed as a consultant to the government and industry, and as an expert witness in forensic cases.
Biography.
Kuhar was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania on March 10, 1944 and attended local schools. He obtained his BS degree in physics and philosophy from the University of Scranton in 1965. After spending a year at Harvard University in applied physics, he transferred to Johns Hopkins University to study biophysics and pharmacology. He obtained his PhD in 1970, and did a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale in the Department of Psychiatry. His focus was on how the brain works and on the mechanism of action of therapeutic drugs that are used to treat psychiatric illness. He then took a faculty position in the Department of Pharmacology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1972, becoming professor in 1981.
In 1969, he married Joan Barenburg (1945-2008) and has two children. According to Emory University, he has more literary citations than any other Emory scientist and he is often an expert witness in both patent and medical malpractice legal cases.
Academic career.
The focus of Kuhar’s research has been on how the brain works by using chemical signaling (neurotransmission) and how drugs act in the brain. Early in his career at Johns Hopkins, he studied the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which is important for the treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. He showed that the synthesis of acetylcholine was controlled by transporting substances into the nerve cell. He developed microscopic methods which are in current widespread use to identify and locate drug receptors in the brain. These involved autoradiography at first and then PET scanning later, including the first PET scans of receptors in the human brain.
He then moved to the National Institute on Drug Abuse in 1985 as head of its new Neuroscience Branch. His laboratory identified the molecular site in the brain responsible for the addicting properties of cocaine. This work explained the basic action of cocaine in the brain and suggested a target for developing medications for cocaine users. After ten years, Kuhar moved to the Yerkes National Primate Research Center of Emory University as head of the Neuroscience Division, and as Candler Professor of Neuropharmacology. Much of his work there focused on cocaine and on CART peptides. The peptides at least partly regulate the actions of cocaine in the brain as well as feeding and body weight. Other areas of research and publications include developing medications for cocaine addicts, studying the effects of early life stress on drug use in adulthood, and ethics.
Recognition.
Kuhar has been the President of College on Problems of drug Dependence as well as the International Drug Abuse Research society. Recognition he has received includes the 1984 Efron Award for outstanding basic research contributions by a young research scientist, the 1992 Otto Krayer Award for outstanding research by the American Society Of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, and the 2011 Nathan B Eddy Award for lifetime achievement from the College on Problems of Drug Dependence.
References.


SV40 Cancer Foundation

The SV40 Cancer Foundation is an educational organization devoted to raising awareness about a potential link between the simian virus SV40 and human cancer.
The SV40 Cancer Foundation was founded by Raphaele and Michael Horwin. The Horwin's son Alexander Horwin was born on June 7, 1996 and was given oral polio vaccine in November 1997. On August 10, 1998, Alexander was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a malignant (cancerous) pediatric brain tumor, leading to his death on January 31, 1999. The Horwins contend that the polio vaccine their son ingested was contaminated with SV40, leading to his death. Tests performed at four laboratories on Alexander's brain tissue demonstrated the presence of the virus.
The SV40 Cancer Foundation views their mission as raising public awareness of this threat and lobbying for more research funding for this area. On September 10, 2003, the Horwins got Congressman Dan Burton, Chair of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and Wellness, United States House Committee on Oversight and Reform to hold a hearing into SV40 contamination of vaccines.
The United States National Cancer Institute announced in 2004 that although SV40 does cause cancer in some animal models, "substantial epidemiological evidence has accumulated to indicate that SV40 likely does not cause cancer in humans."
This study states that SV40 should be considered a group 2A carcinogen: Gazdar AF, Butel JS, Carbone M., SV40 and human tumours: myth, association or causality? Nat Rev Cancer. 2002 Dec;2(12):957-64.


E. Wesley Ely

Eugene Wesley Ely Jr. is an American physician and professor of medicine as the Grant W. Liddle Endowed Chair at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. He is conducting research as a geriatric intensivist in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and the Center for Health Services Research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is also the associate director of research at the Tennessee Valley Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center (GRECC), part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Ely's work is focused on aging, delirium, post-ICU dementia, and other disorders related to post-intensive care syndrome, a set of conditions common especially in elderly patients that develops during acute care hospitalization and could be caused by the treatments used in intensive care medicine. The diagnosis and treatment protocols developed by Ely and his research group have been validated by independent studies, translated into many languages, and adopted by hospitals around the world.
Early life and education.
Ely attended Jesuit High School in Shreveport, Louisiana, where his mother Diana Lowe Ely was an English teacher and theater director of the high school. His father Eugene Wesley Ely was a mechanical engineer who worked for Ingersoll-Rand. After high school, Ely Jr. attended Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in Biology in 1985. He went on to attend the university's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, graduating with a public health master's degree in 1989. Ely earned his medical degree from the Tulane University School of Medicine later the same year.
Career.
After graduating from medical school, Ely began his residency at Bowman Gray School of Medicine (now known as Wake Forest School of Medicine). After three years as a resident, he continued at the hospital as a postdoctoral fellow until 1995.
Until 1998, Ely served as professor of internal medicine at the same medical school and medical director of its Chronic Lung Failure Clinic. In 1998, Ely trained in lung transplantation at Barnes-Jewish Hospital of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri before leaving Bowman Gray to serve as a professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Since 1998, Ely has served as a pulmonologist, professor and researcher at Vanderbilt.
His research is focused on the diagnosis, causes, and management of delirium and other cognitive disorders developed during a patient's hospital stay, especially in geriatric patients. He founded and currently heads the ICU Delirium and Cognitive Impairment Study Group at Vanderbilt. Ely's group has been studying the long term effects of mechanical ventilation and sedation on patients in intensive care units (ICU). The group also publishes a website in an attempt to educate potential patients, families, doctors and other healthcare professionals about the effects and causes of delirium and post-intensive care syndrome (PICS). Ely is one of several physicians that encourages a reduction in the use of sedatives (especially benzodiazepines) to shorten patients’ time on mechanical ventilation during ICU treatment. With others at Vanderbilt, the team also developed an outpatient post-ICU clinic for patients at Vanderbilt. Ely was also a co-chair of the ICU Liberation Campaign of Society for Critical Care Medicine, which encourages the use of protocols to mitigate the effects of delirium and PICS. Together with Pratik Pandharipande, Ely co-directs the Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction and Survivorship Center (CIBS Center) at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Research.
In 1996, while serving as chief resident at Bowman Gray, Ely and his colleagues published the findings of a study into the efficacy of a ventilator weaning protocol (called spontaneous breathing trials) in shortening the duration an ICU patient required assistance through mechanical ventilation as well as reducing complications and cost of care. The study published in "The New England Journal of Medicine" reported that "daily screening followed by spontaneous breathing trials in medical and coronary intensive care units reduced the duration of ventilation from a median of 6.0 to 4.5 [days]."
In 2001, Ely and Gordon Bernard were investigators on a study of the recombinant-form Activated Protein C (known as Drotrecogin alfa) and its possible efficacy in the treatment of sepsis. The same year, Ely and his ICU Delirium Study Group developed CAM-ICU based on an earlier Confusion Assessment Method (CAM) developed by Sharon Inouye. CAM-ICU is one of two commonly used methods to diagnose delirium in ICU patients. It has been validated in later independent studies, with a meta-analysis review of these studies showing high "pooled values for sensitivity and specificity of 80% and 95.9%, respectively." Also in 2001, Ely was awarded The American Federation for Aging Research's Paul B. Beeson Career Development Award. In 2002, Ely was appointed Associate Director of Research at the Tennessee Valley Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center (GRECC), part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
In a 2004 study, Ely et al. reported that delirium predicted an increased risk of mortality in ICU patients. This has since been confirmed in at least two additional cohort studies. In 2006, Ely was inducted into the American Society for Clinical Investigation for his work demonstrating how "delirium is associated with a tripling of the risk of death within 6 months of ICU" hospitalization. In 2007, Ely, Pandharipande et al. published the results of the MENDS trial which investigated "the incidence and duration of delirium" when using the sedative dexmedetomidine compared to a benzodiazepine (specifically lorazepam). This and subsequent studies have resulted "in the recommendation to minimize the use of benzodiazepines in the most recent sedation guidelines."
In July 2007, Ely along with Timothy D. Girard and their colleagues presented the findings of a randomized clinical trial of a daily protocol of attempts at awakening the patient and allowing them to breathing independently. The 335-patient study presented at the International Conference of the American Thoracic Society reported that these daily tests, where the ICU patient was allowed to come out of sedation and breathe spontaneously without the use of a ventilator, resulted in the patients leaving the hospital an average of four days earlier. In 2010, Ely and Girard reported a correlation between the length of time the patient was affected by delirium and their cognitive outcome in the long-term. They developed a protocol named ABC which took earlier demonstrated attempts at ceasing sedation and paired it with concurrent attempts at a spontaneous breathing trial through the ventilator weaning method developed by him in 1996. Ely and his colleagues later extended the protocol, renamed ABCDEF Bundle, to include advice on the choice of sedation drugs, monitoring of delirium, early exercise, and encouragement of family participation.
In 2013, Ely was inducted into the Association of American Physicians. In October 2013, Ely, Pandharipande, and their team published the results of a study, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs, about the long-term effects of ICU Delirium. The study reported that even after a one-year period, "34 percent of patients [affected by ICU Delirium] were still functioning on the same level as someone with moderate traumatic brain injury and 24 percent at the level of a person with mild Alzheimer's."
In 2018, he reported to the annual congress of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine the results of the MIND-USA study into the efficacy of haloperidol and ziprasidone in the treatment of delirium. The antipsychotic drugs used for decades for the treatment of ICU delirium were found to be ineffective for that purpose, according to the study by Ely and his colleagues published in the "NEJM".
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ely warned that efforts to mitigate delirium had been erased by the disease. COVID-19 patients also show a higher prevalence of hospital delirium. As well as recommending the ABCDEF Bundle to lower the incidence of delirium in COVID-19 patients and prevent PICS, Ely and other researchers at the CIBS Center also initiated studies into the effects of delirium on COVID-19 patients and their increased "risk of developing long-term cognitive issues, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder."
Views.
Ely writes reflective opinion pieces and editorials about his personal experiences as a physician, which have been published in the "Annals of Internal Medicine", "JAMA", and "The Wall Street Journal", among other periodicals. He participates in the ongoing debate on euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide through medical literature and international debates. He also wrote a CNN Opinion piece describing his own experiences with patients in palliative care who desired assisted suicide.
In May 2019, Ely wrote an opinion article published in "USA Today", arguing against "death by donation", a practice currently illegal in the U.S. and Canada where a patient voluntarily donates their organs while still alive, subsequently leading to their death. In late June 2020, Ely wrote a "Perspective" article for "The Washington Post" describing the difficulties of treating COVID-19 patients while conducting ethical research into new treatment regimens for the disease and its effects including delirium.
Personal life.
Ely has three daughters with his wife Kim Ely, who also works at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She is a surgical pathologist who graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and like her husband attended Tulane University School of Medicine.
He is the president of the Nashville Guild of the Catholic Medical Association.


Robert Burne

Robert A. Burne is an American microbiologist focusing on molecular mechanisms governing the ability of bacteria that are capable of causing diseases in humans to modulate their virulence in response to environmental influences. As of 2017 he was a Distinguished Professor at University of Florida.
Burne received a B.S. in microbiology from Pennsylvania State University in 1981, and a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from the University of Rochester in 1987.


Pierre Brasdor

Pierre Brasdor (19 December 1721 – 28 September 1799), French surgeon, was born in the province of Maine, France. He took his degree in Paris as master of surgery in 1752, and was appointed regius professor of anatomy and director of the Académie Nationale de Médecine. He was a skilful operator, whose name was long attached to a ligature he devised; and he was an ardent advocate of inoculation. He died in Paris on 28 September 1799.


David Utz

David Charles Utz (December 2, 1923 – October 30, 2011) was an American surgeon. Utz was the surgeon who removed United States President Ronald Reagan's prostate in 1987.
During his career her wrote 143 articles that appeared in medical journals.
Utz died on October 30, 2011 due to congestive heart failure aged 87.


John Bienenstock

John Bienenstock (born October 6, 1936) is a Hungarian-born Canadian doctor. He is considered one of the fathers of mucosal immunology.
Born in Budapest, of Jewish parents, he escaped to England in 1939 with his parents. He was educated at St Paul's School in London and studied medicine at Kings London and Westminster Hospital medical school graduating with his MBBS degree in 1960. Bienenstock came to the United States to pursue research projects but left for Canada during the Vietnam War rather than be drafted as an army doctor. He joined McMaster University in 1968. He served as dean of Health Sciences, as vice-president of the Faculty of Health Sciences and as chair for the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine at McMaster. He has also served as president of the Canadian Society for Immunology and of the Society of Mucosal Immunology. More recently, he became head of the Brain-Body Institute at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton.
Bienenstock introduced the concept of a common mucosal immune system. He also studied the interactions between the nervous and immune systems.
He is a member of the Royal College of Physicians (UK). Bienenstock was named a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1992 and was named to the Order of Canada in 2002. Bienenstock was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2011.


Paula Daza

Paula Graciela Daza Narbona (born 25 January 1960) is a Chilean surgeon, pediatrician and politician currently serving as Undersecretary of Public Health. Daza was a consultant for Evelyn Matthei and Andrés Allamand during the 2013 Chilean general election partly drafting the health care plan of their presidential campaigns. During the COVID-19 pandemic a criminal complaint was filed against Daza and other members of the government, which accused them of negligence during the pandemic.


Surviving Sepsis Campaign

The Surviving Sepsis Campaign (SSC) is a global initiative to bring together professional organizations in reducing mortality from sepsis. The purpose of the SSC is to create an international collaborative effort to improve the treatment of sepsis and reduce the high mortality rate associated with the condition. The Surviving Sepsis Campaign and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement have teamed up to achieve a 25 percent reduction in sepsis mortality by 2009. The guidelines were last updated in 2016.
Relevance.
Mortality associated with severe sepsis remains high at 30-50%. When shock is present, mortality is reported to be even higher at around 50-60%. Approximately 1400 people die from sepsis each day throughout the world.
In the U.S. there are approximately 750,000 new sepsis cases each year, with at least 210,000 fatalities and this is reported to be same throughout Europe. As medicine becomes more advanced, with invasive procedures and immunosuppression, the incidence of sepsis is likely to increase even more.
Sepsis is one of the complications of Coronavirus disease 2019. In 2020, the campaign produced "Guidelines on the Management of Critically Ill Adults with Coronavirus Disease 2019".
Approach.
This is done using a six-pronged approach:
Using bundles in health care.
Using bundles in health care simplifies the complex processes of the care of patients with severe sepsis. A bundle is a selected set of elements of care distilled from evidence-based practice guidelines that, when implemented as a group, have an effect on outcomes beyond implementing the individual elements alone. Each hospital's sepsis protocol may be customized, but it must meet the standards created by the bundle.
The first 6 hour SSC Resuscitation Bundle includes:
Further management is centered on Early Goal Directed Therapy (EGDT).
Resuscitation Goals are:
The 24-hour SSC Management Bundle includes:


Christopher Joseph Earl

Christopher Joseph Earl (20 November 1925 - 4 March 2012) was a British neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen's Square, London. He had trained under Sir Charles Symonds and was later president of the Association of British Neurologists. His method of diagnosing neurological disease was described by colleagues as “reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes solving a crime”.


Program in Liberal Medical Education

The Program in Liberal Medical Education, or PLME, is the eight-year combined baccalaureate-M.D. medical program of Brown University. Members of the program are simultaneously accepted into both the undergraduate College of Brown University as well as the Warren Alpert Medical School, allowing them to receive a Bachelor's degree and an M.D. as part of a single eight-year continuum. PLME is the only combined medical program in the Ivy League, as well as one of only approximately 120 in the nation. The program is extremely selective, admitting only 90 applicants nationwide and internationally each year, with an acceptance rate of 3.49% for the class of 2024. The PLME is widely considered to be one of the most competitive and prestigious combined medical programs in the country.
History.
The 8-year PLME was first endorsed by Brown University in 1984, which had previously been a 6-year program. It was originally the only major route of admission to the Alpert Medical School, until the medical school began accepting pre-medical students from the standard AMCAS admission route in 2004. According to the PLME, the goal of the program is to combine the open curriculum concept of Brown (the College) and the competency-based curriculum concept of The Warren Alpert Medical School to encourage students of medicine to pursue in depth their interests in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences through a liberal education philosophy as they prepare for their careers as physicians. Julianne Ip, M.D., Associate Dean of Medicine for PLME, described the program as a way to "accept the 'best' high school students who would utilize Brown, and the College’s unique Open Curriculum to craft their own educational paths. These individualized educational plans would allow students to pursue their passions be they in science or liberal arts but always with the view of medicine as a humanitarian pursuit, not a “trade” to be learned."
Admissions.
Because the PLME draws applicants from around the U.S. and internationally, its applicant pool is significantly larger than those of most other medical programs, which receive primarily in-state applications. With large numbers of applicants competing for very few spots, the program consistently reports an extremely low acceptance rate. For the undergraduate class of 2020, 2,447 high school students applied and 90 were admitted, yielding an acceptance rate of 3.7%. For the class of 2019, 2,290 applicants applied for the same 90 spots, for an acceptance rate of 3.9%. The average SAT scores of matriculants between 2010 and 2015 were 731 in Critical Reading, 741 in Math, and 746 in Writing.
Notable alumni.
Graduates from the PLME are alumni of Brown University, but members of the program specifically have become prominent figures in the medicine and health world as well as in other areas.