Despite The Skeptics, Gambia's Leader Says His Paste Cures AIDS

From the pockets of his billowing white robe, Gambian President Yahya Jammeh (pictured) pulls out a plastic container, closes his eyes in prayer and rubs a green herbal paste onto the ribcage of the patient. He then orders the thin man to swallow a bitter yellow drink, followed by two bananas.

In a continent suffering from the world's worst AIDS epidemic (although Gambia's own rate is pretty low), President Jammeh's claims of a miracle cure are alarming public health workers already struggling against faith-healers dispensing herbal remedies from inside thatched huts. The biggest concern is that the Gambian leader requires patients to cease their anti-retroviral drugs, a move that risks weakening their immune systems and making them even more prone to infection, said Dr. Antonio Filipe Jr., head of the World Health Organization in neighboring Senegal. President Jammeh has gone to great lengths to prove his claim, sending blood samples of the first nine patients to a lab in Senegal for testing. A letter on the lab's stationery indicates that of the nine, four had undetectable viral loads, one had a moderate viral load and three had high loads. However, the lab technician who performed the tests warned they are not conclusive since the blood samples were taken only after the treatment.