Prof Arthur Obel is hard to please. Friend and foe say he is proud and unpredictable. Others call him an arrogant and intellectual snob.
But the professor of medicine doesn’t care: “Let them call me whatever they want; even a witch doctor if they wish. It does not change what I know about myself.”
Very few things bother him. At 74, he says he has seen and done it all. What thrills him are his 21 choice cars -- picked from the Mercedes Benz, Peugeot and BMW family -- his insatiable obsession with books and Iconaire – the drug he formulated a few years ago and is now using to treat HIV patients.
He has been here before, having formulated several others concoctions he claims can treat HIV. He claims Iconaire increases cd4 count of HIV patients until they get into remission.
“It is not a cure. It boosts their cd4 count, and once it reaches 1860, I stop administering the drug,” he says.
A normal range for cd4 cells is about 500 to 1,500, but people with compromised immunity have lower cells. Obel says his drug can raise cd4 count without using anti-retroviral drugs.
His office at Nairobi’s Loresho estate has cartons filled with Iconaire, and heaps of files bearing patients’ names.
He refuses to reveal the ingredients, as he has experienced sneaky scientists stealing his ideas.
Dr Nduku Kilonzo, Director of National AIDS Control Council is worried about Obel’s medicine, saying it can undo the long struggle to have people with HIV on ARVs.
“If anyone has a product, let them take it through scientific peer review and ensure it passes the global standards. Nobody should stop taking ARVs,” Nduku advises.
Obel is defiant. He says the only approval he needs is the good results his patients record after being on the treatment for a few months or years.
“People come to me. I never advertise anywhere,” he says.
His journey towards finding a cure has been long, fraught with controversies, ‘near-victories’ and self-determination.
On his first media appearance, Obel had the hope of the world on his shoulders. As a medical researcher, he had worked with Davy Koech -- a director at Kemri -- to come up with Kemron.
It was one of the first drugs produced to cure HIV in the early 90s when the disease was ravishing nations. Anyone who could stop it would have bolted into the history books of medical innovations and won the Nobel Prize.
When they revealed that seven patients had tested negative, the world momentarily held its breath in a near-Eureka moment.
“This could be it!” the media reported.
People from across the globe flocked Kenya to get a dose of Kemron.
Second resurrection
The hopes fizzled when scientists started poking holes in their research process. Political questions on the practicality of mass production of Kemron were also raised. Whispers of it not working after consecutive tests permeated the beautiful narratives of “second resurrection” they had anticipated for people with full blown AIDS.
It flopped, crushing the dreams of Africa producing a cure for the virus. For Obel, it propelled him into a whirl of more research, with an ultimate goal of conquering HIV – an obsession that has pushed him to coming up with more than five types of medications over the years. Iconaire is his latest.
A 30-day dosage goes for Sh30,000. He gets several patients daily, but not as many as the thousands who queued at his clinic in the mid-90s to get Pearl Omega, his other invention that came a few years after Kemron.
Pearl Omega was also Sh30,000; a hefty amount at the time. People were staring at death, and clutched at anything they could use to lengthen their days, even if by minutes. Obel had it, or so he claimed.
He was later accused by government of flouting research rules and scientists questioned the drug’s efficacy. Pearl Omega was phased out.
Obel’s chase for stopping HIV mutation remained. Many of his concoctions never made it to his shelf. Some, he admits, we too toxic. Others inefficient. One that aroused his hope was called Indica, but he stopped producing because it caused insomnia. Every fail was a motivation.
“Even big pharmaceuticals try many times before they develop a product. I am always trying new things,” he says.
That he needs to be stopped is something his peers talk about, but none is courageous enough to call him out.
“Obel is brutal. You know what he can do,” one of his former colleagues says, referring to when the professor drew out his Smith fizzle revolver and fired at a driver blocking his way on Tom Mboya Street 13 years ago.
He is unapologetic. He says if you mess with him, he is not afraid of showing you the nozzle.
Raised by a polygamous father among more than 70 siblings, Obel, says when doing his masters at Hebrew University after graduating with high honours from the University of Nairobi, the puzzle of what made viral diseases incurable tormented him.
By the time he was doing his Phd at London University, he was convinced he could crack what made HIV hard to tackle.
Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board (KMPDB) CEO Daniel Yumbya says he once confronted Obel, but he clarified that he is a herbalist using unconventional medicine.
“He is not in our register. From our files, the last time he was registered to practise in Kenya was 1992,” says Yumbya, explaining why the board has not cracked the whip.
Pharmacy and Poisons Board CEO Fred Siyoi says he is not aware that Obel has been administering drugs, and that he will gather more information, put regulatory measures and ensure he complies.
Obel is unshaken. He says there is nothing under the sun, apart from failure, that scares him. He is a possessor of several academic accolades, collector of prestigious cars and guns, father of three and husband to one. Some of his friends and family claim he fathered many children who he refuses to acknowledge.
Constant headache
“If you are famous and successful, people will tag at you claiming you are their father. I pay them no attention,” he says.
He has ruffled many feathers, including at the University of Nairobi where he lectured for several years. They say he was a constant headache to the administration.
The university’s former Vice Chancellor George Magoha would rather not talk about Obel, despite the many unflattering things Obel has to say about him.
“I have no comment on him,” said Prof Magoha when asked what he remembers about working with the professor.
One of Obel’s former student remembers him as a brutal womaniser. When he saw a woman he desired, he pursued her with all his breath, money and charm.
Obel laughs out loud on the allegation of his love for damsels. In a lowered voice, he asks: “Which man does not love women? Tell me, which man can say he does not love women?”
One thing most of his contemporaries admit is that Obel is intelligent; brilliant to a fault. A man who got a perfect score for his first examination in university, and continued in the same trajectory to hisdoctorate.
Koech, who worked with him in developing Kemron, describes him as a workaholic whose only downfall might be not embracing team work.
Obel has no regrets on the life he has lived. One thing he says he is most proud of is the fact that he has never taken money he has not worked for.
Even with Iconaire, he continues to seek something better. He says he will do research to his last breath.
