Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - November 29, 2005
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the South African Medical Association (SAMA) said Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang had failed the public by allowing Matthias Rath to continue operating in South Africa.
"Matthias Rath ... is using poor, particularly black people as guinea pigs ... and the government is doing nothing," TAC general secretary Sipho Mthathi told a news briefing.
The TAC and the SAMA filed papers in the Cape High Court demanding Tshabalala-Mismang and the state Medicines Control Council act against Rath, who runs multivitamin trials on AIDS patients in Cape Town's Khayelitsha township.
Critics say Rath's vitamin trials have not been approved by a research ethics committee and discourage people from using anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs, which slow the progress of AIDS.
Activists say 900 South Africans die each day from AIDS-related diseases, while official data estimate 5.6 million of South Africa's 45 million population is infected with HIV, the highest caseload in the world.
Rath, who is based in the United States, and his foundation advocate nutrition and vitamins to fight AIDS and have used pamphlets and newspaper advertisements to attack ARVs, which he says are poisonous.
Tshabalala-Msimang has refused to condemn Rath, although the MCC is probing claims the foundation's trials are illegal.
The ministry -- itself frequently attacked by activists as supporting AIDS "denialist" positions -- confirmed papers had been filed but dismissed them, saying policy would not change.
"We do not agree with the TAC's assertion that anti-retroviral drugs are the only scientifically proven intervention to reverse the course of AIDS," spokesman Sibani Mngadi said in a statement.
The TAC, which won a landmark case in 2002 forcing the government to provide drugs to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission, is already suing Rath for libel after he charged the group was a front for a global drugs cartel.
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