Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - May 8, 2005
Jeanne van der Merwe, Johannesburg

Cape Town advocate Anthony Brink, a campaigner against antiretroviral drug treatment, said Achmat's "clinical case history" was proof that the drugs were harmful.

Brink made this claim, on behalf of Rath and his health foundation, in papers filed at the Cape High Court.

But the TAC hit back, filing affidavits by Achmat's doctor and cardiologist saying he is in excellent health and reacting well to the treatment.

Judge Siraj Desai will hear the case, in which the TAC is suing Rath for defamation, in the Cape High Court on Friday.

This week, as the battle lines were being drawn, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang voiced her suspicion of antiretroviral drugs and their toxic side effects. She said on Thursday that she would look at statistics to "interrogate" possible fatal side effects and repeated that good nutrition was as important as Aids drugs.

The TAC is suing Rath's controversial Dr Rath Health Foundation for defamation and asking the court for an interdict stopping Rath's pro-vitamin, anti-drugs campaign after he claimed in newspaper adverts and pamphlets that:

- The TAC took "millions" from pharmaceutical companies and aid foundations aligned with them;

- Antiretroviral drugs were toxic and could be deadly; and

- The TAC paid protesters to march.

The case will be heard next Friday but both sides have already posted the court papers on their websites.

Brink will argue that Achmat's "claim to be enjoying excellent, restored health is to be doubted on account of his deceitfulness in concealing, for political reasons, the fact that he'd been incapacitated by a few months' treatment with anti-retroviral drugs by early 2004, and because for most people the toxicity of these drugs is unendurable".

Brink also says in court papers: "The heart attack that Achmat suffered at the age of 42 is consistent with the destruction of cardiac muscle cells by the AZT and other antiretroviral drugs he is taking."

But Achmat's doctor of seven years, Steven Andrews, said in responding papers that his "overall state of health is good", despite his heart attack in March and "a moderate degree" of nerve damage "predating his commencement" of the drugs.

He added that Achmat's energy levels and muscle tone had improved since he started taking the drugs and he had had fewer HIV-related infections.

Achmat announced he would start taking antiretrovirals in 2003 after the government said it would start providing them in state clinics.

The TAC charged in court papers that Rath's "defamatory" campaign against it amounted to dangerous disinformation and a ploy to sell Rath's multivitamins in poor townships.

Achmat said in his affidavit that the TAC refused to accept funding from the pharmaceutical industry. The TAC had only once accepted a grant of just under R500000 from the Rockefeller Foundation, which Brink said had interests in pharmaceutical multinationals.

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