South African court bans trials of vitamin treatments for Aids

by Paul Conneally | June 14, 2008 at 03:00 am

226 views | 0 Recommendations | 0 comments

Where disease is rife and access to real medicines difficult especially for the poor someone will always try and cash in by giving people cheap access to cod medicine and false hope. The trial not only attempts to stop Rath exploiting the poor and sick any further but also puts South Africa's attitude to Aids under the spotlight which has to be good.

A South African court has banned a team of scientists and doctors, including a former adviser to President Thabo Mbeki, from conducting unauthorised clinical trials into the use of vitamin therapies to treat Aids.

German doctor Matthias Rath and American biochemist David Rasnick, who used to sit on Mbeki's Aids advisory council, were among 12 people accused in the Cape high court of supervising illegal medical trials in black townships and selling unregistered vitamin supplements to poor Aids sufferers. The suit was brought by the South African Medical Association and the Treatment Action Campaign lobby group, which said some of Rath's patients died after relying on his unproven remedies rather than seeking conventional treatment at state-run clinics.

Judge Dumisani Zondi yesterday ruled against Rath and Rasnick, who is a member of the Dr Rath Health Foundation. "It is declared that the clinical trials conducted in South Africa ... are unlawful," Zondi said.

Rath was also barred from publishing any advertisements for his natural Aids remedies - high-dose vitamin pills containing minerals such as iron and iodine - which he claims are more effective that antiretroviral drugs. His theories have proved hugely controversial in South Africa, which has one of the highest incidences of HIV in the world, with up to 1,000 people dying of Aids-related illnesses every day.