Matthias Rath (19552026) was a doctor, businessman, and vitamin salesman.S Africa bans Aids vitamin trials BBC News, UK. Published 13 June 2008. Retrieved 10 September 2008.BMJ pays out to doctor over 'child death' story. Press Gazette magazine. Published 5 June 2007. Retrieved 10 September 2008. He earned his medical degree in Germany. Rath claimed that a program of nutritional supplements (which he called "cellular medicine"), including formulations that he sold, can treat or cure diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and HIV/AIDS.Articles coauthored by Rath on these topics include:
Role of micronutrients in the control of HIV and AIDS. Commonwealth Health Ministers Book 2007, pages 187–189. Published by Henley Media Group Ltd in association with the Commonwealth Secretariat. These claims are not supported by any reliable medical research. Rath ran the Dr. Rath Health Foundation, has been closely associated with Health Now, Inc., and founded the Dr. Rath Research Institute.
The Sunday Times has described Rath as an "international campaigner for the use of natural remedies" whose "theories on the treatment of cancer have been rejected by health authorities all over the world."Dissidents take their crusade to the streets , By Rowan Philip and Edwin Lombard. Published in the Sunday Times (Johannesburg) on 30 November 2004. Retrieved 9 May 2008. On HIV/AIDS, Rath has disparaged the pharmaceutical industry and denounced antiretroviral medication as toxic and dangerous, while claiming that his vitamin pills could reverse the course of AIDS. As a result, Rath has been accused of "potentially endangering thousands of lives" in South Africa, a country with a massive AIDS epidemic where Rath was active in the mid-2000s.Fall of the vitamin doctor: Matthias Rath drops libel action, by Sarah Boseley. The Guardian, UK, 12 September 2008. Retrieved 12 September 2008 The head of Médecins Sans Frontières in South Africa Eric Goemaere said of Rath, “This guy is killing people by luring them with unrecognised treatment without any scientific evidence”; Rath attempted to sue him.
Rath's claims and methods have been widely criticised by medical organisations, AIDS-activist groups, and the United Nations, among others.The Denialists: The dangerous attacks on the consensus about H.I.V. and AIDS, by Michael Specter. Published in The New Yorker on 12 March 2007. Retrieved 16 April 2007.U.N. slams AIDS 'dissident' for attack on drugs , by Stephanie Nebehay. Published by Reuters on 12 May 2005. Retrieved 9 May 2008 Former South African President Thabo Mbeki and former Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang have also been criticised by the medical and AIDS-activist community for their perceived support of Rath's claims.'Minister defends vitamin guru’s views on AIDS, nutrition’ Business Day newspaper, South Africa. Published 13 April 2005. Retrieved 3 June 2008.TAC calls for Manto’s head over Rath . Published 13 June 2008. Retrieved 20 June 2008. According to doctors with Médecins Sans Frontières, the Treatment Action Campaign (a South African AIDS-activist group)South Africa: TAC prevails over Rath. PlusNews Global, 13 June 2008. . Retrieved 15 June 2008. and a former Rath colleague, unauthorised clinical trials run by Rath and his associates, using vitamins as therapy for HIV, resulted in deaths of some participants. In 2008, the Cape High Court found the trials unlawful, banned Rath and his foundation from conducting unauthorised clinical trials and from advertising their products, and instructed the South African Health Department to fully investigate Rath's vitamin trials.South African court bans AIDS vitamin trials . Published by Reuters on 13 June 2008. Retrieved 20 June 2008. In 2008, Rath expanded his advertising to Russia, a country where the incidence of HIV/AIDS had been increasing.
Background Born in Stuttgart, Germany, Rath studied at the Hamburg University Medical School in Germany.Natural health in Africa. African Decisions magazine. Issue 3/2004. Pages 26–28. After graduating, he began researching arteriosclerosis at the University Clinic of Hamburg. Later, during 1989 and 1990, he was a researcher at the Berlin Heart Centre. He subsequently joined two-time Nobel Prize laureate Linus Pauling at his research institute in California. Ultimately, Rath had a falling-out with the Linus Pauling Institute; after a series of lawsuits and countersuits, Rath was ordered in 1994 to pay the Institute $75,000 and was assigned several patents.A global business built on vitamins – and the claim to kill all disease, by Sarah Bosely. Published in The Guardian on 12 September 2008. Retrieved 16 September 2008. Rath subsequently developed his own branded nutrient products, set up the Dr. Rath Health Foundation and Dr. Rath Research Institute, and funded nutrition research with patent development in what he called "Cellular Medicine".
Rath has offices in California, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and South Africa (Cape Town). His foundation also advertises its products in Spain, France, and Russia."Discredited doctor's 'cure' for Aids ignites life-and-death struggle in South Africa", by Sarah Boseley. Published in The Guardian on 14 May 2005. According to Eversheds, Rath's solicitor, the Dr. Rath Health Foundation is "a not-for-profit body which conducts research into science-based natural therapies",'BMJ pays out to doctor over 'child death' story.’ Press Gazette magazine. Published 5 June 2007. Retrieved 8 April 2008. but the foundation is estimated to have earned "millions" through nutritional supplement sales.'Matthias Rath: Denouncer of modern medicine.' S. Boseley, The Guardian, 12 September 2008. Retrieved 12 September 2008.
According to Rath, international events of the last century have been driven by pharmaceutical and oil companies. He claimed that these interests started and exploited World War II. In court filings, Rath and his lawyers write that the pharmaceutical industry then started apartheid in South Africa as part of a global conspiracy to "conquer and control the entire African continent." They specifically mention former Nazi officials and the German chemical company IG Farben as playing a central role in the alleged conspiracy. They also compare Rath's adversaries in court to Hitler's stormtroopers.'Apartheid a pharmaceutical plot-Rath' IOL-South Africa, 10 May 2007. Retrieved 8 September 2008.
Rath suggested that the pharmaceutical industry continues to control international politics today, allowing 9/11 to occur and starting the Iraq War to divert attention from what he considered the failures of drug companies. On his website, Rath stated that United States President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, at the behest of what Rath called the "pharmaceutical cartel", were planning a nuclear war in advance of the 4 November 2008 elections in the United States. Rath has made similar claims in the New York Times and other major newspapers around the world in the form of large advertisements reportedly designed to resemble newspaper editorials.
Awards In 2001, the American Preventive Medical Association and the National Foundation for Alternative Medicine, both health freedom advocacy groups, gave Rath the Bulwark of Liberty Award.
Controversies Rath's theories, claims, and research, particularly his efforts to persuade South Africans to use his vitamin supplements to treat HIV/AIDS, have been controversial.A New All-time Low, by Ben Goldacre. Published in "Bad Science" in The Guardian on 20 January 2007. Retrieved 16 April 2007.Death by Denial, from The New Republic. Published 12 March 2007. Retrieved 16 April 2007.
Illegal AIDS trials in South Africa In 2005, according to Reuters, Rath's foundation distributed tens of thousands of pamphlets in poor black South African townships, such as Khayelitsha, claiming that HIV medication was "poison" and urging HIV-positive people to instead use vitamins such as those Rath sold to treat HIV/AIDS.SOUTH AFRICA: South African Activists Take On AIDS 'Dissident' , by Gordon Bell. Published by Reuters on 19 April 2005. Retrieved 9 May 2008.Pamphlets confusing AIDS sufferers, says TAC. By Babalo Ndenze; published 24 February 2005. Retrieved 31 July 2008. People with "advanced AIDS" were then recruited by the Rath Foundation and its surrogates for what the Rath Foundation called "a clinical pilot study in HIVpositive patients" A. Thom, K. Bodibe, Sunday Times (Johannesburg), 4 September 2005. Retrieved 11 September 2008. Personnel of the South Africa National Civic Organisation (Sanco) administered the programme in Khayelitsha as "agents for the Rath foundation."
Patients were recruited for the study with offers of money or food and instructed to stop taking conventional HIV/AIDS medications. Luthando Nogcinisa, a local Communist Party official, said that Rath agents recruited known HIV-positive individuals, "often with a pack of groceries, and they encourage the person not to take the antiretrovirals, but to rather take the vitamins". Mike Waters, Democratic Alliance health spokesperson, states that Rath gave patients "food parcels to convince them to give up their antiretrovirals and take his vitamin C supplements instead."Mail & Guardian Cape Town, SA, 13 July 2007. Retrieved 10 September 2008.
Rath Foundation employees reportedly infiltrated HIV/AIDS clinics in Khayelitsha and paid clinic staff to provide them with names of patients.No drugs, just take vitamins: the dangerous advice to cure HIV, by Chris McGreal. Published in The Guardian on 15 September 2008. Retrieved 16 September 2008. The Guardian described a case in which a pregnant woman newly diagnosed with HIV was visited at home by Rath Health Foundation employees and convinced to stop taking her antiretroviral medication in favour of Rath's vitamins; she died three months later.Matthias Rath: The human cost, by Charlotte Rowles, Michael Tait, and Joe McAllister. Published 12 September 2008. Retrieved 16 September 2008. The Rath Foundation disputed that patients were asked to stop taking effective antiviral medication. Rath's lawyers also claimed that the trial was actually a "community nutrition programme" to which Rath contributed vitamins.Rath vitamins are 'a help, not a cure' IOL, 13 March 2008. Retrieved 11 September 2008.
Five trial participants stated in affidavits that they were stripped to their underwear, photographed, and forced to have their blood drawn. They were told to take pills containing what were said to be high doses of vitamins, including Rath's VitaCell. Demetre Labadarios, who leads the Human Nutrition programme at Stellenbosch University, questioned the safety of administering high doses of supplements to already sick patients.
During and immediately following the vitamin trials, "many people died,"Manto's muti policy A. Thom, South Africa Independent Online, 20 August 2008. Retrieved 10 September 2008. deaths Rath's adversaries attributed to lack of effective medication.People die taking Rath's products IOL, 12 March 2008. Retrieved 10 September 2008. Sanco-Rath clinic workers reportedly instructed patients to return to the clinic in the event of medical emergency, rather than going to hospital.