The court case against vitamin entrepreneur Matthias Rath is a distraction from the real work of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), its national chairperson Zackie Achmat, said on Friday.
He was addressing several hundred TAC supporters on the steps of the Cape High Court, where a full bench of judges was hearing the TAC’s application for an urgent interdict against Rath.
The TAC’s application has been postponed to May 26.
”This is a distraction from our real work. This is a terrible distraction and what we must ask is who benefits from this distraction.
”And the benefit is [to] only one person: Manto,” he said to cheers, in a reference to Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. ”She wants to deny that the health system is having a problem. She wants to deny that she’s undermining the anti-retroviral programme.”
Achmat also appealed to the TAC supporters to be disciplined when confronted by supporters of the Traditional Healers’ Organisation (THO).
Several hundred THO members bused in from as far afield as Mpumalanga and Gauteng, plus members of the National Association of People with Aids (Napwa), earlier faced the TAC group in a noisy confrontation on the court steps.
The THO supporters, dressed in red robes, carried posters including ”Viva Dr Rath”, one with a bloodstained hand representing the TAC, and a large banner reading ”AZT kills”.
Police moved in to separate the two groups, but shortly after noon there was a scuffle as the pro-Rath group was leaving, when they enveloped TAC Western Cape coordinator Thmebeka Majali in a banner and dragged her with them about 25m.
”I want to ask everyone here that when those people come back here this afternoon, what are we going to do? Peaceful, and sit down. You sit down,” said Achmat.
Earlier, inside the packed courtroom, Judge Siraj Desai and his two fellow judges allowed an application by the THO to join Rath and his Dr Rath Health Foundation as defendants in the case — which also makes it liable for any costs awarded in the matter.
Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza had argued for the THO that it is in the interests of justice that the organisation be joined, to short-circuit the possibility of a similar separate action against it by the TAC in future.
Also at the start of the hearing, Rath’s advocate, John van der Berg, made a last-minute application for the admission an affidavit by Rath, who has up to now not reacted personally in the papers, and a book by Rath on healing.
Van der Berg argued that even though the affidavit is not relevant to the issue the court is considering, Rath should have a chance to reply to ”vilifying statements” Achmat and the TAC made against him in their papers.
He added that it is not only the TAC that is vilifying Rath.
”It’s being done daily on their behalf by the media,” he said. ”There has been a campaign in the court of public opinion. This has been entirely one-sided and anti-Rath.”
Van der Berg abandoned the bid to introduce the new documents after TAC counsel Geoff Budlender argued that it was vexatious and an abuse of court process.
Van der Berg also rejected the TAC’s claim that Rath’s campaign against anti-retrovirals is simply to promote sales of his multivitamins.
”That, my lords, is mischievous, and Dr Rath says in his affidavit that is a lie; ‘I haven’t sold a single bottle of pills in South Africa and I don’t intend to.”’
Van der Berg said pills sold elsewhere are not sold for profit, and proceeds are ploughed back into research.
The TAC is asking the court stop Rath claiming it is a front for the pharmaceutical industry and that it is forcing the government to spend millions of rands on toxic drugs.
It says it intends to bring a full-scale defamation action against him at a later date.
Rath has been criticised by a number of organisations for his opposition to anti-retroviral drugs, which he claims are an ineffective treatment for HIV/Aids. — Sapa