Treatment Action Campaign members demonstrated outside the office of the Medicines Control Council (MCC) in Pretoria on Friday, calling on it to act on the ”illegal” clinical trials conducted by Mathias Rath.
Vitamin entrepreneur Rath and his foundation have been involved in a legal battle with the TAC, for conducting clinical trials on those living with HIV/Aids in Khayelitsha in the Western Cape.
It is alleged Rath gave his patients food supplements, advising them to take these instead of anti-Aids drugs.
TAC provincial organiser Xolani Kunene said the TAC expected about 2 000 people to join in the march.
”We have previously called on the MCC and the Health Department to act against Rath, but nothing was done. Failure to do so implicates both the MCC and the department in the deaths of those who were seen by Rath,” Kunene said.
Rath’s products are not registered with the MCC.
”We know of Rath’s top patients who have died because he was misleading them. They make unsubstantiated claims about the healing powers of their vitamin concoctions,” he said.
The TAC claims Rath is using vulnerable and poor people living with HIV/Aids to advance his own selfish commercial interests — promoting his vitamin products as an alternative to registered Aids drugs.
The protest was expected to end at 1pm. — Sapa