South African Activists, Medics Tackle Controversial Vitamins Firm

Leading South African HIV/AIDS lobby the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), trade unions, doctors' groups and religious bodies have condemned allegedly bogus products supplied by a US-based vitamins distributor, the Dr Rath Health Foundation.

The controversy comes amid growing concern over the use of vitamin treatments in the struggle against the disease in South Africa. The country's government provides roughly 153,000 sufferers with a multivitamin syrup, as well as substantially fewer anti-AIDS generics. However, the Rath Foundation has reportedly condemned conventional therapies as "poison," which the TAC claims jeopardises the care of many sufferers. The activist group also alleges that the foundation has conducted "unauthorised experiments" on HIV/AIDS patients in some townships.

For its part, the Rath Foundation has cited "evidence" on the efficacy of its treatments in the New England Journal of Medicine, noting that its products allow patients to be treated at half the cost of conventional therapies, or some US$15 per patient annually. Meanwhile, the coalition of interest groups is pursuing court injunctions against the foundation and has appealed to local drug regulator the Medicines Control Council (MCC) over the company's products.

The South African government has pledged that it will support any negative findings by the MCC or the Health Professions Council of South Africa. Should the government concede on a ruling against vitamin-based HIV/AIDS therapies, it could force a change in official policy towards more exclusive provision of conventional, clinically attested antiretroviral drugs.