NAPWA partners with controversial Rath Foundation

German-born vitamin salesman Dr Matthias Rath's partnership with South Africa's National Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS (NAPWA) has raised concerns over the growing influence of the controversial AIDS dissident.

According to newspaper reports on Wednesday, the Rath Foundation has approached the Eastern Cape province branch of NAPWA to sell their vitamins.

NAPWA spokesman Thanduxolo Doro told PlusNews that his organisation's involvement with the wealthy German "goes only so far as partners in the fight against HIV/AIDS - it's not true that we are selling [vitamins] ... the Rath Foundation as a partner can provide [us with] crucial information on nutrition".

Over the past year Rath has run a high-profile media campaign attacking antiretroviral (ARV) medication and the AIDS lobby group, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), saying the anti-AIDS drugs were poisonous, and multivitamins alone could prevent AIDS.

The TAC, the South African Medical Association, the World Health Organisation (WHO), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and UNAIDS have all condemned Rath. In a joint statement, WHO, UNICEF and UNAIDS described Rath's claims as "misleading and potentially dangerous".

Several Western countries have banned the Foundation's products, and they are not registered with South Africa's Medicines Control Council (MCC), a violation of the Medicines and Related Substances Control Act.

Nevertheless, AIDS denialists and the Traditional Healers Organisation have come out in support of Rath, going so far as to stage protests and distribute pamphlets and posters in Khayelitsha and other townships in the Western Cape.

Now the foundation is in the process of expanding its programme to the Eastern Cape, and has begun circulating material in the port city of East London.

Dr Hermann Reuter, project coordinator at a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) ARV clinic in the remote Eastern Cape town of Lusikisiki, raised fears over the impact of the Foundation's campaign.

"They [the Rath Foundation] promise money and easier solutions - this might work in a poor community, and all the education on ARVs will be lost," he noted.

Reuter called on senior government officials to expose the Rath Foundation, and for ARV rollout sites to launch intensive campaigns informing people of the need for these medicines.

A health professional working in the Western Cape province, who asked not be named, expressed disappointment at NAPWA's decision: "They should be working for the best interest of people living with HIV/AIDS, but are they really doing this by supporting someone who belittles ARVs?"

Doro acknowledged that some NAPWA members believed in and used ARVs, while the Rath Foundation rejected the life-prolonging medication outright, but insisted that the organisation's 200,000 members had been adequately educated about HIV/AIDS treatment.

"I don't see any controversy here," Doro said. "The Rath Foundation has their own view - it doesn't mean we will be swallowing it."