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Asmal 'has shown up Manto'
04/05/2005 20:15 - (SA)
Cape Town - Senior ANC MP Kader Asmal has shown up Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang with his strong repudiation of claims made by so-called "Aids denialist" Matthias Rath, says the Democratic Alliance.
"I challenge the minister of health to publicly state whether she agrees with Asmal's assertion," DA health spokesperson Dianne Kohler-Barnard said on Wednesday.
Rath - a vitamin dealer - is involved in a legal battle with the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), and has claimed, in a letter sent to MPs on April 14, that the organisation is funded by "the pharmaceutical drug cartel".
According to the Cape Times earlier on Wednesday, the letter has drawn a sharp response from Asmal, who has condemned Rath's "tendentious and scurrilous" attack on the TAC.
The report quotes Asmal as saying he "does not want anything to do with Rath or his organisation (Matthias Rath Health Foundation)".
The Rath foundation has recently placed several adverts in newspapers stating its multivitamin products are able to stop the progress of Aids.
Tshabalala-Msimang is on record as saying the Rath foundation is "not undermining government's position" on Aids.
Kohler-Barnard said Asmal had "shown up the minister of health by refusing to tip-toe around Matthias Rath's exploitation of people dying with Aids".
She challenged other MPs to act with the same conviction as Asmal.
"It is sad that only one individual within the ANC leadership has so far been able to take a stand against this charlatan. "People suffering from life-threatening illnesses are often desperate for someone who can tell them there is a quick and easy cure.
"Matthias Rath has exploited this desperation in cancer patients in Europe, and now he is doing the same (here)... "While authorities in other countries have acted against him swiftly, he appears to have been given a free ticket in South Africa," she said.
The health minister had last month refused to condemn advertisements and leaflets published by Rath, claiming that antiretrovirals were poison and that his vitamin products could cure Aids.
"She claimed that Rath had the right to 'freedom of expression', even though he was spreading a message that could endanger peoples' lives.
"The Medicines Control Council has still not acted against Rath for making false claims about the efficacy of his products," Kohler-Barnard said.
- SAPA
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