Re: [pronut-hiv] South Africa: TAC Seeks Ban On Rath Treating Aids With Vitamins (2)

["francis khadudu" <fkwere@yahoo.com>]

This is indeed an interesting case to follow. Here in Kenya apparently the Herbalists are having a field day in their promotional campaigns on similar lines. The Medical Board and the Pharmaceutical Fraternity need to come out with some official guidance like in the case of South Africa.

Regards

 Francis Were

---------ProNut-HIV wrote: 
Business Day ( http://www.bday.co.za/ ) (Johannesburg)
13 March 2008
Tamar Kahn
Cape Town

Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) lawyers yesterday asked the Cape High
Court to instruct controversial vitamin entrepreneur Matthias Rath and
his associates to stop promoting his products as alternatives to AIDS
drugs.
The case goes to the heart of SA's legal framework for medicines, and
has potentially wide-reaching implications for the growing complementary
health products market.
"It (the case) has very important implications -- to protect public
health and to protect people from unscrupulous money-makers," TAC
chairman Zackie Achmat said.

TAC and the South African Medical Association (Sama), SA's biggest
doctor organisation, have charged Rath with systematically contravening
the Medicines Act by distributing unregistered medicines, conducting
unauthorised clinical trials, and publishing "false and misleading"
advertisements that claim vitamins and micro-nutrients reverse the
course of AIDS.

They have also drawn the government into the case, claiming it failed
to fulfil its duties to protect citizens from harm by not taking
reasonable steps to investigate and halt Rath's allegedly unlawful
activities.

The court was asked to issue a structured interdict compelling health
department directorgeneral Thami Mseleku and the government to probe
Rath's activities, stop him if he was indeed breaking the law, and
report their findings to the court.
Rath's employees, David Rasnick and Alexandra Niedwiecki, the
government, Mseleku, the chairman of the Medicines Control Council
(MCC), the registrar of medicines and the MEC for health in Western Cape
were cited as co-respondents.
TAC and Sama originally included Anthony Brink and his Treatment
Information Group in the application, but the parties settled out of
court last week.

TAC lawyer Geoff Budlender told the court that the Medicines Act
defined a medicine as any substance that was used, claimed to be
suitable for, or was manufactured and sold for diagnosing, treating, or
preventing disease. The act required medicines to be registered with the
MCC , prohibited the sale of certain medicines except by qualified
people such as pharmacists, and made it illegal to make unauthorised
claims about medicines.
All experiments intended to assess the safety and efficacy of medicines
had to be registered with the council. The purpose of the act was to
protect patients and prevent quackery, he told Judge Dumisani Zondi.

Rath's products were medicines, Budlender argued, because he had
distributed them for treating AIDS. They were therefore subject to the
act's provisions. He said Rath had breached the act by failing to
register his products and had broken the law by failing to register his
experiments on HIV-positive people living in Khayelitsha.
Rath's lawyer, Dumisa Ntsebeza, said his client had never claimed his
products were medicines. "We are saying they are nutritional
supplements. "

As for the issue of clinical trials, Rath donated vitamins to the South
African National Civics Organisation for distribution, while
participants in so-called trials were told they were getting vitamins,
not medicines, and willingly took them. With Sapa