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This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.

Rath making fool of Manto - DA

17/05/2005 17:56  - (SA)

Cape Town - Vitamin entrepreneur Matthias Rath is turning Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and her department into the laughing stock of the world, said the Democratic Alliance on Tuesday.

DA MP and health spokesperson Dianne Kohler-Barnard said in the national assembly: "The DA welcomes the decision by the Advertising Standards Authority to ban the latest advertisements by Californian snake-oil salesman Matthias Rath.

"We can hope only that the investigation into the Rath Foundation by the Medicines Control Council is concluded swiftly and results in some sanity returning to the debate on the treatment of HIV/Aids.

"This man's misinformation for purposes of personal enrichment is daily costing the lives of South Africans fooled into believing that his vitamins can cure Aids. They never have, and never will," she said.

Tshabalala-Msimang owed it to HIV-positive South Africans to publicly and vocally distance herself from "this parasite".

"In light of the Hon Minister's obvious fondness for the Rath Foundation, his advertisements in international newspapers this past week have contributed to making both our health system and the minister a laughing stock around the world. The minister ought to know better," said Kohler-Barnard.

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