Discredited doctor's 'cure' for Aids ignites life-and-death struggle in So [View All]

[emad]

Sarah Boseley
Saturday May 14, 2005
The Guardian

Patricia Masinga, 36, had known she had HIV for about 10 years. She worked for an Aids organisation, so when, inevitably, she began to get sick, she was well placed to get treatment, and her youth and two children gave her every reason to fight to stay alive.

But even among educated, professional women such as Patricia, uncertainty and confusion about the safety of Aids drugs has started to take hold in South Africa. She opted for a diet of garlic and lemon instead. A month ago, she died.


Doctors and campaigners who have been struggling to increase the availability of Aids drugs to the 5 million HIV-infected people in South Africa are dismayed by the activities of a German-born doctor, Matthias Rath, who has reignited a life-and-death struggle in South Africa.

Dr Rath denounces Aids drugs and claims that all those who promote them are the paid lackeys of western drug companies. Vitamins, not drugs, are the cure for Aids - and cancer and diabetes too for that matter - he says, and there are those in the South African government who appear to give him credence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/southafrica/story/0,13262,1483820,00.html