Matthias Rath

Matthias Rath, M.D. (born 1955 in Stuttgart, Germany) is a controversial German physician and vitamin entrepreneur.

Rath studied medicine in Germany and subsequently worked as a scientist at the university hospital in Hamburg and the German Cardiac Center in Berlin. He was the head of Cardiovascular Research at the Linus Pauling Institute in Palo Alto, USA. He advocates the use of herbs and vitamins, which he sells, as an alternative to proven antiretroviral treatment for HIV in South Africa.

Claimed discoveries
Rath has made numerous comparative studies of humans and animals and claims to have discovered that animals who can synthesise vitamin C naturally do not suffer heart attacks. Humans do not have this ability, thus need to obtain the vitamin C from a balanced diet. Rath advocates increased intake of vitamin C to prevent atherosclerosis, heart attack and stroke. He argues that vitamin C deficiency in Western diets causes microscopic lesions in the artery walls, which instead of being repaired are filled up with fats which later harden through dystrophic calcification, leading to typical symptoms of high blood pressure (reduced artery wall elasticity) and heart disease complications.

Controversy
Rath's research remains controversial in medical circles.

Franc Ulrich Montgomery (chairman  of the Marburger Federation, roughly translated as Federation  of German Physicians) and Michael Bamberg (executive of the German Cancer Foundation) have demanded legal procedures  against Dr Rath following the death of a child (Dominik Feld) suffering  bone cancer which metastisised to the lungs. The child's parents, prior to his death, had taken their son off chemotherapy treatment and put him under Dr Rath's nutritional supplement therapy.

In the July 22 2006 issue of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), a news item was published reporting that Dr. Rath had gone on trial in Hamburg, Germany "for fraud" in relation to the death of Dominik Feld. However, the BMJ subsequently retracted the news item "on legal advice" and issued an apology to Dr. Rath, stating that the BMJ accepted that "the allegations we published were without foundation." A subsequent libel claim by Rath was settled by the BMJ for ₤100,000.

Other claimed discoveries and beliefs
Rath has also claimed discoveries on the role of lysine and the propagation of cancer cells (see links below). He alleges that lysine has been found to block the enzymes secreted by cancer cells that dissolve connective tissue (collagen) which stops their spread (metastasis).

Rath is also an AIDS dissident. Reuters.

Independent studies of efficacy
In 2004, the Swiss Study Group for Complementary and Alternative Methods in Cancer (SKAK), an independent group which evaluates alternative medical treatments, examined Dr. Rath's vitamin preparations and the marketing claims made by Dr. Rath. The Study Group reported that they "found no proof that the vitamin preparations of Dr. Matthias Rath have any effect on human cancer" and "advise against their use in cancer prevention and treatment while recommending a diet rich in fruit and vegetables." Specifically, the Swiss Study Group report criticized Rath for:


 * Making sweeping, unsubstantiated claims of efficacy. Rath has claimed that his vitamin treatments can cure all forms of cancer, as well as most infectious diseases, including AIDS. However, Rath notes at the end of his advertising brochure that sometimes, especially in cases of advanced illness, even his treatments cannot fully restore health.


 * Citing anecdotal reports of success which could not be confirmed. In the case of one patient allegedly "cured" by Rath's methods, the Study Group found that "it is not even certain from a medical perspective if cancer was present."


 * Using a self-developed test of efficacy, rather than using widely accepted and verified tests and endpoints.

The conclusion of the Swiss Study Group regarding Dr. Rath's vitamin formulations was:

Legal cases
A number of successful court cases have been brought against Dr. Rath for violating advertising standards, defaming his critics, and making false allegations about pharmaceutical firms.


 * In 2000, the Court of Almelo in the Netherlands ordered Rath to stop making unfounded, false, and defamatory statements about the Dutch pharmaceutical company Numico.


 * In 2002, the British Advertising Standards Authority found that advertisements by Rath contained a series of misleading and false claims and ordered the claims removed.


 * In 2002, the United States Food and Drug Administration notified Dr. Rath that he was promoting his supplements in a manner that violated the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, by making claims of efficacy without undergoing the appropriate scientific and regulatory review.


 * In 2005, the Advertising Standards Association of South Africa (ASASA) issued three separate rulings against Dr. Rath, finding that he had made false and misleading claims regarding the effectiveness of his supplements and ordering him to immediately withdraw the inappropriate advertisements. Rath disregarded the ruling and continued the misleading advertisements, leading the ASASA to rule that, "in light of the gravity of [Rath's] breeches", he was required to submit all further advertising to the ASASA for prior approval.


 * In 2006, the High Court of South Africa found that Dr. Rath had defamed the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), an AIDS non-profit organization, by publicly making false and misleading statements about the TAC. Rath was ordered to cease his defamatory remarks "to ensure that the TAC's continued participation in the debate is not hamstrung by defamatory and unfounded allegations."

Criticism
Rath and the Rath Foundation have been criticized for disparaging the proven effectiveness of antiretroviral medication, and for misusing or misrepresenting the published medical literature in order to further the sale of their multivitamin products.

Harvard multivitamin study
To support the sale of his proprietary multivitamin combination, Dr. Rath has repeatedly cited a study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggesting that multivitamin supplementation slows the progression of HIV to AIDS.

In May 2005, the study authors released a statement condeming Rath's "irresponsible and misleading statements, as in our view they deliberately misinterpret findings from our studies to advocate against the scale-up of antiretroviral therapy." The study authors felt that Dr. Rath had misused their study results to argue that multivitamins should be used in place of antiretroviral medication. In their statement, the study authors affirmed the central role of antiretroviral medication in the treatment of AIDS, and indicated that multivitamins should be, at most, a supplementary treatment.

Claims of WHO and UN support
Rath's advertising material has suggested that his nutritional supplements are superior to antiretroviral therapy in the treatment of HIV/AIDS, and he had implied that his claims were endorsed by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and UNAIDS. However, these agencies issued a joint statement condeming Rath's advertisements as "wrong and misleading".

Use of published medical literature
A study published in the British Medical Journal in 1998 examined some of the claims made by Dr. Rath and Health Now in support of Rath's multivitamin supplement blend. The authors found that Rath listed 40 citations to support his product; however, on examination, only 8 of these citations were of actual clinical trials. After examining these clinical trials, the authors concluded that despite Rath's claims to the contrary, "no general clinical benefit of vitamins C and E and carotene can be proved from the works cited by Health Now."

Other criticism
To address the "confusion" created by Rath's advertising campaign, the South African Council of Churches issued a statement that Rath's activities in South Africa "can only be interpreted as misguided strategies to promote Dr. Rath's own brand of nutritional supplements." The Council affirmed the importance of both antiretroviral medication and good nutrition for people with HIV, and pointed out that multivitamins are distributed by public health services and need not be obtained from Rath's organization.

Support
The Rath Foundation has received active support from SANCO, the South African Civic's Organisation and from the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal who have run community workshops together with SANCO and the Rath Foundation.