{"id":2823,"date":"2009-10-29T01:30:42","date_gmt":"2009-10-28T23:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ultimatefatburner.com\/?p=2823"},"modified":"2015-02-15T00:34:37","modified_gmt":"2015-02-15T05:34:37","slug":"lie-dogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/lie-dogs\/","title":{"rendered":"When You Lie Down With Dogs…"},"content":{"rendered":"

…You get up with fleas.\u00a0 It’s an old, old saying, but there’s truth to it.<\/p>\n

Earlier today, I was exchanging e-mails with a friend, Will Brink.\u00a0 He drew my attention to a recent study published in JANA – the Journal of the American Nutraceutical Association<\/a>.\u00a0 While scanning the list of papers, I came across one that made me do a double-take…<\/p>\n

\n

Inhibitory Effects of a Novel Nutrient Mixture on MMP Secretion and Invasion on Human Thyroid Cancer Cell Line SW 579<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ok, it wasn’t the title… it was the list of authors that caught my eye… specifically the senior author.<\/p>\n

\n

M Waheed Roomi PhD, Bilwa Bhanap MD, Vadim Ivanov PhD MD, Aleksandra Niedzwiecki PhD and Matthias Rath MD<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Dr. Rath Research Institute, Cancer Division<\/strong>, Santa Clara, California<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I looked up the Dr. Rath Research Institute<\/a> to verify that it was the same Matthias Rath I’d read about… and nearly gagged.\u00a0 It was: there was\u00a0NO mistaking that face, and the address on the paper matched the one on the site.<\/p>\n

OMFG.<\/p>\n

Don’t know who Matthias Rath is?\u00a0 I’ll let Dr. Ben Goldacre<\/a>, science journalist for the Guardian and author of Bad Science<\/a>\u00a0explain.<\/p>\n

The Doctor Will Sue You Now<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This chapter did not appear in the original edition of this book, because for fifteen months leading up to September 2008 the vitamin-pill entrepreneur Matthias Rath was suing me personally, and the Guardian<\/em>, for libel. This strategy brought only mixed success. For all that nutritionists may fantasise in public that any critic is somehow a pawn of big pharma, in private they would do well to remember that, like many my age who work in the public sector, I don\u2019t own a flat. The Guardian <\/em>generously paid for the lawyers, and in September 2008 Rath dropped his case, which had cost in excess of \u00a3500,000 to defend. Rath has paid \u00a3220,000 already, and the rest will hopefully follow.\u00a0 Nobody will ever repay me for the endless meetings, the time off work, or the days spent poring over tables filled with endlessly cross-referenced court documents.<\/p>\n

…He first developed a power base from sales in Europe, selling his pills with tactics that will be very familiar to you from the rest of this book, albeit slightly more aggressive. In the UK, his adverts claimed that \u201c90 per cent of patients receiving chemotherapy for cancer die within months of starting treatment\u201d, and suggested that three million lives could be saved if cancer patients stopped being treated by conventional medicine.\u00a0 The pharmaceutical industry was deliberately letting people die for financial gain, he explained. Cancer treatments were \u201cpoisonous compounds\u201d with \u201cnot even one effective treatment\u201d.<\/p>\n

…There was some limited regulatory response in Europe, but it was generally as weak as that faced by the other characters in this book. The Advertising Standards Authority criticised one of his adverts in the UK, but that is essentially all they are able to do. Rath was ordered by a Berlin court to stop claiming that his vitamins could cure cancer, or face a \u20ac250,000 fine.<\/p>\n

But sales were strong, and Matthias Rath still has many supporters in Europe, as you will shortly see. He walked into South Africa with all the acclaim, self-confidence and wealth he had amassed as a successful vitamin-pill entrepreneur in Europe and America, and began to take out full-page adverts in newspapers.<\/p>\n

\u02dcThe answer to the AIDS epidemic is here,\u201d he proclaimed. Anti-retroviral drugs were poisonous, and a conspiracy to kill patients and make money. \u201cStop AIDS Genocide by the Drugs Cartel said one headline. \u201cWhy should South Africans continue to be poisoned with AZT? There is a natural answer to AIDS.\u201d\u00a0 The answer came in the form of vitamin pills. \u201cMultivitamin treatment is more effective than any toxic AIDS drug. Multivitamins cut the risk of developing AIDS in half.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rath\u2019s company ran clinics reflecting these ideas, and in 2005 he decided to run a trial of his vitamins in a township near Cape Town called Khayelitsha, giving his own formulation, VitaCell, to people with advanced AIDS. In 2008 this trial was declared illegal by the Cape High Court of South Africa. Although Rath says that none of his participants had been on anti-retroviral drugs, some relatives have given statements saying that they were, and were actively told to stop using them.<\/p>\n

…In 2005, exasperated by government inaction, a group of 199 leading medical practitioners in South Africa signed an open letter to the health authorities of the Western Cape, pleading for action on the Rath Foundation. \u201cOur patients are being inundated with propaganda encouraging them to stop life-saving medicine,\u201d it said. \u201cMany of us have had experiences with HIV infected patients who have had their health compromised by stopping their anti-retrovirals due to the activities of this Foundation.\u201d\u00a0 Rath\u2019s adverts continue unabated. He even claimed that his activities were endorsed by huge lists of sponsors and affiliates including the World Health Organization, UNICEF and UNAIDS. All have issued statements flatly denouncing his claims and activities. The man certainly has chutzpah.<\/p>\n

…To outsiders the story is baffling and terrifying. The United Nations has condemned Rath\u2019s adverts as \u201cwrong and misleading\u201d. \u201cThis guy is killing people by luring them with unrecognised treatment without any scientific evidence,\u201d said Eric Goemaere, head of M\u00e9decins sans Fronti\u00e8res SA, a man who pioneered anti-retroviral therapy in South Africa. Rath sued him.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just MSF who Rath has gone after: he has also brought time-consuming, expensive, stalled or failed cases against a professor of AIDS research, critics in the media and others.<\/p>\n

But his most heinous campaign has been against the Treatment Action Campaign. For many years this has been the key organisation campaigning for access to anti-retroviral medication in South Africa, and it has been fighting a war on four fronts.<\/p>\n

…And now, at last, we come to the lowest point of this whole story, not merely for Matthias Rath\u2019s movement, but for the alternative therapy movement around the world as a whole. In 2007, with a huge public flourish, to great media coverage, Rath\u2019s former employee Anthony Brink filed a formal complaint against Zackie Achmat, the head of the TAC. Bizarrely, he filed this complaint with the International Criminal Court at The Hague, accusing Achmat of genocide for successfully campaigning to get access to HIV drugs for the people of South Africa.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These are just excerpts… read the whole thing.\u00a0 The Guardian was all over Rath and exposed his activities for the world to see.\u00a0 If Goldacre’s synopsis isn’t enough to break your heart, check out this video created by the Guardian<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Needless to state, this man has NO scientific or ethical credibility, and should be shunned, not legitimized as a competent researcher, by any organization associated with nutraceuticals and supplements… which are supposed to complement medical therapies and promote health.\u00a0 WTF was the editorial board of JANA thinking?<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it would appear that Goldacre has it right…<\/p>\n

Despite the extremes of this case, not one single alternative therapist or nutritionist, anywhere in the world, has stood up to criticise any single aspect of the activities of Matthias Rath and his colleagues. In fact, far from it: he continues to be f\u00eated to this day. I have sat in true astonishment and watched leading figures of the UK\u2019s alternative therapy movement applaud\u00a0 Matthias Rath at a public lecture (I have it on video, just in case there\u2019s any doubt). Natural health organisations continue to defend Rath. Homeopaths\u2019 mailouts continue to promote his work. The British Association of Nutritional Therapists has been invited to comment by bloggers, but declined. Most, when challenged, will dissemble.\u201dOh,\u201d they say, \u201cI don\u2019t really know much about it.\u201d\u00a0 Not one person will step forward and dissent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This makes me more than angry… I don’t want to be on the same “side” that people like this are on.\u00a0 There are enough cranks and charalatans in the industry already… we don’t need ghouls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…You get up with fleas.\u00a0 It’s an old, old saying, but there’s truth to it. Earlier today, I was exchanging e-mails with a friend, Will Brink.\u00a0 He drew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,15,28],"tags":[92,112,308,808,1189,1862,1591],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2823"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8808,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823\/revisions\/8808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}