Matthias Rath

[[File:Drrath highres.tif|thumb|right|165px|Dr. Matthias Rath]]
{{cquote|This guy is killing people by luring them with unrecognised treatment without any scientific evidence|||Dr. Eric Goemaere on Matthias Rath's [[quackery]].<ref>[https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(05)67739-2/fulltext SA health minister urged to stop vitamin-peddling doctor]. thelancet.com.</ref>}} 
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'''Matthias Rath''' (1955-2026) was a notorious quack [[Vitamin supplement|vitamin pill]] magnate, [[AIDS denialist]] and [[statin denialist]] who unsuccessfully tried to sue ''[[The Guardian]]'' after quackbuster [[Ben Goldacre]] cited strong evidence that he was responsible for deadly misinformation and health fraud profiteering.<ref name=Goldacre>[http://www.badscience.net/2008/09/matthias-rath-pulls-out-forced-to-pay-the-guardians-costs-i-think-this-means-i-win/ Bad Science], September 2008</ref> 

Rath argued that atherosclerosis is caused by a depletion of [[vitamin C]] and that [[Vitamin and mineral supplements#Megavitamin therapy|massive doses]] of vitamin C can reverse atherosclerotic plaque, a view not supported by clinical evidence. He was influenced by [[Linus Pauling]] and considered himself to be his successor.<ref>[https://archive.ph/PgjBX Matthias Rath: Denouncer of modern medicines]. theguardian.com.</ref>

==AIDS denialism==

Rath was a peddler of vitamin pills, which he claimed to have near-magical curative power such as reversing [[AIDS]].<ref>[https://archive.ph/SC9el South African court bans AIDS vitamin trials]. reuters.com.</ref> He was an influential AIDS denialist, being in no small part responsible for the [[South African]] government's shameful and deadly policy on AIDS under President [[Thabo Mbeki]]. Public health researchers have attributed 330,000 to 340,000 AIDS deaths, along with 171,000 other HIV infections and 35,000 infant HIV infections, to the South African government's former embrace of AIDS denialism.<ref name=MbekiDenial>[http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2008/11/26/harvard-universityreport.pdf Estimating the Lost Benefits of Antiretroviral Drug Use in South Africa] by P. Chigwedere et al. (2008). ''Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes'' 49(4):410–415.</ref>

His campaign against South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign and founder Zackie Achmat was vicious to the point of being almost surreal. Former employee Anthony Brink actually filed a charge at the International Criminal Court in The Hague accusing Achmat of [[genocide]], based on his support for use of antiretrovirals. Rath and his associates accused TAC of taking money from pharmaceutical companies (an allegation which is categorically false) and acting as shills for [[Big Pharma]] despite TAC's widely publicised and trenchant criticism of the pharmaceutical industry. The following section is genuine and apparently sincerely meant:

{{cquote|In view of the scale and gravity of Achmat's crime and his direct personal criminal culpability for 'the deaths of thousands of people', to quote his own words, it is respectfully submitted that the International Criminal Court ought to impose on him the highest sentence provided by Article 77.1(b) of the Rome Statute, namely to permanent confinement in a small white steel and concrete cage, bright fluorescent light on all the time to keep an eye on him, his warders putting him out only to work every day in the prison garden to cultivate nutrient-rich vegetables, including when it's raining. In order for him to repay his debt to society, with the ARVs he claims to take administered daily under close medical watch at the full prescribed dose, morning noon and night, without interruption, to prevent him faking that he's being treatment compliant, pushed if necessary down his forced-open gullet with a finger, or, if he bites, kicks and screams too much, dripped into his arm after he’s been restrained on a gurney with cable ties around his ankles, wrists and neck, until he gives up the ghost on them, so as to eradicate this foulest, most loathsome, unscrupulous and malevolent blight on the human race, who has plagued and poisoned the people of South Africa, mostly black, mostly poor, for nearly a decade now, since the day he and his TAC first hit the scene.|||Signed at Cape Town, South Africa, on 1 January 2007, Anthony Brink<ref name=missing>[http://www.badscience.net/2009/04/matthias-rath-steal-this-chapter/ Matthias Rath – Steal This Chapter] originally intended for the book ''Bad Science'' by Ben Goldacre]</ref>}}

So much for Rath's organisation.

Rath's lawsuit prevented Goldacre from including a chapter on Rath in [[Bad Science]]. Happily the lawsuit having been dropped and the Guardian's costs paid, Rath had effectively accepted that he had no case, so Goldacre has published the missing chapter online.<ref name=missing/>

==Vitamin C reversal claims of heart disease==

Rath argued that the true cause of heart disease is vitamin C deficiency and that by taking high-dose vitamin C supplements it can reverse atherosclerotic plaque without angioplasty or bypass surgery.<ref name="Matthias Rath">[https://www.amazon.com/Animals-Attacks-People-Fourth-Revised/dp/0967954681 Why Animals Don't Get Heart Attacks but People Do]. Matthias Rath.</ref> This idea is bizarre and dangerous as it may encourage people to discard their statin medication. 

He wrote about this hypothesis in his book ''Why Animals Don't Get Heart Attacks but People Do''.<ref name="Matthias Rath"/> Whilst vitamin C intake has been shown to reduce risk of cardiovascular disease,<ref>[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0735109703005758 Vitamin C and risk of coronary heart disease in women]. sciencedirect.com.</ref><ref>[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24792921/ Effect of vitamin C on endothelial function in health and disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials]. pubmed.</ref> there is no clinical evidence that it can reverse atherosclerotic plaque like Rath claims.

The Dr. Rath Research Institute promotes his ideas using unreliable animal models.<ref>[https://archive.ph/2LnOM Dr. Rath Research Institute: Revolutionary new concept of heart disease threatens end of global statin market]. prnewswire.com.</ref> As of 2024, there is no clinical evidence to support his hypothesis. In 2015, he published an unreliable study on mice arguing that "dietary ascorbate deficiency is a risk factor for atherosclerosis independent of dietary lipids".<ref>[https://www.ajcd.us/files/ajcd0007056.pdf Hypoascorbemia induces atherosclerosis and vascular deposition of lipoprotein(a) in transgenic mice]. ajcd.us.</ref>

==References==
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[[Category:Cholesterol and statin denialists]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Megavitamin therapy promoters]]
[[Category:Pseudoscience promoters]]

Categories: Cholesterol and statin denialists, Living people, Megavitamin therapy promoters, Pseudoscience promoters