Health department will not appeal Rath judgment

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Judge Dumisani Zondi also ruled that the health minister and her director general had a duty to take reasonable measures to investigate Rath’s operations and to take further action depending on the results.

Health department spokesperson Sibani Mngadi confirmed that they would comply with the judgment and would not be launching an appeal.

‘We are just looking at what we need to do to comply with the ruling, whether it implicates any of the operations of the Medicines Control Council and so on. But there is no thought of launching an appeal,’ he said.

Mngadi said they were still awaiting word from their lawyers and legal division before he would be in a position to offer any further comment.

Zondi ruled that health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and her director-general Thami Mseleku were under a duty to take reasonable measures to prevent Rath and his co-respondents from conducting unauthorized clinical trials and preventing them from publishing advertisements concerning the medicinal effects of Vita-Cell on people living with HIV.

Zondi ordered that Rath, his foundation, his former employee David Rasnick and employee Alexandra Niedwicki stop conducting any further unauthorized clinical trials in South Africa. Rath and his cohorts were further ordered to stop publishing advertisements concerning the medicinal effects of his flagship multi-vitamin, Vita-Cell ‘on persons with AIDS pending the submission of VitaCell to the MCC to review its medicinal claims’.

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