nthato motlana:

By Sheree Russouw - The Star

June 18, 2005: Johannesburg - Nelson Mandela's former physician has lashed out at health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang's claim that a concoction of olive oil, lemon, beetroot and garlic can treat HIV and Aids, terming it "misleading".

"I am sorry that our minister of health acts as if she has just discovered the value of good nutrition," said Dr Nthato Motlana, the Mandela family physician and owner of South Africa's first black-managed medical aid scheme. "I knew the value of good nutrition in my first year of studying medicine".

"To suggest that nutrition is enough to treat Aids is misleading. Tshabalala-Msimang sounds just like Matthias Rath, and someone needs to tell her this."

Rath, the controversial head of the Dr Rath Health Foundation, says that vitamins can suppress immune-system-based deficiencies, which are precursors to infectious diseases such as Aids.

But Motlana said that antiretroviral drug therapy had proved Aids could be treated as a "chronic manageable disease".

South Africa, he said, had missed a "golden opportunity" to tackle the disease when it was first detected here in the early 1980s.

"We thought it was a disease that only affected white gay men. We made a mistake because we knew about it then. Now it is a pandemic."