[6] Rath claims that a program of nutritional supplements (which he calls "cellular medicine"), including formulations that he sells, can treat or cure diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and HIV/AIDS.
The Sunday Times has described Rath as an "international campaigner for the use of natural remedies" whose "theories on the treatment of cancer have been rejected by health authorities all over the world.
"[12] On HIV/AIDS, Rath has disparaged the pharmaceutical industry and denounced antiretroviral medication as toxic and dangerous, while claiming that his vitamin pills could reverse the course of AIDS.
[4][5][14][15] Former South African President Thabo Mbeki and former Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang have also been criticised by the medical and AIDS-activist community for their perceived support for Rath's claims.
[1] In court filings, Rath and his lawyers write that the pharmaceutical industry then started apartheid in South Africa as part of a global conspiracy to "conquer and control the entire African continent."
They specifically mention former Nazi officials and the German chemical company IG Farben as playing a central role in the alleged conspiracy.
[25] Rath suggests that the pharmaceutical industry continues to control international politics today, allowing 9/11 to occur and starting the Iraq War to divert attention from what he considers the failures of drug companies.
[6] In 2001, the American Preventive Medical Association and the National Foundation for Alternative Medicine, both health freedom advocacy groups, gave Rath the Bulwark of Liberty Award.
[31] Mike Waters, Democratic Alliance health spokesperson, states that Rath gave patients "food parcels to convince them to give up their antiretrovirals and take his vitamin C supplements instead.
Demetre Labadarios, who leads the Human Nutrition programme at Stellenbosch University, questioned the safety of administering high doses of supplements to already sick patients.
[19] In September 2008 Rath was ordered to pay court costs in an unsuccessful libel action against The Guardian (UK) after the paper reported on his foundation's unauthorised drug trials in South Africa.
"[11] Rath's advertising material has suggested that his nutritional supplements are superior to antiretroviral therapy in the treatment of HIV/AIDS and implied that his claims were endorsed by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and UNAIDS.
"[46][47] Other sources, however, describe Rath as a "qualified doctor"[1] and state that he "obtained his basic medical degree in 1985, after studying in Munster and Hamburg" and "became a researcher first at the University Clinic in Hamburg and then, during 1989 and 1990, at the Berlin Heart Centre....In 2003, the regional court in Berlin banned Rath from calling himself in his adverts 'the renowned doctor' and/or 'the renowned scientist', after a court case in which medical and scientific witnesses said he was neither.
In the same year, Rath's theories and micronutrients were disavowed by the respected and influential Swiss Study Group for Complementary and Alternative Methods in Cancer.
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 organisation.