The Doctor Will Sue You Now
This is the title of a chapter missing from Ben Goldacre’s new book, “Bad Science.” Why is it missing? I’ll let the author tell the story:
This is the “missing chapter” about vitamin pill salesman Matthias Rath. Sadly I was unable to write about him at the time that book was initially published, as he was suing my ass in the High Court. The chapter is now available in the new paperback edition, and I’ve posted it here for free so that nobody loses out.
Although the publishers make a slightly melodramatic fuss about this in the promo material, it is a very serious story about the dangers of pseudoscience, as I hope you’ll see, and it was also a pretty unpleasant episode, not just for me, but also for the many other people he’s tried to sue, including Medecins Sans Frontieres and more. If you’re ever looking for a warning sign that you’re on the wrong side of an argument, suing Medecins Sans Frontieres is probably a pretty good clue.
(Note: Medicins Sans Frontieres is better known in the US as “Doctors Without Borders.”)
I was already familiar with the story through reading the Guardian…it’s a horrible, tragic tale of the havoc nutritional pseudoscience can wreak…not just on individual lives, but an entire country.
A qualified doctor who is thought to have made millions selling nutritional supplements around the globe through his website empire, Rath claimed his pills could reverse the course of Aids and distributed them free in South Africa, where campaigners, who have won a hard-fought battle to persuade the government to roll out free Aids drugs to keep millions alive, believe Rath’s activities led to deaths.
…Mark Wainberg, director of the McGill Aids centre in Montreal, said: “It is clear that he [Rath] has done enormous harm to people with HIV.” Rath was linked to the Aids deniers who convinced people, he said, that Aids was not dangerous and that “you can treat yourself with medicines that are a complete waste of time”
There is no question in my mind that nutrients and nutraceuticals can be valuable allies in the fight against serious degenerative and infectious diseases. But as standalone therapies, they can only delay the inevitable, at best. That AIDS denialism exists was shocking to me in the 1990’s, when I was a Staff Research Associate in Paul Luciw’s lab, investigating the mechanisms of SIV/HIV pathogenesis…it’s even more jaw dropping to see it now, and to this degree.
