Harmed by Vitamin Claims
posted: 20/04/2009
The lives of tens of thousands of people, especially in South Africa, were needlessly shortened by unscientific claims to cure HIV simply with vitamins.
Dr Ben Goldacre wrote a best seller called Bad Science and now you can read, free, the chapter about falsely peddling vitamins as if they are a cure for HIV.
This chapter couldn't be included when the book first came out because the vitamin pill plugger, Matthias Rath, was still suing the author and the Guardian newspaper.
Maathias Rath lost, has already paid almost a quarter million pounds in compensation and legal costs, and still owes another £300,000. He is a man who claimed vitamins cure cancer, cardio-vascular heart disease as well as HIV. Worse, he tells people the conventional treatments for these various conditions are harmful and must be replaced with vitamins. He makes a great deal of money from selling vitamins to the vulnerable and credulous.
In the case of HIV he got the president of S Africa and the health minister on his side. Thabo Mbeki gave Rath's ideas credence and support, and Mbeki and his minister bear a heavy responsibility for the deaths of thousands of people living with HIV.
This chapter - The Doctor Will Sue You Now - is free and shared on a Creative Commons Licence.
Bad Science
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