This is the story of Matthias Rath, a vitamin magnate who works hard in South Africa to convince people that AIDS drugs are actually poison and that their problems will all go away if they eat vitamins that he sells.
He sues Doctors without Borders, newspaper reporters, etc. He takes scientific research and abuses the conclusions so badly that the authors of the research make announcements distancing them from his bizarre nonsense. He even tried to have a community activist, who was HIV+ but refused treatment until others in the community had access to anti-retrovirals, indicted on genocide charges in The Hague.
And he is causing people to die of AIDS related illnesses due to his (and the South African Government's) insistence that AIDS isn't real.
Dr. Ben Goldacre, writer for the Guardian and a true scientist, has written a chapter about this outrageous story, but it wasn't included in his book because Rath was suing him at the time the book was published. Dr. Goldacre won the suit and now you can read it. It's long for a blog post but short for a book chapter and worth reading.
The scariest part: the rest of the nutritionism/naturopathic-medicine community still back Rath and treat him like a superstar. What is wrong with these people? People are dying.
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