Bad Science: Matthias Rath

If you do nothing else today, please go to Bad Science and read Ben Goldacre’s article on Matthias Rath. The article was supposed to be a chapter in Goldacre’s excellent book: Bad Science, but had to be removed because at the time of original publication, Rath was pursuing legal action against Goldacre and the Guardian newspaper. Rath has now dropped the action and the missing chapter can now be published.

 

I have posted before on the human disaster that is the AIDS epidemic in South Africa, but Goldacre’s meticulous setting out of the exacerbation of the scale of the disaster brought about by Rath, Brink, Mbeki, and Tshabalala-Msimang is essential reading.

 

A truly damning indictment of a shameful episode in South Africa’s history.