Published 18 September 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1710
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1710

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Matthias Rath drops libel action against Guardian

¹ Guardian

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Matthias Rath, a doctor who promoted nutritional supplements to people with HIV in South Africa and argued that antiretroviral drugs were harmful, has dropped a year long libel case against the Guardian newspaper and been ordered to pay costs.

Dr Rath, a German born doctor who once worked in California on the possible therapeutic effects of micronutrients with the Nobel prize winner Linus Pauling and claimed to be his nominated successor, sued the newspaper over three articles written by Ben Goldacre in his column Bad Science.

In articles published in January and February last year, Dr Goldacre described Dr Rath (not the only promoter of unproved nutritional therapies in a South Africa where the government was known to doubt the efficacy of antiretrovirals) as the "German vitamin impresario who claims that his vitamin pills are better for AIDS than medication."

The Dr Rath Foundation sells micronutrient supplements through a website . . . [Full text of this article]

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