[DEBATE] : (Fwd) Rath, Brink retreat

[Patrick Bond]

Rath drops million-pound libel
14/09/2008 21:18  - (SA)  


Cape Town - Vitamin entrepreneur Matthias Rath has dropped a 
million-pound libel claim against the Guardian about his activities in 
townships in South Africa, the British newspaper has reported.

Rath sued about a series of articles by columnist Ben Goldacre that 
condemned the German's claim that his pills were preferable to 
antiretoriviral drugs, and that they could reverse the course of Aids.

South Africa, said Goldacre in one of the articles, was a haven for Aids 
denialism, and was afflicted by "a madness that has let perhaps hundreds 
of thousands of people die unnecessarily".

The Guardian said that following the dropping of the case, the High 
Court had ordered Rath to pay initial costs of just under a quarter of a 
million pounds.

Its editor, Alan Rusbridger, said: "We are very glad that Rath has 
dropped his libel action, doubtless designed to discourage other 
journalists - in Britain and abroad - from looking too closely at his 
dubious claims and methods."

Reacting on his website (http://www.badscience.net/) to the news, 
Goldacre, a medical doctor, said Rath had been promoting his pills in a 
country "where hundreds of thousands die every year from Aids under an 
HIV-denialist president and the population is ripe for miracle cures".

'Will be carefully written'

"This libel case has drawn on for over a year, with the writ hanging 
both in my toilet, and over my head.

"I will probably now write a swift book on Rath and South Africa, as a 
way to make all the fascinating extra information I've had to dredge 
through useful to others, and to try and recoup something so that my 
time was not wasted.

"It will be meticulously well referenced and carefully written.

"I genuinely believe that the madness of the South African government's 
approach to Aids is one of the most-important stories of our time."

The Guardian said Rath had unsuccessfully sought at one point to exclude 
from the court's consideration part of one of Goldacre's articles.

The article mentioned an attempt by lawyer Anthony Brink, who at one 
point was a spokesperson for Rath in South Africa, to have former 
Treatment Action Campaign leader Zackie Achmat indicted for genocide at 
the international criminal court in The Hague.

Had the case proceeded, the court would have learned that Brink 
suggested to The Hague that Achmat should be permanently confined "in a 
small white and concrete cage, bright fluorescent light on all the time 
to keep an eye on him" and force-fed his Aids drugs or, "if he bites, 
kicks and screams too much, dripped into his arm after he's been 
restrained on a gurney with cable tied around his ankles, wrists and neck".

'Clinical trials'

In June this year, following an application brought by TAC, the Cape 
High Court barred Rath from claiming his product, VitaCell, was a 
treatment for Aids, and declared that the clinical trials he had been 
conducting in townships were unlawful.

Judge Dumisani Zondi also said Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang 
and her department had a duty to investigate Rath's activities.

The minister, cited as a co-respondent, had opposed the application.

Rath also had claimed that antiretrovirals were toxic, and that the 
apartheid regime was part of a plot by the pharmaceutical industry to 
"conquer and control the entire African continent".