Libel battles can make and break reputations, but only rarely do they bear on questions of life and death. The legal case against the Guardian which Matthias Rath abandoned this week is an exception. The vitamin campaigner - who has long proffered his pills as a panacea in defiance of all evidence - objected to remarks our columnist Ben Goldacre made about his South African activities. In a country where 6 million are HIV positive, Mr Rath sought to persuade victims to take vitamins instead of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). He played a part in the madness which allows Aids to claim 1,000 South African lives every day.
South Africa was uniquely dangerous territory for Mr Rath's quackery - but it also provided uniquely fertile soil for his worthless claims. The sometimes sinister dealings of big pharma during the apartheid years ensure that the drugs industry is regarded with special suspicion. Traditional medicine is rooted in the culture, a reality that President Thabo Mbeki exploited to justify his refusal to fund ARVs. Exiled from European science, Mr Rath found a sympathetic ear with the South African authorities while there were whispers that he might be in line for a contract to provide his vitamins to Aids suffers. Self-interest and ego combined to inspire him and his associates to promote and provide supposed alternatives to ARVs. The heights of surreality reached their peak when one Rath associate, Anthony Brink, filed a petition to The Hague that accused the Aids campaigner and Nobel-prize nominee, Zackie Achmat, of genocide. The human toll rings out most clearly in the words of the relatives of those who ended up refusing ARVs.
Sheer weight of numbers makes the marketing of false hope to Aids victims in South Africa a particularly grave business. But playing on the fears of desperation and superstition has spread elsewhere. Indeed the Rath Research Institute continues to operate in eight countries - from the UK to France and, most recently, Russia. In the light of yesterday's news, all of them should consider showing this dubious body the door. And, of course, there are many quacks besides Mr Rath. Few in the $50bn food supplements industry would stoop to the depths of persuading customers to give up on life-saving medicine. But they routinely profit by marketing false hope. Others exploit justified concerns about pharmaceutical companies to peddle useless alternative remedies - the debunking of which distracts scientists who might otherwise be taking on the drug firms.
In the west, wacky claims often seem harmless enough. But the Rath case provides a terrible illustration of the potential consequences of treating the evidence with contempt.
