Ben Goldacre has released the infamous chapter that was missing from the original ‘trade’ paperback edition of his book, ‘Bad Science’. He recently posted the chapter on his Bad Science blog, under a Creative Commons license; this means ‘You are free to copy it, paste it, bake it, reprint it, read it aloud, as long as you don’t change it – including this bit – so that people know that they can find more ideas for free at www.badscience.net‘

I have reposted the article in full, but you can just as well read it on Ben’s blog, or hell, you could even go spend a few quid and buy his book!

This is an extract from
BAD SCIENCE by Ben Goldacre
Published by Harper Perennial 2009.

The Doctor Will Sue You Now

This chapter did not appear in the original edition of this book, because for fifteen months leading up to September 2008 the vitamin-pill entrepreneur Matthias Rath was suing me personally, and the Guardian, for libel. This strategy brought only mixed success. For all that nutritionists may fantasise in public that any critic is somehow a pawn of big pharma, in private they would do well to remember that, like many my age who work in the public sector, I don’t own a flat. The Guardian generously paid for the lawyers, and in September 2008 Rath dropped his case, which had cost in excess of £500,000 to defend. Rath has paid £220,000 already, and the rest will hopefully follow.

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