In August 1947, two years after the end of the Second World War, twenty-four managers of the I.G. Farben pharmaceutical and chemical cartel appeared before an international war crimes tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, to be charged with crimes including mass murder and crimes against humanity. The tribunal’s verdicts, delivered 11 months later, resulted in thirteen of the Farben defendants being given prison terms ranging from eighteen months to eight years.

Jump forward sixty years, to April 2008, and we find that much of the world’s media is awash with stories claiming that taking vitamin supplements could lead to a premature death. According to a review conducted on behalf of the Cochrane Collaboration by researchers at Copenhagen University in Denmark, studies using beta-carotene, vitamin A and vitamin E showed “significantly increased mortality”, whilst trials of vitamin C “found no significant effect.”