British Chiropractic Association v. Simon Singh
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British Chiropractic Association v. Simon SinghModerator: stever
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British Chiropractic Association v. Simon Singh
by Blue Wode on Sat Aug 16, 2008 10:51 pm
Last month we saw the New Zealand Chirpractors' Association threaten the New Zealand Medical Journal and Professor David Colquhoun with legal action...
http://dcscience.net/?p=245...and now this month we have the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) taking Simon Singh to court:
Doctors take Simon Singh to Court
Last Updated: 8:05PM BST 16 Aug 2008
Simon Singh expected to arouse controversy when he claimed that chiropracters knowingly promoted bogus treatments for illnesses including asthma and ear infections. The bestselling author and Bafta-winning broadcaster did not, however, expect to have a High Court writ issued against him.
Mandrake can disclose that the presenter of the Channel Four series The Code Book is being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association.
"It wasn't a decision taken lightly," says Dr Antoni Jakubowski, a member of the association's governing council. "I know that a lot of thought went into this."
Dr Jakubowski, whose patients have included the golfers Nick Faldo, Ian Woosnam and Justin Rose, adds: "It's a terrible shame he made those comments and he has been given a full opportunity to take them back. However, he hasn't."
The association has taken the unusual step of suing Singh himself rather than the newspaper that published his claims, The Guardian.
The article was about his recently published book Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine On Trial, in which he made various claims about the treatments offered by chiropracters.
Chiropractic is a therapeutic system based on the principle that the body can heal itself when the skeletal system is correctly aligned and the nervous system is functioning properly.
Once seen as a branch of complementary medicine, it has become an increasingly mainstream form of therapy and is now offered by many NHS trusts.
Although it has become a widely accepted treatment for acute pain and problems of the spine, such as whiplash, the evidence for applications beyond that is hotly debated.
There are ongoing studies into the usefulness of chiropractic for such problems as ear infections and infant colic and it is these which Singh was discussing in his contentious article.
Singh, who has a PhD in particle physics from Cambridge University, has written several bestselling books including Fermat's Last Theorem, which he turned into a Bafta Award-winning documentary for the BBC's Horizon programme.
"I will contest this action vigorously," says Singh, who was awarded an MBE in 2003 for services to science. "There is an important issue of freedom of speech at stake. Sadly, I cannot speak about it at this early stage because I have already engaged lawyers."
No doubt, the case will be followed closely by the practitioners of other much-maligned branches of alternative medicine, such as homeothapy, which has been trumpeted by the Prince of Wales.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... court.html
Anyone else think that this might backfire on the BCA (and the New Zealand Chiropractors' Association)?
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Re: British Chiropractic Association v. Simon Singh
by Allo V Psycho on Sat Aug 16, 2008 11:56 pm
I'd like to contribute to a fighting fund - is there a way to do this? Let's fight a case we know we can believe in, to the max.
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Re: British Chiropractic Association v. Simon Singh
by puzzlebobble on Sat Aug 16, 2008 11:56 pm
I hope so.
Arseholes.
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Re: British Chiropractic Association v. Simon Singh
by Tessa K on Sun Aug 17, 2008 9:42 am
That's a pretty disingenuous description of chiropractic, making it sound little different from physio.
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Re: British Chiropractic Association v. Simon Singh
by lecanardnoir on Sun Aug 17, 2008 9:43 am
Simon's article has gone from CiF on the Guardian web site. Does anyone have a copy in their local cache?
On the Internet, nobody knows you're a quack.
http://www.quackometer.net/lecanardnoir
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Re: British Chiropractic Association v. Simon Singh
by Tessa K on Sun Aug 17, 2008 9:57 am
In May, Mahlon Wagner came to Skeptics in the Pub and gave a talk on chiropractic. He really knows it inside out and thoroughly demolished it.
http://skeptic.org.uk/pub/archive/ and scroll down to May.
He wrote a short piece about it back in 05
http://quackfiles.blogspot.com/2005/03/ ... agner.html
I wonder if Singh could call him as an expert witness?
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Re: British Chiropractic Association v. Simon Singh
by Blue Wode on Sun Aug 17, 2008 10:35 am
lecanardnoir wrote:
Simon's article has gone from CiF on the Guardian web site. Does anyone have a copy in their local cache?
I don’t have the original article, but I’ve cobbled together the following excerpts from it. It wasn’t a long article, so there won’t be a great amount of text missing between the paragraphs:
Beware the spinal trap
This is Chiropractic Awareness Week. So let's be aware. How about some awareness that may prevent harm and help you make truly informed choices? Some practitioners claim it is a cure-all but research suggests chiropractic therapy can be lethal.
First, you might be surprised to know that the founder of chiropractic therapy, Daniel David Palmer, wrote that, "99% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae". In the 1860s, Palmer began to develop his theory that the spine was involved in almost every illness because the spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body. Therefore any misalignment could cause a problem in distant parts of the body.
You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact they still possess some quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything. And even the more moderate chiropractors have ideas above their station. The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.
But what about chiropractic in the context of treating back problems? Manipulating the spine can cure some problems, but results are mixed. To be fair, conventional approaches, such as physiotherapy, also struggle to treat back problems with any consistency. Nevertheless, conventional therapy is still preferable because of the serious dangers associated with chiropractic.
I will leave you with one message for Chiropractic Awareness Week - if spinal manipulation were a drug with such serious adverse effects and so little demonstrable benefit, then it would almost certainly have been taken off the market.
There’s also this just in from a lawyer on the case over at UK Skeptics:
It would seem that the suit is being brought by the BCA in respect of an allegation made against them in the article. As a legal person (a company) it can maintain an action in defamation, though in my opinion such a representative body should not be able to do so (public authorities cannot sue for libel under the "Derbyshire Rule"). It would be quite fun if, by bringing this action, the BCA prompt the courts into extending this restriction to such bodies. The resulting gunshot wound to the foot may not be amenable to help by a chiropractor...
In any case, under Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights, there is a right to freeedom of speech. I suspect the courts, even if they do not extend the Derbyshire Rule to representative bodies like the BCA, will be loathe to restrict the freedom of speech of a scientist writing in a comment section of a quality newspaper about an important aspect of public health - that is, the treatment of children. It is exactly this sort of freedom of speech which Article 10 is there to protect.
http://www.skeptics.org.uk/forum/showth ... 707&page=2
And the story also being covered at Holfordwatch and the Quackometer:
British chiropractors join the legal intimidation party
http://holfordwatch.info/2008/08/16/bri ... ion-party/
Chiropractors try to silence Simon Singh
http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2008/08 ... simon.html
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Re: British Chiropractic Association v. Simon Singh
by Blue Wode on Sun Aug 17, 2008 10:48 am
Gimpy now as well...
http://gimpyblog.wordpress.com/2008/08/ ... -evidence/
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Re: British Chiropractic Association v. Simon Singh
by Gimpy on Sun Aug 17, 2008 11:06 am
ta, if anybody has a copy of the full article I might reproduce it in full on my blog, I'm not resident in the UK so any libel action in the UK will not affect me.
I'm hatching a blog
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Re: British Chiropractic Association v. Simon Singh
by Dr Aust on Sun Aug 17, 2008 11:59 am
Anyone here got a cache link to the removed Simon Singh article? Would appreciate an email of the link to: draustblog *at* gmail-dot-com - if you don't want to post it here
And does anyone know exactly what in the article the bone-crackers are claiming is defamatory?
It is, of course, all eerily reminscent of The Quackometer vs. the Society of Homeopaths.
- a line that springs to mind is:
"It's like deja vu all over again" - American baseball player and manager Yogi Berra
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled" Richard P Feynman
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Re: British Chiropractic Association v. Simon Singh
by Mojo on Sun Aug 17, 2008 12:47 pm
Dr Aust wrote:
- a line that springs to mind is:
"It's like deja vu all over again" - American baseball player and manager Yogi Berra
Deja woo.
"In fact, the more I think of the amazing properties of homeopathic medicines the more I am convinced that if Samuel Hahnemann hadn't invented it, Douglas Adams would have." - UseSomeSense on commentisfree.guardian.co.uk
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Re: British Chiropractic Association v. Simon Singh
by Dr Aust on Sun Aug 17, 2008 1:03 pm
Mojo wrote:
Dr Aust wrote:
- a line that springs to mind is:
"It's like deja vu all over again" - American baseball player and manager Yogi Berra
Deja woo.
Nice one. I shall have to steal that.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled" Richard P Feynman
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Re: British Chiropractic Association v. Simon Singh
by Blue Wode on Sun Aug 17, 2008 1:07 pm
Dr Aust wrote:
Anyone here got a cache link to the removed Simon Singh article? Would appreciate an email of the link to: draustblog *at* gmail-dot-com - if you don't want to post it here
Here you are:
http://svetlana14s.narod.ru/Simon_Singh ... paper.html
Not sure if the long comments section will load, but grab it while you can anyway.
(With thanks to the person who posted the link in the comments section of the Quackometer's post)
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Re: British Chiropractic Association v. Simon Singh
by Gimpy on Sun Aug 17, 2008 1:27 pm
I've replicated the text here as well as providing references for all of Singh's claims.
http://gimpyblog.wordpress.com/2008/08/ ... opractors/
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