Just read this article. Underneath it, a vast army of Guardian readers congratulate Simon Singh on his 'victory'. I wonder how many of these people know what was really involved in this case. I am interested in finding out more about this, and, just for the record, I'm not inclined to congratulate Singh on what appears to me less a defence of free speech and more an attack on diversity, no matter how many celebrity muppets like Stephen Fry are cheering him on.
Another article here.
This might take me a lot of research, but I intend to look into it, and may write more, if I find anythng of interest.
“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.”
I don’t see where his article mentions infant chiropractic treatments anywhere.
Put it this way, why did he use the phrase “happily advocate” (coupled with the stated-as-fact “bogus treatments”)? Why didn’t he simply say that he believes chiropractic treatments to be bogus?
I read both articles (and I have been to a chiropractor), but I’m not in a position to say who is right or wrong, but I agree the people should have the right to discussion without being attacked in court. One good example is the cigarette industry who once said cigarette smoking was good for your health. I think we should have the right to challenge anything, if we want society to go forward.
As I said, I intend to collect more information on this case.Some interesting points include Justice Eady’s statement that the article contains “the plainest allegations of dishonesty”. The phrase, I believe, was that the BCA “happily advocate bogus treatments”. As an opinion piece, you can write that you think chiropractic is a load of rubbish, but Singh names an actual body (the BCA) and says, well, the above. Is this an opinion or is it an allegation? The phrase “advocate bogus treatment” certainly suggests to me the idea of someone deliberately scamming people, especially when combined with “happily”, which suggests a consciousness of being bogus. To then say, “I was just expressing my opinion”, seems a bit weaselly. If you’re writing as a scientist in a newspaper and claiming to be increasing awareness of the facts, how can you then plead that “I was just expressing my opinion”?This seems to me close to saying, “The editors of the Guardian are all notorious paedophiles…. In my opinion. It’s a fact. In my opinion.”I actually do have more background information on this, but I’m being careful in how much I write at the moment, as I want to be sure of my facts before going into further detail.
I’ve just been talking just now to a chiropractor (one of over 500) apparently, who has had a formal complaint lodged against him by someone he has never met or spoken to, which is apparently part of a campaign simply to shut chiropractic down, in the wake of the Singh case. Some people might think that making over five hundred formal complaints against people you’ve never met was precipitate and the mark of a burning vendetta. Here’s someone who seems to think it’s great and a triumph of rationalism:http://layscience.net/node/593
I don’t know if I would trust the opinion of a website called “Lay science”.
Well, given my well-known biases, it probably is not surprising for me to say, “Nor would I.”
I’ll have to look at what the website actually said before I can answer that.I offered the conversation as some background to this post not as a final statement.At this stage, I don’t know, and therefore I want to collect more information. For what it’s worth, my biased impression is this: The medical establishment is taking an extremely unhelpful attitude (at best) to what it seems to see as a rival. Personally I don’t want to live in a medical monoculture. What I would like to present is at least the possibility that there is value in all kinds of diversity including medical diversity, and simply to trash something in the hasty way chiropractic is being trashed suggests anything but disinterested action.Don’t you think he should take some responsibility for being part of web site making these claims. Do you think someone who’s never met him should lodge a formal complaint against him because of something written on a website where his name also appeared? I don’t know how black and white this issue is, but I suspect it’s not especially clear cut. However, I don’t see that the motivation of those making these complaints is the improvement of medicine and the public health.
Without meeting the president of a tobacco company, I would willing take him to court for claiming smoking is good for my health.I never said it was black and white only that I thought discussion should be allowed, exactly as we are doing here.And as not many people are taking part I feel compelled to comment to spur you on, otherwise you would be talking to yourself.Not much fun! (-:
Okay, preliminary to giving some of the background to my posting this blog entry, I will also provide what I believe is called ‘full disclosure’: I know a ridiculous number of chiropractors (at least four and probably more), and am close to some of these. Last night, after posting this blog entry, I did some casual research in the form of a telephone call to a chiropractor who is a friend of mine. I will attempt to render the conversation from memory. My apologies to my friend (who probably won’t be reading) if I make mistakes in my rendering. Where I cannot remember clearly I will endeavor to omit. I give the following just as what might be called ‘anecdotal evidence’ of the other side of the story to that told by Simon Singh:Me: So, Simon Singh?Ch: Yes, what about him?Me: I heard about the whole Simon Singh thing recently and I’m interested in it. I thought maybe we could talk about it some time if you wanted to.Ch: Okay… Is that why you’re phoning?Me: Largely, yes.Ch: I expect you’ve heard about most of it from xxxx already.Me: Yes, well, we did talk about it, but I wanted to talk to you, too. I want to write something about this on my blog, and I want to make sure I’ve got my facts straight, so, maybe we can start just by talking about it, and I might have specific questions for you later.Ch: Okay, well, let’s see. There’s someone called Edzard Ernst. He’s a professor at Exeter University. A professor of complimentary medicine. But that’s just a title; he’s not a practitioner. He teamed up with Simon Singh, who’s a physicist, and they wrote a book called Trick or Treatment? all about alternative medicine, and there was something in it about chiropractic. I haven’t read it. Anyway, Simon Singh wrote an article for the Guardian and said that chiropractic is not useful for treating certain childhood ailments, and suggested that the BCA deliberately… no, “happily” promote bogus treatments. The BCA had a knee-jerk reaction to this and took him to court. They could have just asked him to apologise [Apparently they did ask him for a retraction. The extent to which this is reasonable or unreasonable can be gone into later], but they went ahead with the legal action and things got ugly.Now, Simon Singh’s cronies… we don’t really know, but it seems almost certain it was people acting directly in his interests, anyway, somebody went through the General Chiropractic Council’s code of practice guide and found that it is possible to register a formal complaint anonymously and that each complaint made has to be dealt with individually. Since then there have been block complaints made by these people in an attempt to bring down the chiropractic profession by crippling the BCA with legal fees. In fact, complaints have been made against me.Me: By someone you’ve never met?Ch: Never met or spoken to. They go to the websites of different practices and scour them for anything that can be used to make a complaint. The website of the practice I’m affiliated with had mentions on it of chiropractic being beneficial for colic. This claim was nothing to do with me, and I didn’t know anything about it. I suppose I should have been more aware.Some people say that chiropractic is good for asthma, for instance, and their are people making a fuss saying that chiropractors make false claims. The fact is, I don’t treat people for ssthma. If someone came to me and said, “Can you treat me for asthma?” I’d say no. I basically treat people with back complaints. Most chiropractors don’t claim to be able to directly treat asthma and so on, though it’s more common in America for chiropractors to get carried away and make wacky claims on their websites. However, sometimes patients will come back to us and say that a treatment also helped clear up their asthma or period pains or something.The people attacking chiropractic are very selective and like to cherry pick their evidence. They like to focus on studies that say that, I don’t know, chiropractic can’t cure dyslexia and so on. They also emphasise (and Simon Singh emphasised this) that chiropractic is dangerous. They like to talk about how chiropractic treatment can induce stroke. This is true, it’s documented. But it’s very, very rare. The fact is, [mentions name of a medication that I can’t remember] is more likely to induce stroke, and that’s the orthodox treatment, or should I say ‘approach’, for a lower back problem. Chiropractic treatment is, for instance, the safest way to treat a headache – safer than aspirin.It’s not true to say there’s no evidence for the beneficial results of chiropractic treatment, either. There’s pleny of evidence.Anyway, now they’ve started a sort of smear campaign. There’s someone, a ‘humanist’ called Allan Hennessey, for instance, who writes something called Zeno’s Blog. He’s one of those involved in the block complaints and the Internet campaign. You can look him up. I believe there was even a meeting in a pub in Ireland where a lot of these things were planned, and it was filmed, and I think it might have even been put on YouTube. Google “Irish pub meeting, sense about science, Simon Singh” and maybe you’ll find something [Couldn’t find anything with a casual search].Me: So, what do you think is happening? Is it a conspiracy, or is it some kind of unfortunate misunderstanding or what?Ch: There might be a large element of unfortunate misunderstanding. The BCA had a knee-jerk reaction and decided to sue. I know I wouldn’t like to be taken to court. I imagine Simon Singh was pretty pissed off. Also, there could be an element of pride, wanting to save face and so on. But who would want to take down chiropractic?Me: I don’t know. You did mention a pub meeting where things were planned.Ch: Yes. I suppose, the thing is, our profession is vulnerable to this kind of attack because we’re not educated within the NHS. We don’t have the uniform, you know, we don’t have the epaulettes of rank. But, you know me. I took a degree at university and studied hard in a physical science. I have worked for years and every day I go in to work hoping that I can help people and make them well, and I’m not about being dishonest to anyone.####As I said, I intend to gather more information on this subject and may write a separate blog post on it later.
What is strange is that they do admit that on web sitesand in pamphlets there are claims that shouldn’t be made.Not so far off of my earlier comment about cigarette manufacturers saying smoking was good for your health backed up by doctors.Maybe chiropracters should clean up their own act before they say they are being falsely accused. Even the email, warning chiropracters to take down sites and hide pamphlets, coming from their own organization. I’m not saying they’re all bad but even the friend you telephoned is on a site that makes claims to treatments he doesn’t use.Don’t you think he should take some responsibility for being part of web site making these claims. Plus your friend said the BCA went too far and shouldn’t have taken the guy to court.
Hello.I can get a bit mouthy, it’s true. I used to like Stephen Fry, but I’ve kind of gone off him recently – nothing to do with chiropractic. I even wrote something a few months back on this blog about it. If you like Stephen Fry then it might be wrong of me to enumerate the reasons that I don’t. And it’s not like I hate him, either. I do think he’s funny and is more an asset to British culture than otherwise, but, well, I do get a bit mouthy at times, as you may find if you start to come here often. I think that there are certain values and certain aesthetics that I find myself increasingly alienated from. I also notice that many of the kind of people that I am supposed to like, who are icons amongst the circles in which I move, tend to embody in some ways those values and aesthetics that I don’t like. I’ve noticed a few indications over the years that Stephen Fry is one of them, and I suppose recently they’ve accumulated to some kind of tipping point. But I still love A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Black Adder and so on. One thing I’ve noticed actually, is that, although I have grown up on and love British comedy, I also feel alienated by some of the assumptions behind it. And latterly, though I still feel affection for it, I feel less admiration. I could name a number of comedians who I think are funny, who are also ‘intellectual’, but whom I sense I must part ways with at some point because of their tedious adherence to the great British tradition of poppycockism, which is to thoughtlessly dismiss what is foreign to you. Without meeting the president of a tobacco company,
I would willing take him to court for claiming smoking is good for my health.Yes, I understand that, but I think that this applies only partially. First of all, I don’t know what was on the website, so I don’t even know whether there was any reasonable grounds for complaint at all. As I understand it – perhaps wrongly, which is one reason I wish to find out more – the complainants are taking advantage of the fact that according to the GCC code all complaints must be individually addressed. Therefore, leaving aside the question of whether the website was actually dodgy, my friend was not ‘the president’ of the website. His was simply a name that appeared there, someone about whom the complainants apparently knew nothing.
Me again, I guess what first got me started was you attacking Stephen Fry.I really like him, find him very funny & intelligent.Thought you were attacking him the same way as you claim people are attacking chiropractors.Do you personally not like Stephen Fry for some reason?
You must admit it’s more fun if I play devil’s advocate for you.Just thought you singling out Stephen Fry & not naming anyone else, was being like the people you attack.When I have time I may look up your posts about Stephen Fry.I just thought I should correct an error, I don’t live on the Isle of Man.Living in different parts of the world is one of the pleasures of the internet. Until recently I usually lived in Antarcticaenjoying the fresh air there, but have recently discovered the Isle of Man on some lists of exceptable places that some web sites let you live in. I’m born dutch & raised in Canada near Toronto, & have lived here & there, even living for awhile in Hampstead/London a very enjoyable place.Now I live in Europe a place the english generally don’t realise they alsogeographically belong to. As in england they still speak about visiting europe.
Someone has to keep you on your toes!Everything is a matter of degrees. I do agree!
Originally posted by aaronwriter:You must admit it’s more fun if I play devil’s advocate for you.I understand the value of the devil’s advocate very well.Originally posted by aaronwriter:Just thought you singling out Stephen Fry & not naming anyone else, was being like the people you attack.I dare say it is, though where there is any engagement in a controversy there is bound to be some mirroring in the ‘it takes two to tango’ sense. And, to be fair to myself, I’m only accusing him of being a muppet celebrity, not of trying to defraud someone’s pension fund or something like that. There is a difference, I think, between criticism and accusation in a ‘legal’ sense, not that my criticism here was especially incisive. I just felt like taking a pop at the Fry, because I thought, “Here we go, he’s jumping on a bandwagon and doing his ultra-sincere, ‘let’s be reasonable and defend our great civilisation’ act, giving it the slightly plaintive voice and the slightly quivering eyebrows, and I’m not even sure that his Q.I. researchers and scriptwriters have given him good info this time.”
Originally posted by aaronwriter:Someone has to keep you on your toes!Feel free. Tripping, anyway, can be edifying.
TC writes: If chiropractors want to make claims let them, its up to people to actually do research. I don’t believe it works, but there are people who swear by it. Does it matter if it these people are deluded if it makes them happy or gives them hope? I am also willing to believe that the majority of chiropractors believe in what they do and are not out to actively scam people.
Tc writes:I must add that I don’t dislike Stephen Fry, but I never found him very funny either.
Originally posted by anonymous:If chiropractors want to make claims let them, its up to people to actually do research. I don’t believe it works, but there are people who swear by it. Does it matter if it these people are deluded if it makes them happy or gives them hope? I am also willing to believe that the majority of chiropractors believe in what they do and are not out to actively scam people.
I know I’m being repetitive,
but I still love my cigarette example.
They claimed cigarettes were good for your health.
So by your thinking no one should ever have done anything,
let the buyer beware.
Ralph Nader should not have existed.
If cars are dangerous, let the buyer beware.
Coca cola originally used cocaine, let the buyer beware.
Toys made in China can be dangerous, let the buyer beware.
This list is endless!
Originally posted by anonymous:I must add that I don’t dislike Stephen Fry, but I never found him very funny either. Humour like most things in life is relative.
Anonymous writes:I must also say as an American that there seems to be quite a few “aggressive” public figures in the UK. Just popular people who seem more famous for atacking something ( usually something they see as irrational) then what they are usually known for.Richard Dawnkins, Christopher Hithens,etcnot that America is any better.
Originally posted by quentinscrisp:Feel free. Tripping, anyway, can be edifying.I’m sorry, I wasn’t consciously trying to bring you downby tripping or any other means. I have & will probable still in the future make, statements that I’m glad someone pointed out to me, there was another point of view, thereby sometimes changing my original thinking.
Hello.It’s early morning and I see all the new comments. I can’t answer them all right now. I think there’s something in the idea of being allowed to make claims if you want to. That is, the old ‘prove it’ thing can be taken a bit far. However, with something like health in particular, clearly people should be careful about what kinds of claims they make and, at the very least, people should be able to investigate and criticise those claims.There’s actually a lot of stuff related to this in the comparison of chiropractic and orthodox medicine that I could have mentioned that I didn’t because I didn’t have exact figures and sources on hand. Therefore, I still won’t.However, let me give this example: For years in my life I have been prescribed anti-depressants by doctors as treatment for depression. The claim was, of course, that they would alleviate the effects of depression. In fifteen years of this or more, I only once found anti-depressants to be helpful, and yet they were prescribed for me again and again. Not long ago a study was released that found anti-depressants to be in most cases not more effective than placebos. Personally, I have always suspected they were placebos. Is anyone taking anyone in the orthodox medicine to task for this or trying to close down the manufacturers of anti-depressant pills? Compare people’s indifference here with the way that something like chiropractic is jumped on and you might begin to suspect that there is a cultural and institutional bias taking place. This is one small example. I’m being careful, as I said, in this post, because I want to get my hands on the sources of some of the information I’ve been given, and be able to give exact details. Until then I shall continue to be rerserved, but I hope to write a more detailed blog entry later.Just while I’m at it, here’s what BUPA says about chiropractic:http://hcd2.bupa.co.uk/fact_sheets/html/chiropractic.html#4
War kills people, so I guess they’re not good for your health.(Even though war wasn’t in my first list except under “etc.”)Originally posted by anonymous:These examples would of eventually fixed themselves when people continued to be harmed by themWow! I guess your theory doesn’t work.Originally posted by anonymous:To make myself cleared I wouldn’t mind if people published or broadcast research that said chiropractors were fake, but to begin an attack campaign is another thing. Replace “chiropractors were fake” by “war was deadly”.Yea I guess somebody could do some research.The cigarette companies were doing & paying for all the researchon smoking. It’s typical that research is paid for by the thing being researched.
Anonymous writes:”I know I’m being repetitive,but I still love my cigarette example.They claimed cigarettes were good for your health.So by your thinking no one should ever have done anything,let the buyer beware.Ralph Nader should not have existed.If cars are dangerous, let the buyer beware.Coca cola originally used cocaine, let the buyer beware.Toys made in China can be dangerous, let the buyer beware.This list is endless!” Maybe I’m just too apathetic, but this doesn’t change my opinion. These examples would of eventually fixed themselves when people continued to be harmed by them. To make myself cleared I wouldn’t mind if people published or broadcast research that said chiropractors were fake, but to begin an attack campaign is another thing.
Anonymous writes:(some though), I mean on inhaling smoke.
Anonymous writes:I just remember all whole bunch of examples that validate what you said about cigarette smoking early on, so you were right there.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCMzjJjuxQI&feature=relatedI will have to do some research on inhaling some though.
You should do some research yourself, there were ads on TVtelling people smoking was good for their health.The Marlboro man died of cancer related to smoking, so even he believed in his own false advertising.And I think war is valid as you said when people saw that something was harmful they would eventually stop.Find me someone who believes war is good for your health.So everyone believes war is dangerous, yet no one stops.People are strange don’t you agree.Originally posted by anonymous: but there were still inhaling smoke.You know inhaling is dangerous now, but you probably wouldn’t have thought that way years ago, you’re using new infoto make that statement.
TC writes:I’m not sure I agree with your war example,but that is an another thing entirely. I don’t think your view is unreasonable,far from it. You have actually somewhat won me over to your side by mentioning the fact that cigarette companies do research. It would be hard for people not to be tricked if a majority of the research they had available was taken from said company. Now at the same time I will never feel good about the attack campaigns against these companies. I mean look at what is leaves me with1.A company whose products may or may not be harmful.2.Someone or a group that seem unrelentingly aggressive towards the above company. On a side not I always wondered about cigarettes. People say that they use to see them as healthy, but I have a hard time believing that. I could see how they might not have saw them as unhealthy, but there were still inhaling smoke.
Inhaling could be tricky as it depends on what you’re inhaling.As we even inhale to breath air/oxygen, not a bad idea usually!
TC writes:yes, but its not like smoke inhalation and its danger were new , someone had to guess at that point in time that inhaling even small amount of smoke constantly through out the day could have drawbacks.