{"id":542,"date":"2009-09-24T20:57:56","date_gmt":"2009-09-24T08:57:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2009\/09\/a_rather_strange_decision\/"},"modified":"2009-09-24T20:57:56","modified_gmt":"2009-09-24T08:57:56","slug":"a-rather-strange-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2009\/09\/a-rather-strange-decision\/","title":{"rendered":"a rather strange decision"},"content":{"rendered":"

A fellow blogger<\/a> drew my attention to a recent decision by the Broadcasting Standards Authority.  It seems that Dr Shaun Holt, a medical doctor who appears regularly on TV1’s Breakfast<\/i> show, has been slated by the BSA over some comments he made (several months back now) concerning chiropractic. The BSA found that the show<\/a> – & by extension Dr Holt – had breached standards of accuracy, impartiality & objectiveness, & that the coverage was neither fair nor balanced.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Before I get on with the story – while the media like to present ‘both sides of a story’, sometimes there really aren’t two sides. Think of evolution & creationism, for example. One’s science, & one’s not, & a story about evolution most emphatically does not<\/i> require ‘balance’ by adding a segment on creationism. The same could be said for vaccinations; contrary to what can be found on far too many websites, to date any number of well-designed scientific studies have found no link between autism (for example), so an item on vaccination does not need ‘balance’ by reporting claims that such a link exists…<\/p>\n

OK, I’ll get off my soapbox…<\/p>\n

Anyway, I can see where the ‘impartiality’ thing came from. Dr Holt has an interest in a firm that tests prescription medicines & CAM remedies, & because this wasn’t declared he could be said to have a conflict of interest in commenting unfavourably on chiropractic. But the BSA also decided that Dr Holt’s comments represented personal opinion & that he had made a number of strong, unqualified statements about what scientific research had to say about chiropractic treatment. Well, you can find a clip of the interview on YouTube (isn’t the internet wonderful?).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I watched it this evening. Dr Holt does indeed make some statements of opinion, but he also makes it clear that this is what he’s doing (what he<\/i> would do for back pain, for example). But he also refers to scientific studies looking at the benefits & risks of chiropractic. (You can find reviews & protocols for meta-analyses of this work in the Cochrane system – here, for example<\/a>. For more general commentary, Ben Goldacre has a fairly extensive set of links to such work here<\/a>, as does David Colquhoun on his blog<\/a>.) And TV1 gave equal time to a chiropractic spokesman, so it’s hard to see how a finding of ‘unfair’ could arise.<\/p>\n

It would also have been nice to see the inclusion of a scientist on a panel that was making decisions about the scientific accuracy of what was being said, but alas! this was not the case. As I commented a little while back in relation to debate around adding folic acid to bread<\/a> – for questions where questions of science are involved, we really should be hearing the voice of science in there somewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A fellow blogger drew my attention to a recent decision by the Broadcasting Standards Authority.  It seems that Dr Shaun Holt, a medical doctor who appears regularly on TV1’s Breakfast show, has been slated by the BSA over some comments he made (several months back now) concerning chiropractic. 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