{"id":649,"date":"2010-03-05T20:44:17","date_gmt":"2010-03-05T07:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2010\/03\/over_the_last_few_months\/"},"modified":"2010-03-05T20:44:17","modified_gmt":"2010-03-05T07:44:17","slug":"over-the-last-few-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2010\/03\/over-the-last-few-months\/","title":{"rendered":"the bca vs simon singh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over the last few months many science bloggers have been watching &#8211; with considerable interest &#8211; a libel case <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/science\/2010\/feb\/25\/simon-singh-silencing-scientists-libel-law\">taken agains science writer Simon Singh<\/a> by the British Chiropractic Association. Singh had used the word &#8216;bogus&#8217; in describing treatments offered for a range of ailments, including asthma and ear infections. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chiro.co.nz\/doctor\/chiropractor\/530S\/chiropractic-Wellington\/chiropractic-for-children.htm\">(Similar claims-by-implication<\/a> are made in NZ.) While the UK&#8217;s libel laws allowed the case to proceed (it&#8217;s still before the courts), Singh&#8217;s view is supported by a number of meta-analyses of availble good-quality studies: for conditions other than musculoskeletal pain (eg <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cochrane.org\/reviews\/en\/ab001002.html\">asthma<\/a>, &amp; a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bmj.com\/cgi\/content\/full\/339\/jul08_4\/b2766\">range&nbsp;of childhood conditions<\/a>)&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/your-doctor.com\/patient_info\/alternative_remedies\/various_therapy\/chiropractic.html\">such treatments perform no better than placebo<\/a> .<\/p>\n<p>Now it seems that the case appears to have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/science\/2010\/mar\/01\/simon-singh-libel-case-chiropractors\">sparked somethng of a backlash in the UK<\/a>, with chiropractors advised by their professional body to remove from their websites &amp; other publicity material any claims of the ability to treat conditions such as whiplash and colic. This is interesting given that the BCA had previously released <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chiropractic-uk.co.uk\/gfx\/uploads\/textbox\/Singh\/BCA%20Statement%20170609.pdf\">what it described as a &#8216;plethora&#8217; of evidence<\/a> supporting those claims. However, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bmj.com\/cgi\/content\/full\/339\/jul08_4\/b2766?view=long&amp;pmid=19589818\">as Edzard Ernst has noted<\/a>,&nbsp;of the&nbsp;19 references included in that list, it seems that 4 didn&#8217;t even contain data relating to chiropractic treatment. A further 8 are not based on controlled clinical trials, and the remaining 7 are flawed in methodology or conclusion &#8211; for example, a lack of double-blinding that doesn&#8217;t allow us to rule out the placebo effect, in a comparison of chiropractic vs&nbsp;an anti-colic drug. &nbsp;(Ernst also points out that several robust, rigorous trials of chiropractic interventions, that don&#8217;t show any effect better than placebo, aren&#8217;t included in the BCA list.)<\/p>\n<p>If the BCA is now advising that claims concerning ailments other than back pain should not be made, where to next for the case against Singh?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the last few months many science bloggers have been watching &#8211; with considerable interest &#8211; a libel case taken agains science writer Simon Singh by the British Chiropractic Association. Singh had used the word &#8216;bogus&#8217; in describing treatments offered for a range of ailments, including asthma and ear infections. (Similar claims-by-implication are made in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3,31],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>the bca vs simon singh : BioBlog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2010\/03\/over-the-last-few-months\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"the bca vs simon singh : BioBlog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over the last few months many science bloggers have been watching &#8211; with considerable interest &#8211; a libel case taken agains science writer Simon Singh by the British Chiropractic Association. Singh had used the word &#8216;bogus&#8217; in describing treatments offered for a range of ailments, including asthma and ear infections. 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