Simon Singh and the British Chiropractic Association
Having co-authored a book about alternative medicine with Edzard Ernst, popular science writer Simon Singh penned an article for the Guardian about one of the alternative therapies covered in the book. The article was published at a time when chiropractic was being promoted. This newspaper article then became the subject of a complaint from the chiropractic association, the BCA. Read the rest of this entry »
BCA Statement Baffles Blogger
It’s true. I’m baffled by the statement that has been issued by the British Chiropractic Association. I suspect I am not the only one. Read the rest of this entry »
What Was The Question Again? Or: The GCC Respond To My Email
I emailed the GCC to ask for clarification on a point that relates to my correspondence with Bassett Chiropractic Clinics, of St Albans Chiropractic Clinic, The Hertford Chiropractic Clinic, Watford Chiropractic Clinic, and Kings Langley Chiropractic Clinic (Bassett Chiropractic Clinics are members of the British Chiropractic Association – the organisation suing Simon Singh, who co-authored the excellent Trick or Treatment with Edzard Ernst). Here is my email, followed by their reply, and my follow-up email: Read the rest of this entry »
Recommended Reading For Chiropractors
Having corresponded with both the BCA and Bassett Chiropractic Clinics – and received a data dump of some of Tedd Koren’s work in the comments section of a recent post – I am beginning to get a feel for how well chiropractors understand research. I post here some suggested reading for chiropractors in the hope that they may improve their skills and become better at appraising scientific evidence*. Read the rest of this entry »
Chiropractic and the BCA Research Page
The British Chiropractic Association has a Research page on their website. It contains references to “a selection of research papers and reports of relevance and interest”. Let’s take a closer look. Read the rest of this entry »
British Chiropractic Association: Afraid of Criticism
Well I’m late to the party, but I’ve never been one to turn down an opportunity to highlight the cowardice of Alternative Medicine practitioners so frightened of legitimate criticism that they will run to the law to silence dissent – so here’s a bit more on Chiropractic legal threats. Sadly, Simon Singh is being sued. Holford Watch have a post up with links to coverage of the affair and some background to it (see also links to Frank Frizelle saga below), Dr* T has something on this: another back cracking quack attack and Gimpy has posted the full article and a separate commentary on the situation. Jack of Kent makes reference to the Derbyshire Rule and the right to freedom of expression in his commentary. Basically, Simon Singh wrote a piece for the Guardian that was critical of Chiropractic and the British Chiropractic Association have issued a writ through the High Court. This follows recent legal letters in New Zealand sent to Professor Frank Frizelle and the NZJM (also naming Professor David Colquhoun and Mr Andrew Gilbey). The Holford Watch piece on Frank Frizelle includes a fairly comprehensive list of legal threats from Alt Med types that should cover the ones I referred to in Legal Chill and Other Threats. I will also point to a couple of bits linked to from the NZJM response to Chiropractors, the brief piece Frank Frizelle wrote in 2005 titled Lawyers and Letters and a couple of webpages on publication ethics at icmje.org: Uniform Requirements and Sponsorship, Authorship and Accountability. As Frank Frizelle said to the Chiropractors’ Association in New Zealand, so I say to the British Chiropractors’ Association: Show us your evidence, not your legal muscle.
