British Chiropractic Association v Simon Singh

[Dubious Dick]

It is good to see a groundswell of complaints against chiros building. Intend to check the Yellow Pages to see if any local ones are pushing their luck.

Did note a piece ina local paper about a chiro going into schools to advise kide about good posture etc. Am intending to write to the local Education Authority to assk why they are allowing self promotion of non-evidence based treatments via schoolchildren.

Surely if the Ed and Health authorities want to get what may, in its own right, be good advice, then surely they should be professional physios who, in my experience tend to be excellent?

It's interesting to see the piece by the BCA guy claiming evidence, but once again failing to quote it. The only thing professional about it is the level of waffle. Also goes direct for the ad hom on Ernst (funny how they focus on him and not Simon Singh, despite bit at end.

[Ryoden]

Ah the delightful glare of public scrutiny, watch them scurry for cover, pull down the websites and batten down the hatches.

Shock, horror, they may be expected to "gulp" produce evidence to support their claims, surely not.

I bet they are regretting suing now, it would have been more sensible to just have ignored the comment and let it die, but now there is blood in the water.

[lost thought]

Probably thought they would get a lot of publicity trouble was it did but not the kind they wanted now every one is asking PROOVE IT and they can’t shut every one up with the courts and dim witted judges who are divorced from reality.

Now it’s a case of put up or shut up and they don’t like it.

[Ryoden]

Are osteopaths going to come under fire due to this as well does anyone think?

[lost thought]

Bone and joint crackers all look the same to the public, ht eperception on the street are that they are the same profession.

[DrS]

Are osteopaths going to come under fire due to this as well does anyone think?

Somehow I doubt it. I think there are too many people who mistake osteopathy for a regular medical speciality. Even the word is recognizable by many as something concerned with bones. I've known highly educated but non-medical people assume that you'd find the osteopathy department just down the corridor, as it were, from orthopedics.

Hoping now that orthopedics are regular doctors ......

[Ryoden]

Somehow I doubt it. I think there are too many people who mistake osteopathy for a regular medical speciality. Even the word is recognizable by many as something concerned with bones. I've known highly educated but non-medical people assume that you'd find the osteopathy department just down the corridor, as it were, from orthopedics.

Hoping now that orthopedics are regular doctors ......

That's a shame, it would be nice to use the impetus of this to throw light on the other pseudo-medical practices and get the public to question the lack of evidence therein.

[DrS]

I couldn't agree more ... let's hope I'm way off the mark!

[Trinoc]

Let's concentrate on chiropractic for now, as that's the one which has chosen to put itself in the limelight (or shoot itself in the foot). We should not spread our ammunition thinly by trying to advance on more than one front at a time. Hopefully other practices will learn from the experience and make sure they don't make unsubstantiated claims ... but if not, they will know what to expect when the time comes.

[bindeweede]

500 Chiropractors reported to Trading Standards and GCC


http://adventuresinnonsense.blogspot...o-trading.html

[bindeweede]

And Jack of Kent writes about a "Quacklash".

http://jackofkent.blogspot.com/2009/...d-effects.html

[Croydon Bob]

Justice Eady back in the news for a different but controversial ruling:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/8103132.stm

[Matt]

Justice Eady back in the news for a different but controversial ruling:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/8103132.stm

I thought I'd see what was so controversial that ti required legally mandated anonymity.

http://nightjack.wordpress.com/

The authors have deleted this blog. The content is no longer available.

Aha I thought I'm no amateur at this game and I know a thing or two about the internet

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://...wordpress.com/

We're sorry, access to http://nightjack.wordpress.com/ has been blocked by the site owner via robots.txt.

Nothing in the Google cache either.

All I know about the blog is that Google consider it authorative and these are the pages it find of note

The Evil Poor
The Smoke Goes Up The Chimney ...
Ozymandias
Darkness At The Edge of Town
Only 24 Hours To Crack The Case ...
From Truncheons To Tasers
Part 7
Pop Quiz


The evil poor... a very ahem "incitefull" phrase

[Blue Wode]

Re 500+ complaints...

The General Chiropractic Council (GCC) wants to waive the rules
http://www.dcscience.net/?p=1764

Also see here:
http://www.zenosblog.com/2009/06/email-2-from-gcc.html

[tolman]

Legally speaking, what's the difference between 'a case to answer' and 'realistic prospect of success'? It seems to depend on what 'realistic' means.

Looking at the negation, I'd have thought that 'no realistic prospect of success' should mean chances of success of no more than a few percent at best.

In the context of people clearly making valid complaints it would actually be a dangerous thing to do for a supposed regulating body to dismiss those kinds of claims out of hand, since that could seriously rebound on them if people didn't take the dismissal lying down.