British Chiropractic Association v Simon Singh

[bindeweede]

Jack has posted his comments.

http://jackofkent.blogspot.com/

[Matt]

Just been catching up on Swift.

Two things caught my eye.

One they've linked to a mirror of the offending article in a comment that fails to capture the implications of the ruling.

Two, they have another article which calls some medical claims bogus. This time it's the anti vaxxers who are in the firing line.

It's an interesting example as the main thrust of the article is that those creating the scares against vacinations are thoroughly convinced of their beliefs yet that is no excuse. Also it predates Justice Eady's definition of "Bogus".

My concern is that some have stated that Simon's usage is clearly defined in the subsequent paragraph.

I can confidently label these treatments as bogus because I have co-authored a book about alternative medicine with the world's first professor of complementary medicine, Edzard Ernst. He learned chiropractic techniques himself and used them as a doctor. This is when he began to see the need for some critical evaluation. Among other projects, he examined the evidence from 70 trials exploring the benefits of chiropractic therapy in conditions unrelated to the back. He found no evidence to suggest that chiropractors could treat any such conditions

I think there may be some confirmation bias going on. Substituting Eady's definition of fraudulent the paragraph still parses. Doing so we read this paragraph as meaning that Singh know the chiropractors are fraudulent by induction. He knows one person who trained as a chiropracter and realised that there was no evidence for these treatments and therefore all chiropracters must know that these treatments don't work and in offering them nonetheless are comitting fraud.

We know that's not what Simon meant, we know (1) that's not what he believes as we've read his wider works and (2) a man with his his reasoning skills would balk at an induction from a sample of just one.

However the meaning of writing may not necessarily coincide with the author's intention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_the_author

Clearly libel law takes a similar view allowing the judge to decide upon the meaning of a sentence in areas of ambiguity, rather than the author. IN this case I don't think that justice Eady is correct in dscerning the inferrence that the common man would take from this but parhaps I'm suffering from false concensus bias. That's why finding another article which so clearly and unambiguously uses the word bogus whilst explicitly stating that there's no intention to decieve was so encouraging.

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

BCA statement just released:

And of course the BCA statement is very careful not to talk about any of the evidence that Singh dismisses.

23 grand, just like that.

[Jack of Kent]

Hello everyone

Sorry to be late getting back on the forum.

This is an awful, dismal ruling. It is also, in my view, wrong. Flatly wrong.

Simon Singh is going to take some time to think what to do next: he has three weeks to appeal.

Will post more news as I get it.

[Blue Wode]

More from Jack of Kent this morning:
http://jackofkent.blogspot.com/2009/...h-do-next.html

[Pebble]

This ruling means in effect that chiropracters and any other person or group believing that what they do works, are entitled to 'treat' children, and that no one may warn the public of the potential dangers associated with allowing these charlatans near their children, except using terms and phrases that are unlikely to fully understood by most.

This first, moves the burden of proof away from those administering care to those aware that have evidence that what they are doing is useless or dangerous - paediatricians can't be too happy about that.
It then adds a second layer, requiring proof of fraud. So it is a sufficient defense when harming children to be ignorant!

Now given that most paedophiles believe that what they are doing is good for the child, should this interpretation of the law not be vigorously rejected.

As has been shown recently, the parliament cannot regulate itself, only the harsh light of public exposure has forced them to act sensibly. Should the same approach now be used for the courts. Why should judges judge judges? How could one whip up a newspaper campaign to ridicule this ruling? What do the Royal Colleges think?

[davidrodway]

"Simon never meant that the BCA were consciously dishonest and he can't defend that position"

Could he not? He could point out the dearth of scientific literature to support their claims and that as an organisation supposedly of health care practitioners they should surely be aware of the literature, and that publishing claims they know to be unsupported is therefore conciously dishonest.

[Trinoc]

I think David has a point. If I claimed chiropractic could cure earache, you could just assume I'm an idiot, but an organisation set up specifically to promote the credibility of chiropractic surely has a duty of care (or whatever it's called in legalese) to check its facts to a greater degree of accuracy.

[tkingdoll]

"Simon never meant that the BCA were consciously dishonest and he can't defend that position"

Could he not? He could point out the dearth of scientific literature to support their claims and that as an organisation supposedly of health care practitioners they should surely be aware of the literature, and that publishing claims they know to be unsupported is therefore conciously dishonest.

You'd have to prove the opposite though. You'd have to prove they are aware of the research and promote chiro knowing it isn't effective. That's not possible to prove in a million years, and even more importantly, it probably isn't true and isn't what Simon ever claimed.

[Trinoc]

Doesn't the BCA's status as a professional organisation (the basis for its claim that it can be defamed) place on it a duty to be aware of the relevant research?

[tkingdoll]

Doesn't the BCA's status as a professional organisation (the basis for its claim that it can be defamed) place on it a duty to be aware of the relevant research?

Morally, yes, but legally, I suspect not. I don't think it's relevant to this case though. If patients were suing, then it would be relevant because it shows incompetence but that's not the same as showing deception.

In other words, even if you could prove they were aware of the research, you couldn't prove that they'd deliberately decided to act against it (i.e. had committed fraud). After all, the available research isn't bound in law or anything. Chiropractic is legal, so it doesn't really matter if the BCA has read all of the available research or not, you still couldn't prove that they believe chiro is bogus but promote it anyway. It's highly unlikely that they believe that. It's highly likely that they and their members believe 100% in chiro and promote it on that basis, so they haven't committed fraud either way. That's what's so frustrating about this case - Simon has never said he doesn't believe BCA believe their own claims, he's never said they're being fraudulent, but the judge interpreted his article that way anyway.

It's a bit like if you said "tkingdoll smells bad" and I sued you, and the judge ruled that in order for you to win, you have to prove that I believe deodorant is satanic, even though that was never your claim. OK, that's a crap analogy but I have been working all day on a Sunday.

I ain't no lawyer anyway, I'm probably wrong about most of this :D

[Trinoc]

OK, enough barrack-room lawyering from us ... I'll wait and see what Jack thinks.

[tkingdoll]

OK, enough barrack-room lawyering from us ... I'll wait and see what Jack thinks.

Aw, thats no fun though. I love idly speculating with disclaimers.

[Trinoc]

Aw, thats no fun though. I love idly speculating with disclaimers.

Oh, all right!

I don't have any other silly ideas right now, but when I get any you'll be the first to know ...

[davidrodway]

You'd have to prove the opposite though. You'd have to prove they are aware of the research and promote chiro knowing it isn't effective. That's not possible to prove in a million years, and even more importantly, it probably isn't true and isn't what Simon ever claimed.

Would you though ? Or could you just show that they SHOULD have been aware of the research? The BCA are then in the position of having to claim that they are not or should not be up to date with research - if the judge agrees with them on that they may win the case but it rather scuppers their credility to pronounce on health care matters in the future. So the BCA might then win the case but lose all reputation .

That would seem logical, but, logical of course isnt always legal.

Still , I suppose it is not as subtle as that anyway - the headlines would still proclaim "BCA WIN". Although maybe not, as Simon is a journsalist. But that is another story.