UK chiropractors sue themselves in the foot

The British Chiropractic Association sued scientist and author Simon Singh for libel because of the following statement he made:

"You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact they still possess some quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything. And even the more moderate chiropractors have ideas above their station. The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments."

The full article by Singh is available on Svetlana Pertsovich's website, where she placed a copy after the original in The Guardian was removed.

In a recent preliminary hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice, Judge Eady found that in using the words "happily promotes bogus treatments", Singh was implying that the British Chiropractic Association was knowingly dishonest in promoting chiropractic for treating the relevant children's illnesses. This finding exposed Singh to further expensive litigation. This issue brought into focus British libel laws and the danger of those laws for science not only in Britain, but worldwide.

The proper way to silence critics about doubts about the scientific value of something, is to produce the scientific evidence to prove the critic wrong. The abuse of the courts by the UK chiropractic association to settle a scientific dispute and to silence free speech, led to widespread anger. The Sense About Science organisation launched an online petition which soon had more than 10 000 signatories, many from prominent scientists and other public figures. The button to support their campaign appears below.



The affair had an interesting aftermath and it soon became clear that the British Chiropractic Association had sued itself in the foot and disadvantaged even those chiropractors who did not engage in the practices in question. Zeno from Zeno's Blog laid a large number of complaints against individual chiropractors at the British Chiropractic Council for performing actions they had no evidence for. This resulted in another chiropractic association advising its members in a confidential letter to lie low. The existence and text of the letter was disclosed by a disgruntled chiropractor. Here are selected excerpts, hat tip to Josh Witten from The Rugbyologist in his post Chiropractors Scared Siteless?:

"Dear Member

If you are reading this, we assume you have also read the urgent email we sent you last Friday. If you did not read it, READ IT VERY CAREFULLY NOW and - this is most important – ACT ON IT. This is not scaremongering. We judge this to be a real threat to you and your practice.

Because of what we consider to be a witch hunt against chiropractors, we are now issuing the following advice:

The target of the campaigners is now any claims for treatment that cannot be substantiated with chiropractic research. The safest thing for everyone to do is as follows.

If you have a website, take it down NOW."

"REMOVE all the blue MCA patient information leaflets, or any patient information leaflets of your own that state you treat whiplash, colic or other childhood problems in your clinic or at any other site where they might be displayed with your contact details on them. DO NOT USE them until further notice."

"If you have not done so already, enter your name followed by the word ‘chiropractor’ into a search engine such as Google (e.g. Joe Bloggs chiropractor) and you will be able to ascertain what information about you is in the public domain e.g. where you might be listed using the Doctor title or where you might be linked with a website which might implicate you."

Cartoon, slightly changed, from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

On a quick search I could find nothing about the controversy on the British Chiropratic Association website. In taking this issue to court, I believe they've damaged their members much more than any critical article or comment could have. Well done.

Late breaking news: Dr. Ben Goldacre from BadScience has an excellent account of the saga, with a lot of information I did not cover here. He has a specific slant on the issue that I did not cover, but which is critically important. I quote:

"..., while you may view this as a free speech issue, there are also some specific worries raised when people sue in medicine and science.

It is possible in healthcare to do great harm, while intending to do good, and so medicine thrives on criticism: this is how ideas improve, and therefore how lives are saved. The three most highly rated articles in the latest chart from the British Medical Journal are all highly critical of medical practice. Academic conferences are often bloodbaths. To stand in the way of ideas and practices being improved through critical appraisal is not just dangerous, it is disrespectful to patients, ...

Neither the General Medical Council nor the British Medical Association have ever sued anyone for saying that their members are up to no good. I asked them. The idea is laughable."

In one of the comments to Goldacre's blog, Methuselah (?) pointed out that this was an example of the Streisand Effect. This was new to me, but is described by Wikipedia as:

"The Streisand effect is an Internet phenomenon where an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information backfires, causing the information to be widely publicized."

More on the legal issues can be found on the excellent Jack of Kent blog. Some choice quotes from Jack of Kent:

On the quality of evidence a skeptical critic has to provide:

"The BCA are stating that Simon Singh has to meet a far higher standard of knowledge of chiropractic research in criticising the BCA than the BCA itself has to meet in promoting chiropractic in the first place."

Hat tip to Jack of Kent for a quote from Adventures in Nonsense. This quote goes to the heart of how UK chiropractors sued themselves in the foot:

"For some time, chiropractic has managed to get away with being the acceptable face of alternative medicine. With some evidence to show that it helps with lower back pain, and many chiropractors only using the therapy for this purpose, it was seen by many as a legitimate therapy and largely escaped criticism from sceptics.

"That all changed when the BCA decided to sue Simon Singh for libel. In a fine example of the Streisand effect, all the energy usually reserved for criticising homeopaths and reiki healers was redirected straight at those chiropractors making wild and outlandish claims to treat colic, asthma and a host of other problems unrelated to the spine."

Chopra and Oprah, stoking the fire?

I'm wasting way too much time on Oprah, but this is too important to pass by. I'll keep it short though.

My last post was on Oprah and her support for Jenny McCarthy's anti-vaccination propaganda: Oprah, quacking with fire. It related to an article on Oprah in Newsweek, Live Your Best Life Ever! Deepak Chopra of quantum healing fame has now also weighed in on this issue. As could be expected, he supports her.











Chopra's article is full of errors of fact and logical fallacies, but I'll leave two bloggers more qualified than I am to deal with that. Read Orac from Respectful Insolence in Oprah and Chopra sittin' in a tree..., and Massimo Pigliucci from Rationally Speaking in Deepak Chopra Defends Oprah, Commits Endless Logical Fallacies for more on that.

My concern is more with what Chopra did not say that with what he did say. He advanced a list of red herrings, but said almost nothing about Oprah's support for Jenny McCarthy's anti-vaccination drive. The crucial question is whether he (a physician) supports those who would stop or delay childhood vaccinations?

Oprah, quacking with fire?

An article in Newsweek exposed the extent to which Oprah Winfrey has and is promoting (often dangerous) pseudoscience nonsense on her programme. There was also this recent article in the Readers Digest along the same lines: The Trouble with Celebrity Science. These articles pointed out the inordinate influence she has on more than 40 million avid followers. Here is just some of the nonsense she has given airtime to or supported:

The Secret, wishful thinking at its best (or worst)

Suzanne Summers on using hormones (bioidenticals) and other potentially dangerous techniques to try to stay young

Dr. Christiane Northrup on the unproven dangers of vaccines, thyroid dysfunction in women caused by "suppressing utterances", other quack cures for female problems

Actress Jenny McCarthy on the putative role of vaccines in Autism, urging parents to delay or stop vaccinating their children.

The desperate attempts by some people to cheat ageing are saddening. The efforts of Suzanne Summers are gruesome and pathetic - for Oprah to promote them, unworthy. The effects, however, will only be felt by those sad individuals who put their trust in Oprah's judgement.

Now, Oprah is by all accounts a wonderful person who does a lot of good, especially for women. She is also a very influential person. As such she should be held to higher standards of care and responsibility. Surely she should temper her natural trustfulness (someone less charitable may say gullibility) with a little caution?

The real issue here is Oprah's ill-founded support for Jenny McCarthy and others' claims that childhood vaccinations cause Autism and that these vaccinations should therefore be delayed or stopped altogether. This is what Dr. Harriet Hall had to say about these claims recently in an article entitled Vaccines and Autism in eSkeptic (her views reflect the scientific consensus on this issue):

"The evidence is in. The scientific community has reached a clear consensus that vaccines don’t cause autism. There is no controversy.

There is, however, a manufactroversy — a manufactured controversy — created by junk science, dishonest researchers, professional misconduct, outright fraud, lies, misrepresentations, irresponsible reporting, unfortunate media publicity, poor judgment, celebrities who think they are wiser than the whole of medical science, and a few maverick doctors who ought to know better. Thousands of parents have been frightened into rejecting or delaying immunizations for their children. The immunization rate has dropped, resulting in the return of endemic measles in the U.K. and various outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in the U.S. children have died. Herd immunity has been lost. The public health consequences are serious and are likely to get worse before they get better — a load of unscientific nonsense has put us all at risk."

Oprah's support of people such as Jenny McCarthy - she's reportedly giving her her own show - is inexcusable. She is quacking with fire.

Left brain right brain once more

Joseph Le Doux is the latest eminent neuroscientist to take on the left brain right brain myth. Writing in the Huffington Post, Le Doux reveals Why the "Right Brain" Idea is Wrong-Headed. He links a resurgence of right brain nonsense to Daniel Pink's book A Whole New Mind and the mindless promotion of it by celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey. I also commented on this on Occam's Donkey at Is Oprah a whole-brain half-wit too?

Some choice quotes from Le Doux on why the right brain idea is wrong-headed:

"Attributing functions to one side or the other just divides the "black box" in two. This kind of over-simplification is unnecessary given all we've learned about how the brain work."

"We have very detailed information about various tiny areas on the left and right side, how cells in these areas are connected to other cells in the same or different areas, and what neurotransmitters, enzymes, and genes are in the many of the cells that allow them to do their job as part of a network or system."

" ... there is no overall function of a side. Areas, whether on a small or large scale, don't have functions. Functions are products of systems. Systems are made up of cells that are interconnected by synapses. Systems span the brain vertically and horizontally -- they are not isolated in one hemisphere."

Le Doux concedes that Pink probably used the term right brain as a metaphor for thinking styles. This tired excuse is wearing thin, however. Right brained should perhaps rather be used as a metaphor for the gullibility of those whose who fall for the idea and the greed of those who propagate it for financial gain.

Also see my post on the left brain right brain mind myth.

It's not right, it's not even wrong

In science there can be no worse insult than being accused that one's activities are not science. Physicist Wolfgang Pauli committed the classical insult when he reportedly said of a younger colleage's paper:

"This isn’t right. It’s not even wrong."

This reflected the Popperian view of science in which a theory which is not falsifiable (cannot be proven wrong) is not considered scientific. The idea of falsifiability is well defined in Stanford University's article on Karl Popper (hat tip to Wikipedia):

"A theory is scientific only if it is refutable by a conceivable event. Every genuine test of a scientific theory, then, is logically an attempt to refute or to falsify it, and one genuine counter-instance falsifies the whole theory."

Most alternative medicine approaches are considered unfalsifiable and are therefore unscientific, or if they claim scientific justification, pseudoescientific. Consider homeopathy where solutions are diluted to the point where the supposed critical ingredient is no longer detectable. The water in which it was diluted is then said to retain a "memory" for that ingredient. This "memory" cannot be detected, the concept cannot be proven wrong and according to Popper's view is not scientific. Homeopathy is not right, it's not even wrong.

An well-known example of a falsifiable statement was that there were only white swans. It could be falsified simply by finding a black swan, which duly happened. Compare this with claims that parapsychology experiments fail because of the skeptical attitude of experimenters through the measurement effect in quantum mechanics affect the outcomes. If this is accepted, falsification becomes impossible and believers in parapsychology will always be able shift the goalposts.

Much of what is commonly called pseudoscience or quackery, can be described as not even wrong. In other words - it's bullshit.