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British Chiropractors Drop Case Against Simon Singh
SJrX writes "Several sources are reporting that the British Chiropractic Association has dropped its lawsuit against famed writer Simon Singh. He had recently won a High Court ruling in his favour, but this had been open for appeal."
Also covered at The Independent
and at MacLeans. Singh had angered the chiropractors' trade group with his published claim that certain chiropractice treatments were "bogus."
That's peer rear-viewed science.
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Did the chiro also offer to cure your diabetes? Cancer? Emphysema? Bad skin? This is what Singh was commenting on - the widespread, and supported-by-the-association claims to actually cure disease via Chiropractic Manipulation.
Bogus, indeed.
Used to be I couldn't lie face-down for more than 10 minutes before my back would start hurting. And I couldn't carry my kids much. One day the pain got so bad I went to a chiro, and the guy did manage to straighten out my back. Hurt like heck when he "realigned" my spine, but that 13-year-injury is no longer there. So yeah, I used to think they're bogus. But now I dont.
Except that while you may have seen a Chiropractor, I am willing to bet that he was also a licensed physical therapist. What you have described is a physical therapy treatment, not a chiropractic treatment.
This is the reason that a lot of people think that chiropractic treatments are legitimate: They are receiving physical therapy treatments from so called "mixed" chiropractors.
Strict, or so called "straight" chiropractors claim they can fix any problem in the body (heart disease, cancer, whatever) by manipulating your bones and muscles. That kind of nonsense is right up there with balancing the humors to restore the body's vitality.
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Part of his complaint with regard to the lawsuit was that the Chiropractors' Association that sued him also sue poor people who should have free speech rights that are socked with having to settle because they can't afford the legal costs.
Chiropractic treatment (massage therapy and physical therapy) has been well established as an effective treatment for back pain, and many "chiropractors" end both their claims and treatments there.
The problem is, true Chiropractic goes much further, claiming that a wide variety of diseases are caused by "misalignments" of the spine, other joints, and soft tissue. "Traditional chiropractic assumes that a vertebral subluxation or spinal joint dysfunction interferes with the body's function and its innate intelligence." In many cases, these claims are demonstrably false.
"Chiropractic is often described as two professions masquerading as one. Unlike the distinction between podiatry (a science-based profession for foot disorders) and foot reflexology (an unscientific philosophy which posits that many disorders arise from the feet), in chiropractic the two professions attempt to live under one roof, albeit with much tension between them."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiropractic
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Singh might go after them for his legal fees. That would be about a £100,000 loss to the BCA (not to mention what they spent already). It doesn't make it better for Singh, but it's still a victory for everybody else. And this might spark a reform in the libel law, which is another win for everybody else.
So far, Singh has been hit the hardest, but the fight isn't over yet. I don't know if we can make things easier on him directly, but maybe the other side can still be hit hard.
There's no such thing as the Placebo effect!
I'm curious how you can to that conclusion. I just read the study you referenced and that is not at all what it says.
What is actually says (emphasis mine):
We did not find that placebo interventions have important clinical effects in general. However, in certain settings placebo interventions can influence patient-reported outcomes, especially pain and nausea, though it is difficult to distinguish patient-reported effects of placebo from biased reporting. The effect on pain varied, even among trials with low risk of bias, from negligible to clinically important. Variations in the effect of placebo were partly explained by variations in how trials were conducted and how patients were informed.
Nowhere in that study do the authors claim that there is no such thing as the placebo effect.
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Ben Goldacre (http://www.badscience.net) has done some research into studies about the Placebo effect, given talks about the topic & made a radio documentary on the subject.
What sets him apart from a lot of others is that he references the studies as he goes - I'd recommend looking up some of those studies, or even getting in touch with him before making your mind up completely about the Placebo effect - from a purely scientific point of view it is true that in the case of many problems, the body is able to do more than it would normally do - so there's room to "coerce" it into helping itself.
It was more than just an innocuous remark. He co-authored a book explaining why it was bogus. They did this to discredit him.
Now, I'm going to buy the book.
Mr. Singh didn't say that all Chiropractic procedures are bogus. It's the stuff about curing allergies and diabetes and stuff - that is the bogus part. But don't take this to mean that a good chiropractor can't work wonders if you have disc problems.
It is an interesting read. Certainly worth it.
There is something very wrong with a legal system where someone can sue you and then drop the case or lose, and you still have to pay and are not compensated for your time.
Simon sing is going to go after the BCA for costs: http://www.badscience.net/2010/04/british-chiropractic-association-drops-shameful-libel-case-against-science-writer-who-criticised-them/
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I appreciate your honesty. My wife experienced a mild stroke in 2004 due to an upper neck adjustment that ended up bounding back a couple days later and pinched a blood vessel. She has experienced vertigo since which is finally subsiding. She also was seeing a chiro for years before that happened. She ended up seeing a physio therapist afterwards and since then has had a lot of the initial problems dealt with.
I've bolded the answer for you:)
Whoa, there. There are two different schools of thought in Chiropractic care. It's important not to lump them together.
The first school of thought, which Wikipedia refers to as "straight" chiropractors, is an untestable pile of gibberish in which the spine and nerves cause everything that's wrong with the human body. I wouldn't disagree with your description of that as quackery, but that's not an accurate description of what most chiropractors believe.
The second school of thought (and the predominant theory among modern chiropractors) is scientific in nature and is fairly sound. In this school of thought, misaligned spinal vertebrae cause muscles in the back and neck to tighten up to prevent injury (trivially provable). The result of this is cramping, pain, and reduced flexibility in the neck and spine (also trivially provable). This, in turn, can cause or contribute to a number of other musculoskeletal problems such as sciatica, arthritic pain in the knees, stress headaches, etc. Spinal adjustments (particularly when followed by additional muscle work) allows the muscles in the back and neck to relax, reducing pain caused by muscle stiffness, allowing greater freedom of motion. This, in turn, allows the person to use better posture without pain, which reduces the rate of damage in other places.
Can people be injured by chiropractic care? Sure. Can people be injured by botched spinal surgery? Also yes. Is spinal surgery quackery? No, and neither is most chiropractic care.
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Ear aches are actually a really bad example. A lot of ear aches are really muscle knots in the SCM (sternocleidomastoid) muscle.
And even when you have a real ear ache with a bacterial causes, chronic ear aches can be the result of excessive tension in certain neck muscles causing insufficient eustachian tube drainage. When the ears don't drain properly, they are more prone to infection. That's not saying chiropractic care can fix the infection, but it can reduce the incidence of it.
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Problem is, our backs don't need "straightening." There was a study where different chiropractors were given the same x-rays of someone's back and asked to identify what problem the person was experiencing and what "adjustment" was needed to cure it. Each had a different answer. The most amusing part was, some of the x-rays were of people with no problems whatsoever, though the chiropractors found all sorts of problems to cure.
Long and short of it, many of our physical ills have psychological roots. Placebos can attack those psychological roots quite effectively, though depending on the nature, the effect may wear off and require further "treatment." In some cases, a placebo may break a psychosomatic feedback loop long enough to end it permanently. (ie. pain (emotional or physical) causes stress, stress causes tension and immunodeficiency, tension and illness result in more pain) Chiropractic is a highly effective placebo because of the trust level between practitioner and patient. This typically originates from the testimonies of friends and family, but is enhanced by the fact that chiropractors, in contrast to medical doctors, tend to be more leisurely and take their time to explain treatments to patients. The treatment itself also tends to have a psychological "trigger moment" such as an audible pop of the back or neck, which initiates the effect. This results in belief reinforcement that keeps the patient coming back for more treatments.
So, is chiropractic bogus? Yes, completely. So are many medical drugs and procedures. (Ever have aspirin work in less than 30 minutes? That's placebo) This is why it's so important to employ quality, peer-reviewed science in the pursuit of healing our bodies.
Chemo operates on the fact that we know that cancer is caused by malignant white cells, so what do we do? We nuke all your white cells.
WTF are you talking about? Only a small subset of cancers (known as haematological) cancers are caused by malignant white cells. These are leukaemias and lymphomas. Other cancers are caused by other cells, e.g. carcinomas (epithelial cells), adenocarcinoma (glandular cells), sarcomas (connective tissue cells) etc.
In general, chemotherapy operates on the fact that cancer is caused by rapidly-dividing, malignant cells. Primarily, chemotherapeutic drugs affect the ability of the body to create new cells, often by disrupting DNA synthesis. This means that all cells, especially cancer cells are less able to divide and grow. This is why your hair falls out, you get mucositis etc etc. These are also rapidly turning over cells.
I'm not an oncologist (but I am a doctor, and you'll notice from my spelling that I don't live in the US), so can't quote improvement in survival, but when you base most of your statement around a misleading premise, it makes the rest of your argument look pretty shoddy.