Homeopathic "cure"

Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is an umbrella term for a variety of treatments that fall outside of the traditional medical realm. This includes practises such as hypnosis, chiropractic and homeopathy. I'm not a firm believer in such treatments myself, but the practitioners and regulatory bodies of CAM seem intent on not allowing the scientific community a chance to argue with actual facts.

This is most obvious in the recent libel case brought against Simon Singh by the British Chiropractic Association. Despite not having provided any evidence to prove that their practice works they were allowed to bring a case against Mr Singh for an article against the use of chiropractic for treatment of colic. The fear against legal action that denouncing CAM could bring is, in my opinion, stifling the progressive and active research and publication of evidence for or against such practices.

Luckily there is something we can do. A campaign, named Ten23, has been started to raise awareness of Homeopathic practices and question their place alongside legitimate medicine. The campaign isn't aiming to spread unsubstantiated (or substantiated for that matter) claims about Homeopathy's lack of efficacy, but to merely highlight the theories and reasoning behind such treatments.

Please take a look at the site and sign their open letter to Boots the Chemist requesting that Homeopathic treatments aren't marketed alongside actual medicine.

Sign up here.

Carter-Ruck back down

The Guardian reports that Trafigura's legal firm, Carter-Ruck, has abandoned its attempt to gag the Guardian's parliamentary reporting.

The question was asked by MP Paul Farrelly, and went as follows:

"To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura."

Which underlines what kind of scum Trafigura and Carter-Ruck are.

Guardian gagged from reporting UK parliament; bye-bye press freedoms?

The Guardian has been prevented from reporting parliamentary proceedings on legal grounds which appear to call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the 1688 Bill of Rights.

 — The Guardian, "Guardian gagged from reporting parliament", 2009-10-13

I was going to do some work this morning, but urgent news has interfered. Today, the Guardian reports that they have been banned from reporting on a question asked in Parliament. This contravenes the Bill of Rights and basic human rights of freedom of the press and free speech, and is particularly ludicrous given that the question is on public record, and can be found on parliament's website.

Despite the fact that I perfectly well know the reasons behind the ban and what they're trying to hide, I cannot put them here on this page - the legal situation appears to be unpleasant and hairy in the extreme, thanks again to UK libel law. However, I very much encourage you to read the article, and to conduct your own research from thereon. I'm sure you'll be able to find what you're looking for with some digging...

Interestingly, BBC News is completely silent on the topic. Hopefully that's because they're scared of legal action, not because they don't care about civil liberties. Anyway, I would very much appreciate it if you could give them a nudge by sending them a message asking them to cover the Guardian gag.

Furthermore, please write to your MPs and ask them to bring up this issue in parliament.

Trafigura: An Opinion Piece. Opinion! No facts here!

As I have previously mentioned, UK libel law is quite unusual in that it essentially places the burden of proof onto the accused rather than the accuser. Also, the defence costs, even if the defence is successful, have to be carried by the accused, and the costs can easily be half a million pounds. This leaves most organisations and individuals with no choice other than not to contest the suit and having to retract their statements.

On a completely unrelated note, have a series of links to some interesting - but potentially libellous and untrue - news articles about oil trading company Trafigura:

• How UK oil company Trafigura tried to cover up African pollution disaster, The Guardian, Wednesday 16 September
• Trafigura knew of waste dangers, BBC News, Wednesday 16 September
• Call for murder charges to be brought over toxic dumping, The Independent, Friday 18 September

In my personal opinion...

Wait, am I allowed to have an opinion on this?

I'm not entirely certain. I was under the impression that people were generally allowed to have an opinion, but recent events have somewhat dented that idea.

So you're just going to have to form your own. But then you must keep it to yourself, or at least not mention it within sight or earshot of Trafigura's lawyers...

Simon Singh vs the BCA

"If spinal manipulation were a drug with such serious adverse effects and so little demonstrable benefit, then it would almost certainly have been taken off the market."

 — Simon Singh

In a Guardian opinion column on the 19th April, respected science writer Simon Singh wrote about chiropractic, a type of alternative treatment involving the manipulation of the spine. Chiropractic is usually applied to help with back problems, but some practitioners also claim it can be used to deal with various children's ailments such as colic.

Singh pointed out that there is no evidence for its effectiveness even for back problems, much less for colic, and that the treatment was rather more dangerous than people believe, potentially leading to serious spinal problems or even, in at least one case, death.

The British Chiropractic Association was less than pleased about this and promptly sued Singh for libel. This may sound a bit silly, but has actually turned out to be quite a serious problem. It turns out that English libel laws are notoriously unbalanced: libel cases take huge amounts of money to fight, and the burden of proof lies, strangely, on the accused.

Furthermore, if the libel case is won, the judgement can be enforced in other jurisdictions, leading to something called "libel tourism" where people all over the world are being sued for libel in the UK. All it takes is "publication" in the UK, which can be as little as a few people reading a web page.

Rather than back down and retract his statements, as most people would have had to do, Singh decided to rely on his comfortable financial resources (and hard-headedness) and fight the case. Things haven't gone that well so far on the legal front, though, with a preliminary ruling stating that Singh's article was a "fact" article rather than an "opinion" one, which is a bit strange given it was published in the Guardian's opinion section. (The Guardian has since decided to withdraw the column due to the threat of the aforementioned legal costs.)

But the BCA's actions, and the widespread realisation of just how unfair and frequently abused British libel laws are, has spawned a number of interesting campaigns:

Sense about Science have started a campaign and petition called "Keep libel laws out of science" stating that current UK libel laws are damaging free discourse and scientific discussion.

And one blogger at Adventures in Nonsense found some 500 chiropractors claiming to treat colic and reported them to their local Trading Standards office. (The Trading Standards Agency has ruled that chiropractors may not claim to treat colic.)

I have only scratched the surface of a messy but fascinating dispute. I definitely encourage you to read more about it.

If things go badly, we will end up with a precedent enabling all kinds of snake-oil salesmen to silence their critics. But if things go well, there is a real chance of reforms that will protect critics and scientists from being silenced by powerful organisations.

So what can you do?

• Sign the "Keep libel laws out of science" petition.


• Sign this government petition asking for libel law reform.


• If you have one, write to your MP asking them to support libel law reform.


• Help with this campaign by looking up your local chiropractors and fact-checking their claims: Do they pretend to have academic titles they don't actually hold? Do they claim to cure colic? (The Advertising Standards Agency says they're not allowed to.)


• If you're into that kind of thing, there is also a Facebook group.


• Spread the word - blog about it, tweet about it, bring it up in conversation.

Finally, given that the amount of bloggage produced on this is quite huge, and that I have understandably not read all of it, if you have any further suggestions on what to do, please leave a comment and I'll incorporate it.