Bloggers get back at the back doctors
Further to Max’s post on Simon Singh, here’s a terrific and inspiring article by Ben Goldacre about how the British Chiropractic Association may have kicked an own goal in suing Simon Singh:-
Today the Australian magazine Cosmos, along with a vast number of other blogs and publications, reprinted an article by Simon Singh, in slightly tweaked form, in an act of solidarity. The British Chiropractic Association has been suing Singh personally for the past 15 months, over a piece in the Guardian where he criticised the BCA for claiming that its members could treat children for colic, ear infections, asthma, prolonged crying, and sleeping and feeding conditions by manipulating their spines.
. .
An international petition against the BCA has been signed by professors, journalists, celebrities and more, with Ricky Gervais and Stephen Fry alongside the previous head of the Medical Research Council and the last government chief scientific adviser. There have been public meetings, with stickers and badges. But it is a ragged band of science bloggers who has done the most detailed work. Fifteen months after the case began, the BCA finally released the academic evidence it was using to support specific claims. Within 24 hours this was taken apart meticulously by bloggers, referencing primary research papers, and looking in every corner.Professor David Colquhoun of UCL pointed out, on infant colic, that the BCA cited weak evidence in its favour, while ignoring strong evidence contradicting its claims. He posted the evidence and explained it. LayScience flagged up the BCA selectively quoting a Cochrane review. Every stone was turned by Quackometer, APGaylard, Gimpyblog, EvidenceMatters, Dr Petra Boynton, MinistryofTruth, Holfordwatch, legal blogger Jack of Kent, and many more. At every turn they have taken the opportunity to explain a different principle of evidence based medicine – the sin of cherry-picking results, the ways a clinical trial can be unfair by design – to an engaged lay audience, with clarity as well as swagger.
. . .We could go on, but there are lessons from this debacle – beyond the ethical concerns over suing in the field of science and medicine – and they are clear. First, if you have reputation and superficial plausibility more than evidence to support your activities, then it may be wise to keep under the radar, rather than start expensive fights. But more interestingly than that, a ragged band of bloggers from all walks of life has, to my mind, done a better job of subjecting an entire industry’s claims to meaningful, public, scientific scrutiny than the media, the industry itself, and even its own regulator. It’s strange this task has fallen to them, but I’m glad someone is doing it, and they do it very, very well indeed.
Recession Prolemockery
The Daily Mail goes to Poundland:
There is a floating frog pondlight that is as far from a Wow Deal! as imaginable and something that I thought were Star Wars light sabres, but are actually plastic solar lights. I’m not the only shopper to be confused by them.
‘Solar lights? Wot for? For night-time?’ one woman asks another.
‘No, they are for day.’ ‘Why do you need a light in your garden in the daytime?’
‘Well, you can only use them if you are in a sunny country, anyway.’
Speaking of the night, you know those gangs of girls who plague our city centres on hen outings? Now I know where they buy their stuff.
Poundland is the kind of shop that can supply all your hen night needs, from a white net veil with two pink shot glasses on the side and a sign saying ‘I’m Tying The Knot, Buy Me A Shot’ to a Husband Control whistle, a Fluffy L Plate, pink cowboy hats and pairs of pink fluffy gloves, complete with very precise instructions on how to put them on the hands.
I found that last detail rather poignant; as if the manufacturers were worried the girls might put them on their feet.
Read the whole thing, if you can stand it.
We know the Tory press has a contempt for the common man. But it’s rare to see this expressed so explicitly.
(Thanks: Anton Vowl and Edmund Standing. Image via Septicisle)
Beware the spinal trap
You might have heard about this. You may not. A writer named Simon Singh is getting sued by the British Chiropractic Association, for criticising its practices in a Guardian article. A number of editors and bloggers have republished his article out of solidarity. I reproduce it below.
You can learn more at the Sense About Science website and sign the petition.
Beware the spinal trap
Some practitioners claim it is a cure-all, but the research suggests chiropractic therapy has mixed results – and can even be lethal, says Simon Singh.
You might be surprised to know that the founder of chiropractic therapy, Daniel David Palmer, wrote that ‘99% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae’. In the 1860s, Palmer began to develop his theory that the spine was involved in almost every illness because the spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body. Therefore any misalignment could cause a problem in distant parts of the body.
In fact, Palmer’s first chiropractic intervention supposedly cured a man who had been profoundly deaf for 17 years. His second treatment was equally strange, because he claimed that he treated a patient with heart trouble by correcting a displaced vertebra.
You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact some still possess quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything, including helping treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying – even though there is not a jot of evidence.
I can confidently label these assertions as utter nonsense 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.
But what about chiropractic in the context of treating back problems? Manipulating the spine can cure some problems, but results are mixed. To be fair, conventional approaches, such as physiotherapy, also struggle to treat back problems with any consistency. Nevertheless, conventional therapy is still preferable because of the serious dangers associated with chiropractic.
In 2001, a systematic review of five studies revealed that roughly half of all chiropractic patients experience temporary adverse effects, such as pain, numbness, stiffness, dizziness and headaches. These are relatively minor effects, but the frequency is very high, and this has to be weighed against the limited benefit offered by chiropractors.
More worryingly, the hallmark technique of the chiropractor, known as high-velocity, low-amplitude thrust, carries much more significant risks. This involves pushing joints beyond their natural range of motion by applying a short, sharp force. Although this is a safe procedure for most patients, others can suffer dislocations and fractures.
Worse still, manipulation of the neck can damage the vertebral arteries, which supply blood to the brain. So-called vertebral dissection can ultimately cut off the blood supply, which in turn can lead to a stroke and even death. Because there is usually a delay between the vertebral dissection and the blockage of blood to the brain, the link between chiropractic and strokes went unnoticed for many years. Recently, however, it has been possible to identify cases where spinal manipulation has certainly been the cause of vertebral dissection.
Laurie Mathiason was a 20-year-old Canadian waitress who visited a chiropractor 21 times between 1997 and 1998 to relieve her low-back pain. On her penultimate visit she complained of stiffness in her neck. That evening she began dropping plates at the restaurant, so she returned to the chiropractor. As the chiropractor manipulated her neck, Mathiason began to cry, her eyes started to roll, she foamed at the mouth and her body began to convulse. She was rushed to hospital, slipped into a coma and died three days later. At the inquest, the coroner declared: ‘Laurie died of a ruptured vertebral artery, which occurred in association with a chiropractic manipulation of the neck.’
This case is not unique. In Canada alone there have been several other women who have died after receiving chiropractic therapy, and Edzard Ernst has identified about 700 cases of serious complications among the medical literature. This should be a major concern for health officials, particularly as under-reporting will mean that the actual number of cases is much higher. 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 is a science writer in London and the co-author, with Edzard Ernst, of Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial. This is an edited version of an article published in The Guardian for which Singh is being personally sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association.
Jeremy C*******
Letter in today’s Graun; can’t improve on it:
It is truly outrageous that you have printed the C-word on the front page of this normally distinguished newspaper (Clarkson crashes into trouble with C-word attack on PM, 25 July). I am all in favour of free speech, and, I must admit, I have used the C-word myself on occassions when I want to truly insult someone given that the word is totally offensive to many decent, civilised people and is a way of ensuring that the recipient of the insult knows that I regard them with the utmost contempt. But, when I do so, I at least try to ensure that when I am referring to someone as a right “clarkson”, it is done with a degree of discretion.
Alan Payling
Torquay
Harry Patch – the last link broken
The death of Harry Patch – the last surviving “Tommy” to have served in the trenches of WW1 – breaks an important link for us children of the twentieth century: the last survivor of the first “modern” war has gone.
There has always been something terribly sad about the First World War: a useless, worthless enterprise, entered into by German and British imperialism at the price of millions of working class lives. The Second World War could at least be justified on the grounds of opposition to Hitler’s genocidal plan for world domination.
Harry, from what we can gather, hated war, and called it “organised murder, and nothing less.” (Independent on Sunday, 26th July 2009).
He may, or may not have been a pacifist:
“Field”, a commentator at Harry’s Place, makes a fair point:
As is the way in our culture the obvious was glossed over.
The media wanted him to be a symbol but the bloke had his own ideas and views delivered in his delightful Somerset burr.
It was quite clear to me on the basis of the words he spoke that he was a pacifist. On the basis of his experience he objected to any war. No war justified the loss of even one life. Not world war 2, not the Falklands, not Iraq, not Afghanistan.
Just because he was 100 plus when he said this doesn’t mean we should patronise him in my view. His words rather make a mockery of what one might call the British Legion orthodox position (as exemplified by David T here): that war is hell, that sacrifice is noble, that soldiers don’t evaluate the worth of war but they do what their country asks of them.
Personally I think his pacifism wrong-headed and full of contradictions. Understandable of course but not right because it is understandable.
So rather than try and make of him a symbol, I would rather say there was a man who suffered, who saw his friends suffer terribly but who had his views as a result of his experience. I don’t agree with those views. But I respect them and I think that’s what many of his friends died for and he fought for – a society where people can disagree without rancour.
We don’t know what Harry thought about the war in Afghanistan, and it’s rather distasteful for the Independent on Sunday to assume that he would oppose it. We don’t know this dead man’s specific opinions, and we should not try to co-opt them to our chosen causes. Many of his recorded sayings are, as you’d expect, anti-war, and he may well have been a pacifist.
On the other hand, he also said:
“The first world war, if you boil it down, what was it? Nothing but a family row. That’s what caused it. The second world war…Hitler wanted to govern Europe, nothing to it. I would have taken the Kaiser, his son, Hitler, and the people on his side and bloody shot them. Out the way and saved millions of lives. T’isn’t worth it.”
BBC interview, 2007
Whatever his precise views, we know he hated war. And, like all civilised persons, he thought it should be avoided if at all possible. That should be good enough for anyone.
We salute him.
Vestas: Unite in the graveyard
According to reports that have reached me today, the Vestas workers, presently occupying their factory in the Isle of Wight, have been signed up to membersip of the RMT. This is because RMT general secretary Bob Crow visited the occupation, promised and delivered practical support and publicly championed the occupation. The majority of Vestas workers were not previously in a union, but those that were, were in Unite. Unite did virtually nothing to support the occupation. Unite’s assistant general secretary Les Bayliss (presently being touted by the soft-left ‘Workers Uniting’ grouping within Unite -Derek Simpson’s loyalists – as general secretary candidate next year) reputedly said of the Vestas membership, “they’re just twenty members”. Bob Crow is a bullshitting Stalinist with some quite filthy politics, and the RMT’s record of trying to poach London Underground cleaners from the T&G/Unite has been opportunist and counter-productive for the cleaners. But at Vestas, in the face of Unite’s inaction who can blame him? Or blame the workers for signing up with the RMT?
Captain Pugwash, Master Bates & Co
The death a couple of days ago of John Ryan, creator of Captain Pugwash (and other children’s TV series, such as Mary, Mungo and Midge), brings to mind an enduring urban myth.
It is still widely believed that Captain Pugwash was, in reality, a risque sexual satire that included such characters as Master Bates, Seaman Staines and Roger the Cabin Boy.
In fact, these “characters” never existed.
To the best of my knowledge, this falsehood was a harmless piece of mildly subversive playfulness put about by the humourist Victor Lewis-Smith, who never expected it to be taken seriously.
Unfortunately, Ryan (a deeply religious Catholic) didn’t appreciate the joke and took legal action against the Guardian and the Sunday Correspondent for promulgating Lewis-Smith’s little jape.
Vestas: occupying for jobs – and the environment
Workers have occupied the Vestas St Cross factory in Newport, Isle of Wight. Vestas is England’s only manufacturer of wind turbines, and made a profit of over £350 million last year.The decision to occupy has been taken due to the consistent failure of Vestas Blades and the government to face up to their responsibilities in the necessary challenge of fighting climate change and maintaining jobs.
Due to management attempting to intimidate the workers who have been
organising themselves in preparation for a fight, plans to move on the
factory were accelerated and a team of workers occupied the plant
at 7:45 on Monday evening as a result.
Now more than ever Vestas workers need our support. The island does
not have a history of workers taking control – this could be the first
of many victories where workers take control of their industries and
demand that the bosses and government put people before profit, the environment before opportunism. Send messages of support to:
and have a look at the campaigns’s excellent website:
Shiraz Socialist 