We are still in the midst of the libel suit brought by the British Chiropractic Association against Simon Singh, and now another defender of science has been targeted by such a suit. Paul Offit, Amy Wallace, and Wired Magazine have been sued for libel by Barbara Loe Fisher, the head of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC).

Here is a pdf of the complaint.

The subject of the suit is the excellent article by Amy Wallace criticizing the anti-vaccine movement. Wallace was attacked for this piece by anti-vaccinationists – essentially because she got the story correct. Wallace pointed out that the science strongly favors vaccine effectiveness and safety, and that the anti-vaccine movement is dangerously wrong – hurting the public health with their misinformation. The anti-vaccinationists were apparently very upset over be called out by a mainstream journalist. They got a lot of bad press this year, the Chicago Tribune also did a series of articles detailing the dangerous pseudoscience of the anti-vaccine movement. Wallace’s article earned her a place in the infamous baby-eating photo (along side Offit and yours truly) that only served to further embarrass the anti-vaccine movement via the blog, Age of Autism.

The lawsuit, in this context, seems like just the next step in the campaign against Offit and Wallace.

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Today is the last day of the first decade of the 21st century and third millenium. Please don’t get pedantic on me about there not being a year zero and therefore the decades begin with years ending in 1 and not 0. I know the whole story – I choose to count my decades (like most people) from 0-9. The 70s does not include 1980.

It does not seem like we have yet reached a consensus on what to call this past decade – the “aughts”, the “naughties” or what. In any case I would like to muse about science and skepticism over the last 10 years as I did about 2009 earlier this week.

Rather than consider single news items, since we are covering an entire decade I want to write about those big issues that skeptics have dealt with over the last 10 years, and sum up how I think it went. My goal is to offend as many people as possible (not really, but I often feel as if it might as well be).

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Skeptical bloggers have been focusing this year on England’s terrible libel laws – and with good reason. Our attention was sparked by the suit against Simon Singh brought by the British Chiropractic Association (BCA).  Last year Simon wrote this piece, criticizing the use of chiropractic to treat certain childhood conditions, treatments for which there is no credible evidence of efficacy. Actually I would go further – there is evidence that some of the treatments don’t work.

The BCA responded by suing Simon Singh, it what certainly seems like a transparent attempt at silencing legitimate criticism through the chilling effect of England’s oppressive libel laws. Being sued for libel in England is so expensive that most people will just settle rather than risk financial ruin. And the laws are so liberal that they lend themselves to libel tourism – foreigners suing in English court to take advantage of the favorable laws.

BCA’s lawsuit seems to have largely backfired (due largely to Simon bravely sticking out the law suit, at great personal expense). They have been embarrassed by the episode, and if anything it has just highlighted how terrible the evidence is for their treatments. It further spawned a movement to reform English libel laws, spearheaded by Sense about Science. There is currently a reform libel campaign going on, and you can sign the petition.

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Last year Simon Singh wrote a piece for the Guardian that was critical of the modern practice of chiropractic. The core of his complaint was that chiropractors provide services and make claims that are not adequately backed by evidence – they are not evidence-based practitioners. In response to his criticism the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) sued Simon personally for libel. They refused offers to publish a rebuttal to his criticism, or to provide the evidence Simon said was lacking. After they were further criticized for this, the BCA eventually produced an anemic list of studies purported to support the questionable treatments, but really just demonstrating the truth of Simon’s criticism (as I discuss at length here).

In England suing for libel is an effective strategy for silencing critics. The burden of proof is on the one accused (guilty until proven innnocent) and the costs are ruinous. Simon has persisted, however, at great personal expense.

This is an issue of vital importance to science-based medicine. A very necessary feature of science is public debate and criticism – absolute transparency.This is also not an isolated incident. Some in the alternative medicine community are attempting to assert that criticism is unprofessional, and they have used accusations of both unprofessionalism and libel as a method of silencing criticism of their claims and practices. This has happened to David Colquhoun and Ben Goldacre, and others less prominent but who have communicated to me directly attempts at silencing their criticism.

This behavior is intolerable and is itself unprofessional, an assault on academic freedom and free speech, and anathema to science as science is dependent upon open and vigorous critical debate.

What those who will attempt to silence their critics through this type of bullying must understand is that such attempts will only result in the magnification of the criticism by several orders of magnitude. That is why we are reproducing Simon Singh’s original article (with a couple of minor alterations) on this site and many others. Enjoy.

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The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is an independent UK organization that provides advice on which treatments and medical practices are likely to promote health. In other words, they comment on what they think is or should be the standard of care. This is a very important function, and the NICE is generally taken seriously.

That is why it was very disturbing to find that in their latest guidelines for low back pain they include recommendations for both spinal manipulation (wihout explicity naming chiropractic) and acupuncture.

The spinal manipulation recommendation is at least semi-reasonable, in that there is some evidence for modest benefit for spinal manipulation for acute uncomplicated low back pain. However there are still problems that derive from the bait and switch tactic employed by many practitioners of spinal manipulation.

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On a recent episode of Fringe (a rather mediocre, in my opinion, series on the supernatural), the investigators come across apparent cases of spontaneous human combustion (SHC).  Popular Mechanics decided to write an article about the science behind SHC (it turns out there isn’t any) and luckily contacted me to give them the skinny. You can read the article here.

SHC is a fun pseudoscience in that there is nothing concrete at stake – no health claims, no products, no concerns about squandering limited research funds. It’s purely a scientific question, one highly amenable to skeptical analysis.

In order to understand SHC imagine the following scene: An elderly woman who lives alone is found dead in her apartment. She is the victim of fire; her body is mostly reduced to ash, and only the ends of her arms and legs remain. The ashen outline of her head lies upon the hearth of her fireplace, the iron grill of which has been knocked to the side. There are signs that a fire recently was burning in the fireplace. A brown greasy substance coats the walls and ceiling near the body, but otherwise the room is unharmed.

Now set aside all common sense and reason, and you’ll have a typical case of spontaneous human combustion.

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If I tried to invent a product name that evoked the sense of patent-medicine snake oil from the 19th century I don’t think I could have done a better job. Duchy Originals detox tincture is just one more of thousands of snake oil products being marketed to the public with dubious health claims. Except this one is backed by the Prince of Wales.

The con is an old one – virtually random ingredients are put into a pill, elixir, tincture, or salve and sold with incredible hype but no science. So-called snake oil marketers have a long tradition of knowing their marks and the market. Claims are designed to appeal to the broadest market, to have maximal allure, and to be just vague enough to evade any pesky regulations that may be in effect. Claims also tend to follow recent fads, using the buzz-words that are hot, and often try to wrap cutting-edge sciency terms in the cloak of ancient wisdom.

Oh, and celebrity or pseudoauthoritarian endorsements help, too.

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