The British Chiropractic Association is suing science journalist Simon Singh after he criticised chiropractic in an article, Beware the Spinal Trap, which he wrote for the Guardian. It’s a fairly blatant attempt to silence criticism by the force of law rather than by sound argument. Unfortunately, a judge made a rather bizarre ruling that Singh referred to “bogus” therapies, and that this meant Singh said chiropractors were knowingly being dishonest, rather than being sincere but deluded and misinformed. This ruling, left unchallenged, would hamper Singh’s chances in the libel case. This week Singh announced that he is appealing the judge’s ruling, and has released an update on the situation.

Scientists and journalists have come out in support of Singh (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). Among many articles on the subject, New Scientist has released What you should know about chiropractic by Edzard Ernst.

After weighing all the evidence, our conclusions were not flattering: “Warning: this treatment carries the risk of stroke and death if spinal manipulation is applied to the neck. Elsewhere on the spine, therapy is relatively safe. It has shown some evidence of benefit in the treatment of back pain, but conventional treatments are usually equally effective and much cheaper. In the treatment of all other conditions chiropractic therapy is ineffective except that it might act as a placebo.”

Below is a brief video, filmed before Singh announced the appeal, in which he talks about the case.

The original Guardian article, Beware the Spinal Trap, can be viewed on a Russian mirror of the Guardian page. An excerpt:

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 Professor 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.

Bearing all of this in mind, I will leave you with one message for Chiropractic Awareness Week – 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.

Check out Sense About Science to learn more about the Singh vs BCA case. Hopefully the appeal will succeed and British libel laws will be reformed to protect good science and journalism from legal attacks from quack medicine like chiropractic.

Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh have cowritten a book, Trick or Treatment, that discusses alternative medicine. I haven’t had the chance to read it yet, but I’ll be adding it to my “to be read” pile soon.