Keepin’ it unreal – again

Or: Homeopathic levels of accuracy

Observant readers may have spotted the new Dr Aust Twitter feed down at the bottom of the sidebar on the  blog.

Yes, that’s right – you can now follow Dr Aust on twitter, though I can’t really think why you would want to.

I had resisted signing up on Twitter until just a few days ago. I might bore you with the detailed reasons some other time, but the main one was that, as an Olympic-class procrastinator, I reckoned the last thing I needed was yet another way to procrastinate.

But – I now retract that statement. And Thank Goodness I signed up to Twitter this week.

Because late on Friday afternoon, at about 5 pm, Twitter gave me the best laugh I have had in a couple of months.

This was when several sceptical Tweets directed me to a truly marvellous example of Alternative, not to say Parallel, not to say Quantum Alternative Parallel Reality (“Quap Reality” for short). At which point, I laughed so hard I nearly fell out of my chair.

And it takes a lot to do that late on a Friday afternoon.

The cause was this article, from the notorious Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, or JACM, entitled:

CAM, Free Speech, and the British Legal System:
Overstepping the Mark?

The author of this bravura piece of Unreality (could it be a spoof?) is homeopathic quantum intellectual supreme, Dr Lionel Milgrom.

Or to give him his full title from the paper, which I suspect he would insist on,  since he typically lists all the letters:

Lionel R. Milgrom, Ph.D., M.A.R.H., M.R.Hom., F.R.S.C.

Now, I had occasionally suspected hitherto that Lionel Milgrom had untapped comic talent. But he has outdone himself this time.

Only the first page of the opus is free access, but that is more than enough:

Abstract:

The British Chiropractic Association recently won a libel case against the science writer and CAM ‘skeptic’ Dr Simon Singh

(Italics mine)

As Private Eye like to say – “shurely shome mistake”?

There really can’t be that many people following the BCA v Singh case in even a casual way who don’t know that it is still ongoing.

There is, after all, hardly a lack of coverage, at least online.

While Milgrom’s article clearly went to press before the latest hearing in the case last week – the article has no “accepted on” date, but there is a reference in it that says “accessed Aug 24th 2009″ – surely no-one was under the illusion that Sir David Eady had actually heard the full libel action?

Well, apparently some people were. It gets better:

“The judge agreed with this argument [i.e. that the use of the word "bogus" implied the BCA had knowingly lied about the evidence concerning chiropractic for various childhood ailments] awarding the BCA substantial damages.“

Truly bizarre. It was this sentence that had me speechless with laughter.

The first bit is OK – Eady did, in the main, accept the BCA’s pleaded meaning (this is the ruling that has just been sent back on appeal).

But “substantial damages”? Errr – NOT. Damages get awarded when the case is, like, finished.

(“Substantial Damages” , by the way, is a phrase usually used by successful libel complainants in their victorious press statements to imply that their opponents had been comprehensively slapped with the wet kipper, not to mention taken to the cleaners financially)

How very, VERY odd.

The remainder of Milgrom’s article, which sadly is behind a paywall, is a hoot too, but I will leave that for another time.

What I want to concentrate on now is the Sheer Unreality of it.

Unreality….

Unless….

Unless…

Unless there is some OTHER Quantum Alternative Parallel Reality, to which Milgrom perhaps has privileged access as a “Quantum Homeopath”, where what Milgrom says is actually true.

Of course!

How could I not have known?

Indeed, perhaps this “QUAP Reality” is where all the Alt.Reality folk hang out.

Once you have made that Leap into the Unreal, IT ALL BEGINS TO MAKE SENSE AT LAST.

In this Alternative Reality, of course the BCA won.

Indeed, this new Quantum Alternative Parallel Universe, or QUAP-iverse, seems to be especially favourable for Libel verdicts.

Remember how we saw at the start of this year, in “Keeping It Unreal”, that dropping a libel suit and getting landed with hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal costs was actually a huge VICTORY for noted Alternative Reality Figure Dr Matthias Rath?

Clearly, in the same (Un) Reality Rath seems to inhabit, the BCA have already won large damages, just as Milgrom states.

And then, of course, all the other seemingly daft stuff falls into place too.

- Diluting a substance makes it MORE powerful.
- Mystical laying on of hands beams out healing power.
- Illness is all in the Mind.
- Pushing on your arm can diagnose your allergies.
- Massaging your feet can magically rejuvenate your kidneys.
- Flushing your rear end with a load of warm water can magically “detox” your liver.
- Sticking you in a “Sweat lodge” and cooking you until you are dangerously dehydrated and hallucinating can be a “healing experience”

- and so on.

So - Silly Me.

There I was thinking these folk were all away with the fairies, when really they were simply privileged to be able to access a QUAP-iverse where all this stuff is really true.

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Or: I was right the first time.

They really ARE Away With The Fairies.

Tinfoil Hats And All.

In this rather party-pooping view, which Alt.Reality folk like to call “Scientism” – though I prefer “Reality” – the normal rules of physics and chemistry apply, homeopathic remedies are water, BCA v. Singh is still ongoing, all the daft “therapies”  I mentioned just now are a bunch of **!*, and Dr Milgrom has clearly not been checking his facts carefully enough.

And nor,  it would seem, has anyone else at the JACM.

(Chief Editor, if you didn’t know: Dr Kim “Dr Q-link” Jobst, FRCP).

Of course, Milgrom is on the JACM Editorial Board (you can see the full membership here), so one is curious whether such extended “Opinion Pieces” – the JACM actually calls the section in which the Milgrom piece features “Paradigms”, whatever they mean by that  - even get read by anyone apart from the author, if that author is a journal editor.

As to whether this apparent carelessness with facts is representative of other bits of Dr Milgrom’s oeuvre, or indeed of other content in the JACM -

- you might well wonder about that.

But – on the advice of my lawyers – I couldn’t possibly comment.

Email your MP on libel laws and the libel debate – with updates

Tomorrow (Wednesday 21st) parliament will be debating the Libel Laws, specifically prompted by the Trafigura case.

Now is the time to let your MP know that this is something you take seriously.

Skeptical blogger Simon Perry has penned an example of the kind of letter you could write, though of course your own words are best. You can find Simon’s letter here.

You can email your MP in minutes via

http://www.writetothem.com/

- just enter your postcode and follow the links.

I have just emailed mine – letter below. He is a Lib Dem so I have mentioned Dr Evan Harris MP, one of a sadly small number of scientifically knowledgeable MPs now that Ian Gibson is no longer in the Commons. But please, please, write a letter to yours. Stress the reasons why you are concerned, if possible relating them to your own profession, or experiences.

But do let your elected representative know this is something that you think matters.

As Evan Harris himself noted in a comment on Jack of Kent’s blog:

“The recent publicity of the impact of libel law in science and in writing and in medical journals, has now been fuelled by the impact of libel on Parliament. There is nothing like Parliament itself being impacted to get politicians to take notice.”

I particularly hope those of my academic colleagues who read this blog – and I believe there are a few – will email their representatives. If they do, could they please include their titles? “Dr” is good – “Professor” still better. And “FRS”, if you have one, better still.

My e-mail:

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Dear XXXX

I understand that tomorrow there will be a debate in parliament on the subject of libel reform.

Recent events with the Trafigura case have given emphasis to the appalling effect of English libel laws in stifling the public’s right to know. As a professional scientist and writer about science, I am particularly worried about the way that English libel laws are being used to stifle scientific debate in the UK. This has reached the point where many scientists are not bothering to make their opinions heard. Those that do criticise other individuals – or more often companies or trade bodies – typically on scientific matters of clear public interest, are being heavily punished for doing so.

To give a couple of recent examples, medical doctor and journalist Ben Goldacre was involved in a lengthy libel battle following his criticism of Dr Matthias Rath, the vitamin “entreprenuer” who claimed anti-retroviral drugs were ineffective in treating AIDS and offered his vitamins as an alternative. Despite the fact that Goldacre and the Guardian won, they still ended up £ 150,000 worse off. Had Goldacre not had the full financial and legal backing of the Guardian, he likely would have had to “fold”. The scientist and author Simon Singh is going through a similar, though arguably worse, situation right now with the British Chiropractic Association. They are suing Singh personally for publicly criticising some of their treatments for which scientific evidence is slim to non-existent.

“Reputation management” by large companies in England has become a tool to suppress criticism. This has many dangers.
At the start of the 1960s, doctors in Germany and Australia publicly criticised the drug Thalidomide and implicated it in birth defects. By the time German paediatrician Widukind Lenz produced the proof of thalidomide’s actions in 1961, at least 10,000 children had been born with birth defects. Imagine if he, and all other scientists since, were unable to make their criticisms of drugs known for fear of legal action. It is all to easy to imagine, in an equivalent case in contemporary Britain, a manufacturer seeking to use the force of confidentiality or defamation law to suppress publication of such an opinion.

If we put a stop to criticism, we not only put an end to our ability to know which of our current treatments are effective and safe, but we also make it impossible to evaluate properly the treatments of the future.

I urge you to do all you can to help reform our uniquely repressive English libel system. The Liberal Democrats have a proud tradition of campaigning for freedom of speech, and your parliamantary colleague Dr Evan Harris has spoken out with distinction in support of Simon Singh in his legal struggle with the chiropractors. Please support him in his work.

The Trafigura case, by focussing parliament’s attention on the perils of English Libel Law, offers a chance to create a consensus to push through reform of the Libel Laws. This chance must not be missed. There are many ways the laws could be improved; to name but a few, it is high time we had restrictions on the costs of libel actions; a clear and unambiguous statutory public interest defence; and proper limits on the power of multi-billion pound corporations to sue individuals.

I hope you will do everything you can to get the laws – which have also, incidentally, made the UK an international laughing stock – changed.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Aust

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Oh dear – verbose as usual.

I’m sure you, dear reader, can do it in less words.

But, in the overused phrase:

“Just do it”

Chances to create a parliamentary consensus for reform, building on a public campaign on something apolitical but of vital importance, do not come all that often.

Lets do our bit to push  our elected representatives in the right direction.

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UPDATE WEDS 21st am:

You can watch the debate live from 2.30 pm – link is here.

Jack of Kent has promised to blog it – not sure if he means “as it happens”.

POST-DEBATE UPDATE – WEDS 21st    5.00 pm:

For anyone who would like a good summary of what was said, the Guardian has a useful “live blog” here (hat-tip to Zeno for tweeting it).

It was gratifying to hear MPs so genuinely offended at restrictions on “the public’s right to know” – though they were mostly talking about “the public’s right to know what goes on in parliament“, a subject one would expect to be close to their hearts. The wider issue of inappropriate use of libel laws got less play – partly because in the Trafigura case it was apparently “commercial confidentiality”  rather than reputation / defamation that was the basis of the gagging injunction – though Evan Harris did mention the wider discontent about the mis-use of defamation law in his speech at the start of the debate (the speech is well worth listening to – the link has a “replay” option.

More than one MP referred to the widely quoted remarks of the Lord Chief Justice about the way that English libel law is being misused:

“We need to look closely at why [London] is called the libel capital of the world and if it is, we have to try to persuade parliament to change the law.”

It is rather piquant that the two judges whose words and rulings have, in the last week, offered some hints that there may be recognition that the English Defamation Laws are not working, are Lord Chief Justice Judge and Lord Justice (of Appeal) Laws. Laws and Judge, indeed.

Let us hope that if we can finally get some sensible defamation LAWS, there will perhaps be less tendency in future for discussion of matters of public interest to end up in front of a JUDGE.