The Singh issue has its roots buried deep his financially motivated decision to co-author ‘Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial’ with the crypto-denialist Ernst. Ernst is a poor scientist; the references on his papers seem to refer to a lot of his own work or to other carefully selected cases and neatly ignore the substantial, and it is now, body of evidence which is robust enough to convince NICE that chiropractic is safe.

After leaving the BBC, Singh wrote a series of great bestselling popular science books ("Fermat's Last Theorem", "The Code Book" and "Big Bang") and, as he freely admits, made a fair bit of money out of these projects. And why would Ernst co-author with Singh? because, I suspect, Singh could provide the reputation to get Ernst’s unscientific book sold (Kerching” for Singh). This Singh does with his ill-considered article in the Guardian, which you will notice has as its last telling line:

”• Simon Singh is the co-author of Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial “

(more Kerching for Singh)

Now, he’s a journalist and should know that if in the article he libels a profession then he’s in the clear (i.e.: all doctors are in the thrall of the drug companies) but if he libels an individual or an organization he is not (i.e.: Dr Smith is in the thrall of the drug companies). He made a mistake and was supported by the Guardian – but only for a while. So now he’s scared as all the financial gain from the previous three books (triple Kerching for Singh) look like being sucked up by the law case.

But why the suit? As a summary in the Guardian article Singh says:

“ - 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.” (unlike paracetamol, celebrex and any one of the COX-2 inhibitors then)

which is entirely based on the utterly piss-poor ‘evidence’ delivered up by Ernst rather than the solid evidence produced such as the BEAM report which said:
“Conclusions: Spinal manipulation is a cost effective addition to "best care" for back pain in general practice. Manipulation alone probably gives better value for money than manipulation followed by exercise. “
UK Back pain Exercise And Manipulation (UK BEAM) Trial
A randomised trial of physical treatments for back pain in primary care.

As well as the MEADE report and the all evidence that convinced NICE to issue its pro-manipulation clinical guidelines only in May this year.

So with this ill-informed, unscientific, drubbing ringing in the profession’s ears the BCA notice that they have been kicked in the book, kicked in the article and libelled in the article, and all for Singh’s financial gain based on discredited science. What would you do?

So, where does Singh go before he goes bankrupt? He creates a media storm, because that’s what he can do, and he repackages the issue (or spin it to repackage the term) to look like this taken from the online petition:

“The British Chiropractic Association has sued Simon Singh for libel. The scientific community would have preferred that it had defended its position about chiropractic for various children's ailments through an open discussion of the peer reviewed medical literature or through debate in the mainstream media.
Singh holds that chiropractic treatments for asthma, ear infections and other infant conditions are not evidence-based. Where medical claims to cure or treat do not appear to be supported by evidence, we should be able to criticise assertions robustly and the public should have access to these views.”

So Singh has managed to spin the issue away from the utter damnation of all chiropractic set out in his article, designed to sell his book (Kerching for Singh), to a freedom of speech issue based about chiropractic for various children's ailments claim by some chiropractors to treat colic and other fringe activity. Neatly done.

And then he got his media friends and science colleagues and you and me to see his side of the story and I think we may have been misled.

Perhaps.

If Singh had spent a bit of time reading round the subject and using his judgement rather than just seeing the £ and listening to Ernst than none of this would be happening.