BCA drop libel case against Simon Singh

On April 15th The British Chiropractic Association dropped its libel case with science writer Simon Singh. This followed the Court of Appeal ruling on 1st April that Singh’s article on chiropractic was comment not fact.

Simon Singh has been fighting his case for two years and has spent more than 200,000 pounds. He will never recover all his costs. He said: “It still staggers me that the British Chiropractic Association and half the chiropractors in the UK were making unsubstantiated claims. It still baffles me that the BCA then dared to sue me for libel and put me through two years of hell before I was vindicated.  And it still makes me angry that our libel laws not only tolerate but also encourage such ludicrous libel suits. English libel law is so intimidating, so expensive, so hostile to serious journalists that it has a chilling effect on all areas of debate, silencing scientists, journalists, bloggers, human rights activists and everyone else who dares to tackle serious matters of public interest. In the area of medicine alone, fear of libel means that good research is not always published because those with vested interests might sue, and bad research that should be withdrawn is not pulled because the authors might sue the journal, and in both cases it is the public that loses out because the truth is never exposed. My victory does not mean that our libel laws are okay, because I won despite the libel laws - we still have the most notoriously anti-free speech libel laws in the free world.”

Simon Singh:“The good news is that all three main parties this week committed to a libel reform bill in the next Parliament. But libel reform has to be radical. Cutting costs by a half means that a trial will not cost 1 million pounds but cost 500,000 pounds, but this is still extortionate. Costs need to be cut by a factor of