I see, it’s not who you are…
In a comment on my last blog post, I mentioned that the General Chiropractic Council (GCC) had appointed two more chiropractors to their Investigation Committee (IC): Aaron Coode and Amanda Jones-Harris. Both work at the Anglo European College of Chiropractic (just how did they ever get a .ac.uk domain?) and both are members of the British Chiropractic Association (BCA).
Now, what was that Section 60 Order all about again?
Remember the General Chiropractic Council’s Section 60 Order application to the Privy Council?
The reply I got from the GCC, when I asked what it was all about, wasn’t exactly forthcoming about the nature of the changes, despite it being somewhat wordy.
But we know now.
What the fuss is all about
On 19 April 2008, the author and physicist Simon Singh MBE wrote an article for The Guardian newspaper on chiropractic.
This story has been told many times now by bloggers like Jack of Kent, The Lay Scientist, Skepticat and many, many others. It has also been reported worldwide and Simon’s own account can be read at Sense about Science.
But what started this all off? What was it that caused the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) to take the serious and precipitous action of personally suing Simon and which has resulted in a maelstrom of publicity for the BCA in particular and chiropractic in general.
"We don’t regulate associations…but we do regulate chiros"
In his blog post “We don’t regulate clinics or companies”: The GCC Respond to my BCA Complaint, The Lay Scientist, Martin, highlighted the selectivity of the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) when they misrepresented the conclusions of a Cochrane study. The BCA reported it in their press release as:
There was weak evidence to support the use of [chiropractic].
when, in fact, it actually said:
There was weak evidence to support the use of hypnosis, psychotherapy, acupuncture and chiropractic but it was provided in each case by single small trials, some of dubious methodological rigour.
In Martin’s words, such quote mining was:
a pretty crappy thing to do.
Looking after personal data…or not? The UCA and the DPA.
A responsible organisation looks after the personal data it holds. That’s not just good practice, it’s a legal requirement under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is there to oversee the Act and ensure it is appropriately followed. In their own words:
The ICO enforces and oversees the Data Protection Act, the Freedom of Information Act, the Environmental Information Regulations, and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations.
Our main functions are educating and influencing (we promote good practice and give information and advice), resolving problems (we resolve eligible complaints from people who think their rights have been breached) and enforcing (we use legal sanctions against those who ignore or refuse to accept their obligations).
Chiropractic complaints put back several months
Both Dr* T and The Quackometer beat me to it! I got the same letter from the GCC this morning.
That wise old bird covered the points about the GCC having to employ more regulatory staff to cope with the 590 complaints they received last month (523 of which were mine, 55 were Simon’s as well as some other individual complaints).
He is right: they do seem to be taking these complaints seriously and are not — as some had predicted — just trying to weasel their way out of them. Good. That’s what a statutory regulator should be doing so they can properly protect the public.
This is an unfortunate delay in proceedings — it would be better for all concerned to have this resolved as quickly as possible. However, we’ll just need to be patient.
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