Comments on: Some good news and some weird news with Simon Singh

By: franko

franko — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:34:27 +0000

check out…Wilk v. American Medical Association, 895 F.2d 352 (7th Cir. 1990), was a federal antitrust suit brought against the American Medical Association (AMA) and 10 co-defendants by chiropractor Chester A. Wilk, DC, and four co-plaintiffs. It resulted in a ruling against the AMA.

The AMA like Singh tried to use ‘lack of scientific evidence etc’ but unfortunatley in the court environment, science does not rule..just good and evil. The AMA got slapped in the face, and the result = MD were given the right to refer to chiropractors. (not all MD though, just the ones with hearts bigger than their egos)

By: Former religion reporter now preaches from pulpit | dansaltman

Former religion reporter now preaches from pulpit | dansaltman — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:31:04 +0000

[...] Some good news and some weird news with Simon Singh | Bad <… [...]

By: Patrick

Patrick — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 03:59:50 +0000

Matt at 3- Burdens of proof are a little more complex than you seem to think. In your example of someone wrongfully accused of being a pedophile, in most areas they wouldn’t have to “prove” to a scientific standard of proof that they aren’t a pedophile. They could simply state, under oath, “I am not a pedophile.” And then the other side would have to show either that this is not true, or that they had a valid reason to believe it even though it turned out to be false.

Basically, while the ultimate burden of proof would be on the one filing the lawsuit, the burden of proof can shift depending on whether various burdens of production have been filled. Its rather complex, but basically no one’s going to be unable to respond to a defamatory accusation because they can’t prove the contents of their own brain. The law’s already thought of that one.

By: tacitus

tacitus — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:37:05 +0000

One other thing to note about this case — assuming the BCA doesn’t qualify as a private individual, it’s up to the BCA to prove that Singh was defaming with malice aforethought to collect any monetary damages from him, so even if Singh can’t prove that his statement was true to the satisfaction of the court, it’s quite likely he will not be out of pocket in terms of damages. I’m guessing that court costs are a different matter.

By: MadScientist

MadScientist — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:27:56 +0000

Depending on the rules, both press releases are likely defamatory. Singh is publicly branded as malicious and libelous without either claim being proven. This may be an ill-conceived “trial by press release” which the BCA hopes to use in their favor in court.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:48:56 +0000

In criminal cases the burden of proof is on the state, and the legal standard is “beyond a reasonable doubt”. The standards of evidence are difference in civil cases, mainly because it’s a dispute between two individuals, and not the state vs. an individual. So they usually just choose the person who has the best evidence, regardless of whether the plaintiff has proved the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

The thing in US law is that we have a very high standard for proving libel… for a libel case to succeed, you have to prove it was 1. a lie, and 2. the lie was made with malice. If the lie was a mistake, then you can’t sue. If they pretend the law was a mistake… you can’t sue. This has the effect of letting people say just about whatever malicious lie they want without consequence.

Obviously the Simon Singh case was ridiculous. By “bogus” he did not mean that they were acting with malice. It’s sort of a reverse of the situation here – you have to prove what was in someones head, which is a ridiculous standard for something like a lie or an untruth.

By: franko

franko — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:17:27 +0000

And the bottom line…Singh is doing it for the kids. Not his ego or his book or his lab bum boys. He has a heart of gold and a great haircut. Let him stand up and say what he likes (a place of court decides evil from good..or just a village idot)if the third largest primary health care provider was built on cult/whacky ideas it would not be here today. There is a ’singh’ on every street and he is merely the tip of the ice berg. The laws of free speech may be primative in the UK but really the issue is war of two professions Med Vs Chiro. Chiro was first coined ‘unorthodox’ then ‘alternative’ now complementary. Its power to the people blog heads, science is always subject to change, change is needed because – this is a show stopper – evidence based medicine is responsable for todays maintream health, and people are now demanding services, different to medicine (becuase they have tried it and they are unhappy), basic supply and demand