A Carnival of Bogus* Chiropractic

19th May, 2009 62

One of the side effects of the BCA vs Chiropractic libel case is that there are a growing number of people who now realise that Chiropractic is bogus*. Even though Simon Singh may well have suffered a set back from a judge who according to the law can define words as he sees fit, we are now seeing increasing exposure to the bogus* practices of the chiropractic trade. One way [read more…]

Bogus Law

15th May, 2009 17

  The University of Oxford recent completed a report into the comparative costs of defamation proceedings across Europe. Its conclusions were that the costs of libel proceedings in England and Wales are about 140 times higher on average than those found across Europe. The reasons for this boil down the large number of lawyers that get involved, the length of the proceedings, the adversarial nature of English law, and the [read more…]

Scepticism is the New Rock’n’Roll

13th May, 2009 19

Last night we held the first evening of the Oxford branch of Skeptics in the Pub. Come 6.15 and the bar we had booked was already filling up. By Seven o’clock it was packed and unfortunately not everyone could see or hear. And what had people come to hear? A talk by Ben Goldacre about medical statistics.  Yes. Let’s be clear. Over a hundred people, sat through several hours of [read more…]

There Goes My Knighthood

5th May, 2009 30

Prince Charles’ company, Duchy Originals, has today been told by the Advertising Standards Authority to stop making misleading and untruthful claims in its advertising and to not make claims for its detox products that it cannot substantiate.   Earlier in the year, Duchy Originals launched three new herbal tinctures. The launch was met with derision, and claims that the Prince’s company was misleading people into thinking that the products actually [read more…]