{"id":504275,"date":"2010-04-01T20:33:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-02T00:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/articles\/20100401\/0848128832.shtml"},"modified":"2010-04-01T20:33:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-02T00:33:00","slug":"court-says-simon-singh-can-claim-fair-comment-in-calling-bca-claims-bogus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/504275","title":{"rendered":"Court Says Simon Singh Can Claim &#8216;Fair Comment&#8217; In Calling BCA Claims Bogus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;ve written <a href=\"http:\/\/www.techdirt.com\/search.php?cx=partner-pub-4050006937094082:cx0qff-dnm1&#038;cof=FORID:9&#038;ie=ISO-8859-1&#038;q=simon+singh\">a few times<\/a> about the UK libel lawsuit brought by the British Chriropractor&#8217;s Association (BCA) against writer\/scientist Simon Singh, because he called some of the BCA&#8217;s claims (concerning what chiropractic work can do) &#8220;bogus.&#8221;  The courts had originally determined that the word &#8220;bogus&#8221; meant being deliberately dishonest <strike>and found him guilty of libel<\/strike> in a determination of how that word usage would be viewed at trial.  In response, a large group of people have been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.techdirt.com\/articles\/20090917\/0354056223.shtml\">ripping apart<\/a> claims by the BCA with detailed analyses (stuff many in the press won&#8217;t touch for fear of being sued as well).  The case had become so involved that Singh <a href=\"http:\/\/www.techdirt.com\/articles\/20100315\/0255528558.shtml\">stopped writing his column<\/a> to focus on the lawsuit.<br \/>\n<br \/><Br><br \/>\nThankfully, there&#8217;s some good news, as the court has now decided that <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/uk_news\/8598472.stm\" >the original ruling was a mistake<\/a> and Singh can use a defense of &#8220;fair comment&#8221; as the basis for his column.  As such the trial will continue, but Singh is in a better position. Amazingly, despite all of this the BCA still wants to fight.  At some point you wonder why they don&#8217;t just back down.  The more they fight, the more people expose them for making, yes, <i>bogus<\/i> claims.  Singh and others aren&#8217;t claiming that chiropractors don&#8217;t do any good &#8212; they&#8217;re just questioning some of the more extreme, and scientifically unsupported, claims made by the BCA.  If the BCA were smart, they&#8217;d focus on improving their messaging, not fighting back.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/articles\/20100401\/0848128832.shtml\">Permalink<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/articles\/20100401\/0848128832.shtml#comments\">Comments<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/article.php?sid=20100401\/0848128832&#038;op=sharethis\">Email This Story<\/a><br \/>\n <br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/click.phdo?s=385bc2b6e1b723976b42865ecd0f0c8d&#038;p=1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" style=\"border: 0;\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/img.phdo?s=385bc2b6e1b723976b42865ecd0f0c8d&#038;p=1\"\/><\/a><br \/>\n<!-- foo --><\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.techdirt.com\/~ff\/techdirt\/feed?a=kt_pwkxCeFI:ph_qGuIaO-0:D7DqB2pKExk\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/techdirt\/feed?i=kt_pwkxCeFI:ph_qGuIaO-0:D7DqB2pKExk\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.techdirt.com\/~ff\/techdirt\/feed?a=kt_pwkxCeFI:ph_qGuIaO-0:c-S6u7MTCTE\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/techdirt\/feed?d=c-S6u7MTCTE\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/techdirt\/feed\/~4\/kt_pwkxCeFI\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;ve written a few times about the UK libel lawsuit brought by the British Chriropractor&#8217;s Association (BCA) against writer\/scientist Simon Singh, because he called some of the BCA&#8217;s claims (concerning what chiropractic work can do) &#8220;bogus.&#8221; The courts had originally determined that the word &#8220;bogus&#8221; meant being deliberately dishonest and found him guilty of libel [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-504275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}