I have just read on Jack of Kent’s blog that The British Chiropractic Association have alleged that Simon Singh was motivated by malice in his original article and that this could suggest a change of tact from the BCA in their case against Simon Singh’s article.

This is a ridiculous turn of events. How an earth can they claim Singh was acting in malice? There is nothing in the original article to support this. He quite rightly attacks Chiropractic medicine on the efficacy of it methods, questions the mechanism at the root of chiropractic medicine and makes his judgments based on the evidence uncovered in his book ‘Trick or Treatment’, co-authored with Professor of Complementary Medicine Edzard Ernst. The article is considered and does not make an ad hominem attack of the type you would usually associate with malice.

It seems to me that the BCA are doing everything they can to attack the source of the criticism rather than the criticism itself. Then they have the audacity of accusing Simon Singh of malice. This is a joke.

UPDATE

The BCA have now changed their statement to remove the previous comment; “However, this action is actually a simple libel claim based on the fact that the BCA was maliciously attacked by Dr. Singh in the Guardian newspaper.”

It now reads; “However, this action is a simple claim based on the fact that the BCA was libelled by Dr. Singh in the Guardian newspaper.

Too late. Their actions speak for themselves. I had asked in the comments over at Jack of Kent’s blog if this ‘malice’ allegation constituted libel, although he didn’t respond to me directly he has now tweeted; @jackofkent This was the day the BCA case came to an end. @SLSinghonly now needs to threaten to counter-sue. The BCA cannot justify that clear meaning.

Thanks to Jack of Kent for keeping everyone updated on this throughout the day.