Another one. Another medical coughcoughcoughcough threatens to sue Simon Singh to make him stop saying the medical coughcoughcoughcough is full of coughcoughcoughcoughcoughcough. Josephine Jones collects all the links again, and many links there are.
The medical coughcoughcoughcough is a new “alternative health” magazine jauntily called What Doctors Don’t Tell You. Jones has a picture, so you can see what it’s like:
See? Every item looks like coughcoughcoughcough. Doctors don’t know shit but listen to us and we will fix whatever it is, because it’s that simple.
Singh dared to suggest that it could be irresponsible of high street retailers to stock the title and shared his concerns with the distributor, Comag.
They apparently (essentially) told him to shove off and when he suggested he might blog the email exchange, things really went to pieces.
Comag wrote in an email to Singh:
I should inform you that we have sought legal advice in respect of this matter. We would take any attempts to damage our reputation on social media or elsewhere very seriously.
And in a subsequent email, they confirmed that they had instructed legal counsel.
This is somewhat ironic considering that the magazine’s owner, Lynne McTaggart had argued in favour of free speech, even referring to critics such as Singh and Hayley Stevens as ‘bully boys’ and ‘trolls’.
It seems it’s fine to suggest women should lock up their daughters to spare them from the HPV vaccine (page 3 of the October edition) and to assert that researchers say popular sunscreens cause skin cancer (page 9), but wrong to suggest that it might be irresponsible to allow this misleading, alarmist nonsense a high street presence.
If Comag are concerned about their reputation then threatening to sue was perhaps not a wise move.
The British Chiropractic Association may be inclined to agree, as might the Burzynski Clinic.
Can you say Streisand? I thought you could. Can you say Rhys Morgan? Can you say Marc Stephens? Can you say Popehat? I thought you could.
The Nightingale Collaboration sent 26 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority about ads in the magazine, which they think is a record.