[troutman]

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=555

Recently the BCA has responded to this backlash with a statement and a list of studies they claim provides the evidence Singh said was lacking. I won’t address their attempt at damage control, but rather focus on their response regarding the evidence. They write:

In the spirit of wider scientific debate, and having taken appropriate professional advice, the BCA has decided that free speech would be best facilitated by releasing details of research that exists to support the claims which Dr. Singh stated were bogus. This proves that far from being “not a jot of evidence” to support the BCA’s position, there is actually a significant amount.

They follow their statement with a list of 29 studies. This is a short reference list to support several individual medical claims, but actually it is a bloated list that contains many references that do not provide evidence for the claims of the BCA that Sign was criticizing. This is how the 29 references break down:

3 – Risks of NSAID medication
1 – Nature of evidence-based medicine
3 – opinion, chiropractic practice
1 – letter to editor
2 – review
2 – risks of chiropractic
8 – colic
3 – nocturnal enuresis
3 – otitis media
3 – asthma

Therefore, out of the 29 references, only 17 actually provide evidence for the efficacy claims for chiropractic for these four pediatric indications. When each indication is considered, the list of supporting studies is embarrassingly thin. They are also of very poor quality and, as we will see, cherry picked.