By Jerome Burne
Five years ago in March 2019 readers of the Mail on Sunday were greeted with a spread that resembled a wild west wanted poster. Above 3 mug shots ran the headline – Deadly Propaganda of theStatin Deniers. These medical heretics were GP Dr Malcom Kendrick, Doctor of Nutrition Zoe Harcombe and consultant cardiologist Aseem Malhotra.
The article alleged that “statin deniers” were putting patient’s lives at risk by telling lies to patients about problems with statins, lies that were persuading patients to stop taking a beneficial drug.
Defamatory phrases and deadly propaganda
Other allegations and potentially defamatory phrases used in the article included:
- Knowingly making false statements about statins
- That the benefits of statins were an indisputable scientific fact
- That the supposed side-effects of the drugs were down to worry, not to statins
- That the deniers were “liars and purveyors of misinformation” that caused “hundreds of thousands of people to stop taking the drug, raising their risk of heart disease.”
- And then the bizarre assertion in the accompanying editorial that “there is a special place in hell for doctors who claim statins don’t work.”
David challenges Goliath
Kendrick and Harcombe felt that these multiple assaults on their integrity and reputation had to be challenged in the courts, even though suing for libel or defamation is generally considered highly inadvisable unless you feature on some Rich List. Malhotra withdrew for family reasons.
Sorry the hardest word for the Mail
“We were accused of killing people,” says Harcombe, “the worst crime a doctor can be accused of. We had to try to clear our names.
They issuedHigh Court proceedings against the Mail in February 2020, after the paper had refused to apologise or remove or alter its articles.
The case was complex, and the unequal clash dragged on for five years, This June the court finally published the first part of a judgement with the David side– known in legal language as the “claimants”- seemingly ahead on points.
Defamatory allegations and palpable irony
One of the key allegations in the article was that the claimants had not only made false statements about statins, but they knew they were false, which was highly defamatory. The report rejected this, which meant that the Mail could no longer rely on its “public interest” defence.
The case had been heard by Mr Justice Nicklin, whose report presented another problem for the paper.
Astonishing failure of ‘right to reply’
One of the defences to a charge of defamation is that claimants had been given a right of reply. But the judge found that the replies had been handled in a way that favoured the defendants. This had been an “astonishing failure,” he commented.
While the claimants had been allowed only a few hours to reply to the complex charge sheet, the group of professors helping the Mail mount their case had been given a month to prepare. It had then been allowed “to have significant and undue influence over the editorial process.”
What this meant in practice was that the Mail editor had shown the professors the changes that had been made to the article because of the reply from the claimants. They disapproved strongly,
“Oh dear, what a shame,” commented Professor Sir Rory Collins head of the Cholesterol trials unit in Oxford, which stores the raw data from drug company trials of statins. Data it refuses to show to any other researchers. A basic principle of scientific research is that scientists can check each other’s work.
Claimants reply dismissed as “spurious mudslinging”
“It is extremely disappointing how the balance of the article has been completely changed,” Sir Rory continued, “at the last minute by the influence of the unbalanced inclusion of quotes from Harcombe and Kendrick.”
Another top statin expert, Professor Peter Server of Imperial College, was even more disapproving, referring to the added claimants’ comments as “spurious mudslinging.”
This favouring of the statin supporters did the Mail case no favours.
The judge ruled that the right-to-reply process, had been “hollow and superficial,” noting that some of the criticisms being advanced by the claimants, far from being those of a tiny minority, were being echoed by the editor of the British Medical Journal) (BMJ).
Instead of including this in the article, it had only referred to a “noisy group of sceptics and a tiny minority of statin deniers.” This was described as very misleading and contributed to the overall lack of balance.
The Judge concluded: “There is perhaps a palpable irony in the fact, that the defendants, who had so roundly denounced those alleged to be the purveyors of misinformation in the Articles, had so seriously misinformed their own readers.”
A history of drug failures
This trial has highlighted the failure of the medical profession to develop a rational and science-based system for dealing with flaws in the evidence for widely prescribed drugs. It’s not surprising this happens, considering the amount of money riding on them
Harcombe and Kendrick are far from being the only people with a medical and scientific training challenging the benefits of mass prescribing of statins. And statins are far from the only drugs to have well-informed critics.
Over the last 20 years, I have covered doctors campaigning against the raised risk of suicide among adolescents on Serotonin-boosting SSRIs and the addiction potential of barbiturates. Perhaps most impressive was the evidence for the dodgy evidence supporting graded exercise as a treatment for Chronic Fatigue/ ME. This was uncovered by patients, and dismissed by their doctors as mentally unbalanced.
Don’t shoot the messenger
In all cases the warning bells were simply ignored for years while prescriptions continue to rise. Very often the patients and independent researchers raising the alarm were dismissed as being confused or malicious. However, the solution is not to shoot well-informed messengers but to engage with their criticism and possibly re-run trials.
The experience of the judicial review of the Mail case is a hopeful example of how it might be done. The thoughtful assessment of the judge made a strong contrast to the strident attacks of the paper, encouraged by the professors.
Jerome Burne
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