This article originally appeared at The Association of British Science Writers.
In another example of UK libel law being used against a science writer, the UK version of Paul Offit’s new book, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All, has been delayed by threat of litigation.
Offit, a medical doctor and inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, is re-writing a page in the book after being threatened with a libel suit by Richard Barr, solicitor and member of the Society of Homeopaths’ Board of Directors.
The controversial sentence claims that in order to support his lawsuit against the makers of the MMR vaccine, Barr paid researcher Andrew Wakefield to carry out a study to investigate links between the MMR vaccine and autism, work which was later found to be fraudulent and resulted in Wakefield being struck off the medical register last year. Rather, the money Wakefield received came from the Legal Aid Board (now the Legal Services Commission) and was distributed to him by Barr.
This dispute has delayed the original 17th of March UK publication date in order for a revision to be made to the sentence in question. This case again highlights the powerful silencing effect of simply threatening a suit under current English libel law.
Offit said that in writing his previous book Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure, "I did have it in my head that these [Barr and Wakefield] were English citizens and that that puts me at a special risk … Yes, I feared British libel law."
He also remarked that in the present case he was aware that Barr "could have been a much bigger adversary” and that he had been “extremely nice about it."
Offit also referred to a US lawsuit brought against him and Amy Wallace in 2009 by Barbara Loe Fisher, the head of the National Vaccine Information Center over an article by Wallace in Wired magazine which quoted him saying: "She [Fisher] lies".
Comparing US and English libel law, Offit said that he is able to say that in the US because "that's my opinion and in order for her to prove that I’m wrong she really would have to prove that she’s never lied."
The judge dismissed the claim in 2010, writing that "a remark by one of the key participants in a heated public health debate stating that his adversary ‘lies' is not an actionable defamation"; it was instead a "protected expression of opinion".
"It is yet another sad indictment of English libel law that a book available in America has to be delayed and edited before being published in Britain" said Simon Singh, who won his libel case against the British Chiropractic Association last year.
"Why is it that an American researcher must have his free speech curtailed in this country, when the rest of the world can read what he has to say? As the Government prepares to publish its draft defamation bill, this is a reminder that reform needs to be urgent and radical."
