We need to reform England’s libel laws, not because suppression of scientific debate is getting worse—it may be; it’s hard to tell—but because it has been going on for so long. Years before Wilmshurst v NMT Medical (BMJ 2010;340:c967 doi:10.1136/bmj.c967) and Singh v the chiropractors (BMJ 2009;339:b4269 doi:10.1136/bmj.b4269), there was BMJ v Drummond-Jackson, one of the longest running libel cases in legal history.

As former BMJ editor Richard Smith recounts (doi:10.1136/bmj.c1227), Drummond-Jackson, a Harley street dentist, sued the BMA (as owners of the BMJ) in 1969 for publishing a study critical of a technique with which he was closely associated. The case cost the BMJ …