Britain declares war on smoking
Authors: J. Warden
Journal: BMJ (1997)

A £2m libel action brought against Channel 4 by a former consultant cardiologist at one of London's leading teaching hospitals collapsed last week after he admitted that errors in scientific papers coauthored by him appeared to be "more than an honest slip of the pen."Dr Peter Nixon, a consultant at Charing Cross Hospital until his retirement six years ago, withdrew his action and agreed to pay £765 520 in costs to Channel 4, which he claimed had branded him a charlatan, unfit to practise medicine.In a comprehensive climbdown, he also agreed to the disclosure of all documents in the case to the General Medical Council-unless he voluntarily retires from practice in the meantime-and not to take legal action if the allegations are repeated by Channel Four, the producer and journalist Duncan Campbell, or his production company.Dr Nixon, who claimed that hyperventilation could cause a range of illnesses, including many heart attacks, Gulf War syndrome, post traumatic stress disorder and premenstrual tension, sued Channel Four, Mr Campbell, and his company Investigation and Production (TV) Limited over the programme "Preying on Hope," broadcast in February 1994.The programme secretly filmed and recorded a consultation with an AIDS patient, Ian Hughes, who died in 1996.Dr Nixon told Mr Hughes that his fatigue was caused by hyperventilation, not AIDS, and prescribed an antihistamine and diazepam.The programme alleged that he had "rigged" the results of a breathing test by telling Mr Hughes to get "hugely angry, frustrated, trapped" while on the capnogram.Dr Nixon, aged 71, who practised from private consulting rooms in Weymouth Street, outlined his theories in a series of articles in medical journals.His views were promoted in the Sunday Times by the then medical correspondent, Neville Hodgkinson, who wrote a front page article in 1988 claiming that Dr Nixon had diagnosed chronic hyperventilation in all of 20 chronic fatigue syndrome patients referred to him.Patients diagnosed as having chronic hyperventilation were treated by a course of diazepam to induce sleep, followed by physiotherapy and breathing training. Admitted errorsDr Nixon pulled out of the libel action after he was cross-examined by Channel 4's QC, Desmond Browne, over a series of papers published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.He admitted that the articles contained a number of errors and said he had not written or in some cases even read all the papers which bore his name.The papers had not been peer reviewed to his knowledge, Dr Nixon said.He conceded under cross-examination that he had "no honest grounds" for claims that a "hypnotic challenge" test for diagnosing chronic hyperventilation was a reliable test.He also agreed that he reached a false conclusion in claiming that the "think test" he devised, in which patients were told to think about anger or other negative emotions, was more effective than the standard forced hyperventilation provocation test.He did not know how the errors had come about.In a paper reporting on two groups, patients and controls, who were given the test, Dr Nixon appeared to apply different percentage criteria to controls and patients, Mr Browne suggested.Dr Nixon agreed: "At the moment I cannot think of another explanation."