Chiropractic Woo?

[JJM]

Blue Wode,

Great catch!

 

[Rodney]

Opportunity costs are important to consider.

So are the dollar costs of three unsuccessful surgeries.

 

[Rodney]

Maybe the author of the Washington Post article was specially selected to be the star of a slick marketing exercise instigated by the American Chiropractic Association

Somehow I don't think a paper as prestigious as the Post would shill for the chiropractic industry.

 

[Blue Wode]

Somehow I don't think a paper as prestigious as the Post would shill for the chiropractic industry.

As the Observer/MMR fiasco in the UK has recently reminded us, “prestigious” newspapers are more than capable of unwittingly relaying others’ propaganda...

http://www.badscience.net/?p=457#more-457

Also, as I pointed out in post 15, if some medical doctors can be ignorant of the vast amount of quackery that continues to pervade the chiropractic profession - i.e. those MDs don’t make it clear what criteria they use for ensuring that their patients are referred to (the very scarce number of) purely evidence-based chiropractors - then why should newspaper editors, who are far less well-versed in medical matters, not also be guilty of such ignorance?

 

[fls]

So are the dollar costs of three unsuccessful surgeries.

That is my point (although, as far as we know, only one of the surgeries was unsuccessful). It allows a way for all therapies (including conventional) to be evaluated.

Linda

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Confessions of a Chiropractor

P.S.
**** is correct about the lack of knowledge chiropractors have about the immune system. What I was taught about the immune system could fit nicely on a 3X5 index card, with room for a recipe or two besides. All chiropractors WANT to know is that the nervous system somehow "interacts" with the immune system, and since they fancy themselves to be "working with the nervous system", they can infer that their ministrations "strengthen the immune system".

I had to teach myself the basics of immunity when I began teaching college level Human Biology and Bio 102. It was frankly a huge embarrassment to me that I had supposedly been in "health care" for all those years, with hardly any idea how the body fought disease. Anyway, one result of this learning was the realization of exactly how empty and meaningless a term like "strengthening the immune system" really is.

Fred

http://www.ssr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?1:mss:119457:200708:hbgchhfmkcndfpehfkdm

This is why they have no idea why vaccines work, and are the some of the worst purveyors of antivaccine misinformation.

 

[Blue Wode]

This is why they have no idea why vaccines work, and are the some of the worst purveyors of antivaccine misinformation.

Yes, and it’s really quite worrying when such a purveyor infiltrates the corridors of regulatory power as has recently happened here in the UK:

This is the ‘vaccination’ website http://www.vaccination.co.uk/ of a UK chiropractor who, in May of this year, was elected to serve on the General Chiropractic Council’s committees which supposedly ensure that chiropractic standards are upheld in order to protect patients and the public.

Now, if you scroll down to the end of page 3 of this General Chiropractic Council link,

http://test.gcc-uk.org/files/link_file/Direct Indirect and non pecuniary interests July 07.pdf

you’ll see on a very intriguing list of the chiropractor’s ‘non-pecuniary interests declared’ that it says “campaign of awareness of adverse events from vaccinations”, and that under ‘direct pecuniary interests declared’ it says “European distributor for Koren publication patient education materials”.

For those not familiar with Tedd Koren, DC, he is a notorious anti-vaccination chiropractic lecturer, researcher and publisher who lives in Pennsylvania, USA:

http://www.korenpublications.com/kp/category/vaccine-information

Perhaps even more worrying than the above is that there are sure to be many other influential chiropractors who don’t make their anti-vaccination views so public.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Geez, the public needs to be warned that these people are not remotely qualified to tell them anything. Instead these misinformed purveyers of wooity are enjoying a time of free-for-all.

I don't get it.

 

[Blue Wode]

Interesting result when you enter the URL for the UK chiropractic regulatory body, the General Chiropractic Council (www.gcc-uk.org ), into the Quackometer:

http://www.quackometer.net/?page=quackometer

Web site titled 'The General Chiropractic Council'

The black duck says...

This web site has more quackery than my village pond. It shows no sceptical awareness and so should be treated with a suspicious mind.

This site has a has a currently measurable quackery content of 8 Canards

(The Canard is the internationally recognised SI unit for Quackery.)


http://www.quackometer.net/?url=http://www.gcc-uk.org

As Eos says, the public needs to be warned.

 

[Blue Wode]

Chiropractic Scientists Concerned Over Spread of Adjustment Resistant Subluxations...

Knudsensnews blog has just posted an excellent half-fun/whole-earnest article on chiropractic quackery:

http://knudsensnews.blogspot.com/2007/10/chiropractic-scientists-concerned-over.html

This part is quite amusing -

"The process of coming up with a unified definition of the subluxation was very scientific, involving a show of hands and I believe someone had a calculator."

as it appears to share similarities with the profession’s recent attempt to re-brand itself:

WFC Consultation on the Identity of the Chiropractic Profession

Unanimous Agreement on Identity of the Profession​

The World Federation of Chiropractic’s 8th Biennial Congress, held at the Sydney Convention Centre, Australia from June 14-18, 2005, produced a historic milestone for the chiropractic profession worldwide.

This was unanimous agreement on the most appropriate public identity for the chiropractic profession within health care. This is “the spinal health care experts in the health care system.”


http://www.wfc.org/website/WFC/webs...Consultation?OpenDocument&ppos=2&spos=4&rsn=y

Perhaps "glorified physios" would be a more apt identity - and even then only for those rare chiropractors who have dispensed with all the pseudoscience.

 

[JJM]

[FONT=&quot]From the Associaiton of Chiropractic Colleges:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]http://www.chirocolleges.org/paradigm_scope.html [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

A subluxation is a complex of functional and/or structural and/or pathological articular changes that compromise neural integrity and may influence organ system function and general health.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]I have no idea what that means; except “Whatever we can be paid for pretending to fix.”
[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]The problem of defining “subluxation” is small compared to the definition of the other historical component of chiro- the “Innate Intelligence” (life force). The problem is that chiro is a cult, and they cannot flatly reject this notion from their founder (DD Palmer).
[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]http://www.jcca-online.org/client/cca/JCCA.nsf/objects/Commentary+The+meanings+of+Innate/$file/3-Commentary%20Keating.pdf [/FONT] [FONT=&quot]

Since the notion was first introduced by D.D. Palmer circa 1904, “Innate Intelligence” [II] has been a source of inspiration, confusion and derision for chiropractors. …

[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Unlike the subluxation-complex, which is a potentially testable and falsifiable construct, II is one of those untestable principles in chiropractic. The latter comment is interesting because it omits the fact that the chiropractic subluxation is not just potentially falsifiable, it has been tested and it does not exist. When this was demonstrated in the 60s and 70s, the chiro cult could not give up their sublux- so they redefined it. Now they do the same with the II. [/FONT] [FONT=&quot]These articles make it clear that II is mere philosophy. It has no value in health care; but chiros won’t repudiate Palmer. Keating says that most chiros identify II with homeostasis; which is a blanket term referring to the body’s many mechanisms for maintaining limits on life functions (such as body temperature). Although this suggests II is related to something real, there is no evidence that chiro has any effect on any homeostatic system.[/FONT]

 

[Blue Wode]

Another example of chiropractic woo is ‘Atlas Orthogonal Technique’ which is applied to the upper cervical spine. Here’s what Chirobase has to say about it:

Atlas orthogonal technique (A.O.T.). One of many methods of correcting cervical "subluxations" claimed to be responsible for problems anywhere in the body.

http://www.chirobase.org/01General/chiroglossary.html

Unfortunately, Montel Williams swears by it (“it’s the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me”) and he recently had no qualms about sharing his experience with Fox TV viewers:
http://www.planetc1.com/cgi-bin/n/v.cgi?c=1&id=1200461686

For more on chiropractic quackery, see yesterday’s excellent Science Based Medicine blog post by Harriet Hall, the SkepDoc:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=3

 

[devnull]

The only chiropractic anecdote I have of any note is from a friend of mine. His wife suffered a brain tumor, and when she was recuperating from the surgery (very serious surgery mind) she kept vomiting. She would basically spend her days in bed watching TV with a bucket under her chin.

She was on all sorts of anti-nausea medication for weeks, but nothing helped. Eventually my friend took his wife to see his chiro, bucket and all. The chiro said something about 'pressure on the vomit centre of the brain', manipulated her neck, and she stopped vomiting later that afternoon.

This, ofcourse, is a 2nd hand anecdote, and could purely have been chance. It convinced my friend of the power of his chiro though, although he still claims 'the thing about a chiro is that you are never cured'.

I have several workmates who swear by their chiros, one in particular who gets routine adjustments every 2 weeks otherwise she starts getting migraine headaches apparently (damage from a traffic accident).

My personal opinion is that the claims from chiros that they can cure all manner of disease is pure woo. At the end of the day, the good chiros probably offer no greater benefit than youd get from a good massage. After that, there's alot of 'power of suggestion' and 'placebo effect' occurring.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

I just heard that Montel is now crediting chiro treatments for curing his MS...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qiOtb6yM_ow

 

[JJM]

Although Montel lives by selling credulousness, he is a smart guy. He may think that a chiro helped him; but he should know that MS does not necessarily progress monotonically, and it can regress for significant lengths of time.