Category: Chiropractic
Chiropractic Abuse: An Insider’s Lament
There is a new book critical of chiropractic: Chiropractic Abuse: An Insider’s Lament. The author, Preston Long, DC, PhD, is a chiropractor who says he made a big mistake when he chose chiropractic as a career. He has written an intriguing book explaining his mistake and the experiences that resulted from it during 3 decades as a chiropractor and a critic of...
Integrative Medicine’s Collateral Damage
Integrative medicine combines the practice of medicine with alternative medicine. Proponents tend to take a paragraph or two to say this, but that is what remains when boiled down to its essence. By putting this more concise definition together with Tim Minchin’s often-quoted observation about alternative medicine, you get: integrative medicine is the practice of medicine combined with medicine that either has...
Chiropractic Education for Primary Care
Chiropractors would like to reinvent themselves as family doctors. I’ve written about that before and Jann Bellamy has written about it here, here, here, and here. A new study in The Journal of Chiropractic Education alleges that the National University of Health Sciences is nearing its institutional goal of training chiropractic students as primary care practitioners. The data they collected don’t even...
Pump it up: osteopathic manipulation and influenza
First, my bias. I work in Portland and we have medical students, residents, and faculty who are DOs (Doctor of Osteopathy). Before he moved on to be a hospitalist my primary physician was a DO. From my experience there is no difference between an MD and a DO. In my world they are interchangeable. There are many more qualified applicants for medical...
Chiropractor Breaks Baby’s Neck – A Risk vs Benefit Analysis
It is unfortunately that individual dramatic cases are often required to garner public and regulatory attention toward a clear problem. The Australian press is reporting: Melbourne paediatrician Chris Pappas cared for a four-month-old baby last year after one of her vertebrae was fractured during a chiropractic treatment for torticollis – an abnormal neck position that is usually harmless. He said the infant...
CAM Docket: Functional Endocrinology Update
Sometimes the media gets it right. From time to time, SBM has reported on the disheartening credulity of reporters when they cover so-called “alternative” medicine. Denver’s Channel 7, an ABC affiliate, is a happy exception to the rule. Reporter Theresa Marchetta first broke the story of Brandon and Heather Credeur, chiropractors practicing “Functional Endocrinology.” And for three years Marchetta, with the assistance...
Quantum Neurology
As the resident neurologist on SBM, my ears always prick up when I come across a new neurology-based scam, and my colleagues often send such items my way. In addition the word “quantum” has become a standard marketing term of alt. med quackery. So how could I resist taking a bite out of “quantum neurology”? One might think (if one were a...
Chiropractic Vs. Conventional: Dueling Perspectives On Infant Colic…..
Infant colic, while not a deadly disease by any stretch of the imagination, is an extremely troubling entity. Not only can it be quite distressing to caregivers, it is also a well-established risk factor for neglect and abuse of the child. Excessive crying in general, whether diagnosed as infant colic or not, is a frequent impetus for seeking advice from medical professionals....
CAM practitioners as primary care providers under the Affordable Care Act: Part 2
In the last post, we took another look at Section 2607 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits “discrimination” against licensed CAM practitioners by insurers, and how chiropractors are continuing their PR campaign to rebrand themselves as primary care physicians. This time, we review a recent white paper by the Academic Consortium of Complementary and Alternative Healthcare, an organization that might be seen as CAM’s...
Chiropractic Practice Building: A Doctor’s Confession and the Report of Findings
“I’ve got to get this off my chest!” “Dear chiropractic practitioner, Confessions are tough…Real tough. They are painful, awful things. But, sometimes a confession can set the record straight, and I want to give credit where credit is due. Before I talk about my confession though, let me say a few other things first. You may want to sit down. You know,...