Category: Chiropractic
Smallpox and Pseudomedicine
A good case of smallpox may rid the system of more scrofulous, tubercular, syphilitic and other poisons than could otherwise be eliminated in a lifetime. Therefore, smallpox is certainly to be preferred to vaccination. The one means elimination of chronic disease, the other the making of it. Naturopaths do not believe in artificial immunization . . . —Harry Riley Spitler, Basic Naturopathy:...
The Image of Chiropractic: Consensus Based on Belief
EDITOR’S NOTE Today is a big grant deadline for me; at 5 PM EDT, the grant is due. As a consequence of working on my grant application into the wee hours of the morning last night, I didn’t have a chance to write my usual bit of logorrhea of the sort that I’ve laid down each and practically every Monday for the...
Compare and Contrast
I have been in Infectious Diseases for almost 25 years. I have two major jobs: I see inpatient consults and I chair the Infection Control program. I have been involved in quality improvement, especially as it relates to hospital acquired infections, for my entire career. It has been an interesting quarter century. Year after year we have driven down infection rates and...
Of SBM and EBM Redux. Part II: Is it a Good Idea to test Highly Implausible Health Claims?
Review This is the second post in a series* prompted by an essay by statistician Stephen Simon, who argued that Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) is not lacking in the ways that we at Science-Based Medicine have argued. David Gorski responded here, and Prof. Simon responded to Dr. Gorski here. Between that response and the comments following Dr. Gorski’s post it became clear to...
The DC as PCP?
Subluxation-free chiropractic? The long-simmering internecine wars among various factions of chiropractic recently reached a full boil when the Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE) had the audacity to eliminate the word “subluxation” from its draft 2012 “Standards for Doctor of Chiropractic Programs.” The CCE is the official U.S. Department of Education-approved accreditation agency for chiropractic colleges. It intends to adopt the revised Standards...
Vaccine Wars: the NCCAM Drops the Ball
If you go to the website of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), you’ll find that one of its self-identified roles is to “provide information about CAM.” NCCAM Director Josephine Briggs is proud to assert that the website fulfills this expectation. As many readers will recall, three of your bloggers visited the NCCAM last April, after having received an...
Uff Da! The Mayo Clinic Shills for Snake Oil
A couple of weeks ago, in a review of the Mayo Clinic Book of Home Remedies, Harriet Hall expressed relief that she hadn’t found any “questionable recommendations for complementary & alternative medicine (CAM) treatments” in that book: Since “quackademic” medicine is infiltrating our best institutions and organizations, I wasn’t sure I could trust even the prestigious Mayo Clinic. The Home Remedies book...
Chiropractic Vertebral Subluxations: Science vs. Pseudoscience
A 1997 publication by the Foundation for Chiropractic Education and Research, supporting the vertebral subluxation theory, noted that “…we [chiropractors] have successfully distanced the concept of a chiropractic subluxation from that of an orthopedic subluxation.”1 When discussing “subluxations” or misaligned vertebrae, however, chiropractors often fail to point out the difference between an orthopedic subluxation and a chiropractic subluxation. Reference to subluxations in...
Kaiser Rejects Neck Manipulation
Despite quackademia, anti-vaccine propaganda, and other discouraging trends, the news is not all bad. A major HMO has taken a decisive action in support of science-based medicine. Kaiser Permanente Mid Atlantic States and Mid-Atlantic Permanente Group recently announced the elimination of neck manipulation from their chiropractic coverage. The revised policy states, Given the paucity of data related to beneficial effects of chiropractic...
Germ theory denial: A major strain in “alt-med” thought
As hard as it is for most physicians today to believe it, germ theory denial is a major strain of belief underlying disturbingly large swaths of alternative medicine, as well as antivaccine beliefs. Yes, infectious disease is more complex than the simplistic version of germ theory understood by the public, but the complexities do not invalidate germ theory.