Category: Chiropractic
The British Chiropractic Association versus Simon Singh
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years promoting skepticism and science in medicine and writing critically about various forms of unscientific medical practices and outright quackery, it’s that there will always be pushback. Much, if not most, of the time, it’s just insults online. However, occasionally, the pushback enters into the realm of real life. I can remember the very...
Risks Associated With Complementary And Alternative Medicine (CAM): A Brief Overview
Having grown up on a dairy farm, I am one of the least likely people to object to the deification of yogurt. However, as a critical thinker, I cannot help but resist the idea (promoted by some health sites) that probiotics are a reasonable alternative to chemotherapy in the treatment of colon cancer. And there are many other equally unhelpful claims being...
Chiropractic in the News
Three recent news items about chiropractic have particularly irritated me. (1) U.S. Army Brigadier General Becky Halstead (Retired) Speaks Out for Chiropractic Care (2) Chiropractic Helps Child with Brain Disorder (3) Swine Flu Chiropractor’s Handout (1) General Halstead has become a spokesperson for The Foundation for Chiropractic Progress, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing public awareness of chiropractic. Her quoted comments boil...
Chiropractic’s Pathetic Response to Stroke Concerns
The chiropractic industry must be feeling the pressure. Billboards, signs on the sides of buses, chiropractic victims’ organizations, and lawsuits are telling the world that chiropractic neck adjustments can cause strokes. The risk is very small, but it is very real. We have addressed the subject before on this blog here, here, and here. Chiropractors are in denial and are trying to...
The Weekly Waluation of the Weasel Words of Woo #9
Resurrection! Can y’believe it? The W^5/2™, that cesspool of Afflicted Sophistry and Festering Fallacy—not to say that wellspring of Awesome and Absolutely Annoying (Cloying) Alliteration© and that Mother of all Maddening Mixed Metaphors and Sundry Similitudes®—is back! Yup, like the proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes of near-terminal procrastination, and due to overwhelming popular demand, the W^5/2 is reborn!!! Well, it also might have something...
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: A Case Study Exploring the Battle Lines of Science Based Medicine
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post solicited by Dr. Hall, who describes Dr. Albietz thusly: He’s a skeptical young pediatrician who works in a PICU and recently had a chiropractor come into the PICU to consult on a child with intractable seizures. He was sort of coerced to allow this at the parents’ request and against his better judgment. His hospital...
Canadian Justice: Breast-Fondling Chiropractor Faces “Interpersonal Skills Training”
There is something unexpectedly sinister about this news report from my former home town in Canada. Apparently, a local chiropractor has been using his “medical training” to excuse his sexual misconduct. Here’s the story from the Halifax Chronicle Herald: During a hearing in July, the woman said the chiropractor would frequently grip her around the ribs and hold tight, sometimes cupping her...
“It’s just a theory”
I am afraid that the experiments you quote, M. Pasteur, will turn against you. The world into which you wish to take us is really too fantastic. La Presse, 1860 It’s just a theory. Not evolution. Germ theory. Just a theory, one of many that account for the etiology of diseases. I should mention my bias up front. I am, as some...
Misleading Ads for Back Pain Treatment
There was a full-page ad in my local paper today for Back in Action Spine and Health Centers, targeted at sufferers from almost any kind of chronic back pain. It started with “Are You Ready to Throw in the Towel and Just Live with Hurting So Bad?” It went on to make a number of claims: Doctors can fix the problem. Breakthrough...
Chiropractic and Stroke: Evaluation of One Paper
Do not trust the cheering, for those persons would shout as much if you or I were going to be hanged.” ~ Oliver Cromwell In the blogosphere, the proponents of chiropractic often quote the following paper, with the abstract: Risk of Vertebrobasilar Stroke and Chiropractic Care Results of a Population-Based Case-Control and Case-Crossover Study Spine. 2008 Feb 15;33(4 Suppl):S176-83. by Cassidy JD,...