Tag: chiropractic
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....
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,...
Six reasons CAM practitioners should not be licensed
States license “complementary and alternative” (CAM) practitioners (chiropractors, naturopaths, acupuncturists/TCM practitioners and homeopaths) via the magic of “legislative alchemy.” Ironically, licensing statutes are enacted based on the states’ constitutional power to protect the health, safety and welfare of the public. Yet these CAM practice acts actually increase public vulnerability to unsafe and ineffective health care practices. It is, in short, a bad...
Whack em hard/Whack em once and Stroke. On chiropractic induced trauma
There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it. ~ George Bernard Shaw I work in a 5-hospital system and many of us practice at several hospitals. The residents rotate through at least three of the hospitals and the peripatetic nature of health care allows word of curious cases to percolate through the system. My current resident...
Legislative Alchemy: Chiropractic 2013
Via the magic of legislative alchemy, chiropractors are already licensed health care providers in all 50 states. Thus their legislative efforts tend to focus on expanding their scope of practice and forcing public and private insurers to cover their services, in some cases at the same rate as medical doctors. Those efforts continue in 2013 with 65 bills impacting chiropractors introduced so...
The DC as PCP? The battle continues
Chiropractors are trying to rebrand themselves as primary care physicians, a topic both Harriet Hall and I have addressed (here and here) on SBM. Toward this end, they are seeking the expansion of their scope of practice, via the magic of legislative alchemy, to include the prescription and administration of drugs. Not drugs that any self-respecting M.D. would use, but drugs nonetheless. That...
Andrew Weil Flirts with Evidence Based Medicine
Andrew Weil, MD, pops up quite frequently on SBM, most recently in this entry by Harriet Hall, so I will not spend much space introducing him. An excellent biography and critique of Dr. Weil was written by Arnold Relman, former Editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. It is over a decade old, but contemporary to some of the events described...
CAM Docket: Functional Endocrinology
One of the signature abilities of CAM practitioners is the creation of new diagnostic methods and treatments which convincingly demonstrate they have only a superficial understanding of human physiology. Here at SBM, posts have addressed such sterling examples of this phenomenon as cranial sacral therapy, applied kinesiology and chiropractic neurology. Now we have a new one on the horizon: functional endocrinology. I...
The War Against Chiropractors
In 2011, chiropractor J.C. Smith published The Medical War Against Chiropractors: The Untold Story from Persecution to Vindication. He promises an exposé comparable to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s exposé of slavery in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. His thesis is that the AMA waged a shameless attack on competition, motivated only by money. I think the reality is closer to what he quoted from Dr....
Sports Physicals, Sudden Death, and Chiropractors
Sports physicals could prevent cases of sudden cardiac death in children, but could be improved even more. What won't improve things is letting a chiropractor do it.