Chiropractic Sues Science

[panzerfaust]

This week, Simon Singh, one of Britain's best science writers, will decide whether to carry on playing a devilish version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? He has already lost £100,000 defending his right to speak frankly. He could walk away. No one would think the worse of him if he did. Or he could go on and risk losing the full million by ensnaring himself in the rapacious world of an English judiciary that seems ever eager to bow to the demands of Saudi oil billionaires, Russian oligarchs and the friends of Saddam Hussein to censor critics and punish them with staggering damages and legal fees...

...In 2008, the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) announced that its members could help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying. Writing in the Guardian, Singh said the claim was "bogus". Chiropractic treatments may help relieve back pain, but Professor Ernst had examined 70 trials and found no evidence that they could relieve other conditions...

...Fair enough, you might think. Reputable medical authorities could test the evidence and decide whether the treatments work or not. Instead of arguing before the court of informed opinion, however, the BCA {British Chiropractic Association} went to the libel courts...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/31/simon-singh-science?showallcomments=true

It is a wonder they have not gone after Consumer Reports as well, which (a few years ago) came to basically the same conclusion. Or, perhaps even more logically, after the National Association for Chiropractic Medicine which advocates for the use of chiropractic ONLY in musculoskeletal processes.

Oh, and before raising all the usual issues about chiropractic, please read: http://www.chirobase.org/01General/controversy.html

The reason for the post is to illustrate how science is restrained by irrationality, and how the UK is becoming a threat to free speech throughout the world by encouraging libel-tourism.

Shame.

[closeupready]

1. Wouldn't be the first time chiropractic has been lied about.

>>Following a decade of litigation, the Seventh Circuit Court upheld the ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Susan Getzendanner that the AMA had engaged in a "lengthy, systematic, successful and unlawful boycott" designed to restrict cooperation between MDs and chiropractors in order to eliminate the profession of chiropractic as a competitor in the U.S. health care system.<<

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilk_v._American_Medical_Association#Judge.27s_findings_in_the_second_trial

[panzerfaust]

5. Nor the first time the truth told

"...the Wilk case did not uncover any secret conspiracy by doctors to destroy chiropractic. It merely examined whether or not the AMA's ethical prohibition against voluntary professional association with nonscientific healthcare providers violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. On August 27, 1987, District judge Susan Getzendanner decided that it did. She stated in her decision, however, that the AMA's ethical prohibition was not economically motivated, but was based upon the AMA's belief that chiropractic care was did not serve the best interest of patients..."

[Deja Q]

2. These pigfuckers can rot in hell.

Chiropractors can leave people paralyzed, or forced into surgeries because they dislodge discs directly into the spine.

Fuck 'em.

And this isn't libel - this happens.

http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=en&q=chiropractor+paralysis&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=chiropractor+paralysis&aqi=&fp=1mZ_-PL2Zjc

Another goodie:
-----
Diaphragmatic Paralysis Following Cervical Chiropractic Manipulation
http://www.chestjournal.org/content/119/2/638.full

[OKNancy]

3. I agree with you

They may have some place, I suppose, but for disc problems...horrible. I don't have to read the article, I have first hand experience. Thank goodness I found a fantastic surgeon.

[Deja Q]

4. I had firsthand experience too... and will again...

With surgery, that is. I had neck surgery a few years ago. Post-surgery, the fused vertebrae add pressure to the surrounding discs. The disc below the fused area is bulging. I anticipate another surgery within 5 years, though real forms of therapy and exercise have kept the herniated issues to a minimum, and in some ways have improved.

The most disheartening thing was when talking to some jackass on a dating site, after I was finally using the computer again. Either he was thick or twisted, but said neck surgery was minor. What a fucking fool...

[LibDemAlways]

7. I had (note use of past tense) a friend who became a

chiropractor. OK. Her choice. If that's what she wanted to do and people were willing to pay her to do it, none of my business. Until she invites me over on New Years Eve and proceeds to stick a tape in the VCR on the wonders of chiropractic. I shit you not. This is New Years Eve and I'm a captive audience watching a tape telling me chiropractic can solve all the problems of the world because all of the problems of the world are caused by people's spines being out of alignment. There's even a scene of the A-bomb going off. And she's sitting there buying into this crap and telling me chiropractors are the real doctors, and MDs - the doctors with the umpteen years of education - really don't understand how to treat disease. There was no use arguing with her. She was possessed.

I fled and never looked back. I just hope to hell no one ever died or was permanently maimed by one of her "cures."

[closeupready]

10. "hope to hell no one ever died ... by one of her 'cures'." Was her last name Kervorkian?

If not, they're probably okay - oh, wait, he was an MD. :rofl:

[Pharlo]

6. Well, my personal opinion has always been if they can't cut

med school, they're not coming near me.

Personally, I'd go to a veterinarian for medical care before I'd go to a chiropracter, accupuncturist, medicine doctor or any other 'alternative medicine' quack.

But then, I also think that anyone who isn't vaccinated should have a large tattoo placed on their forehead or cheek so that anyone with a young child too young to be vaccinated would have the opportunity to keep their child away from the unvaccinated person until the child could be vaccinated.

Once again, that's my opinion. So, let the flamefest begin.

[Frank Cannon]

8. Pshaw. What did medical science ever do for us?

[Pharlo]

9. As soon as I regain my equilibrium

from tripping over the sarcasm, I may just take umbrage with that statement.

[Frank Cannon]

14. I actually was going to use a picture of smallpox...

never having seen the disease and thinking that it looked like chicken pox.

It doesn't, and I suggest that others not use the Google Image Search on it unless they have a real strong stomach.

[BlooInBloo]

11. Snake-oil.

[deaniac21]

12. Should be the other way around.

[Occam Bandage]

13. Chiropractic has the exact same problem all CAM fields do.

On one hand, they demand to be taken as serious, respectable, responsible fields of medicine. On the other hand, they will defend any and all claims made by anyone in their field, no matter how spurious, unscientific, or dangerous. They steadfastly refuse any oversight, and claim any attempt to restrict practice to the evidence base constitutes a threat to their existence.

While I would like to see greater roles for CAM in medical treatment (if only because they're much cheaper at providing placebo effects), I absolutely cannot support any field that would call itself "medicine" while remaining hostile to the concepts of responsibility, oversight, and evidence.