Chiropractic Stroke Warnings (12-28-2009)

On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 9:34 AM, Adam Rufa wrote:

A legal obligation to inform patient's of risk may be a good thing. However, I wonder where the line should be drawn and it seems unfair to single out one treatment. Again, (for me) this is not about chiropractic care, it is about manual therapy.

Well, this is NOT about you ... unless you're a chiropractor, that is. It's about "chiropractic" and chiropractors. In other words, you can't consider this legislation separately from "chiropractic" and chiropractors. In case you hadn't noticed, "chiropractic" is NOT "just like" anything else ... except "chiropractic," of course. Pretending "chiropractic" is "just like medicine," for example, is the fallacy always invoked by chiropractors when they compare themselves to medicine and MDs in any given argument about the validity and usefulness of "chiropractic." Certainly, "Thuh" Adjustment isn't the same as "manipulation" anymore than Mennell, Fiske, Maitland, Grieve, and Cyriax are chiropractors. It should be about as simple as that.

The call for legislation IS directed at "chiropractic" and chiropractors because way too many of them just can't help themselves "Adjusting" any and all Vertebral Subluxations they detect (and even those they don't ... because you can't BE too careful) whenever and wherever they see a Chiropractic Spine. 

That said and to be clear, both medical AND chiropractic treatments have the potential for unintended effects. There's nothing wrong with warning patients about any of them whether you're an MD or DC ... even if they're rare, but especially if they're serious. What could be wrong with that? Wouldn't you want to know that "cracking" your neck could, even in very rare cases, cause a stroke or death? Would you be more (or less) inclined to get "cracked" if the reason for doing it was to remove a Spinal Demon and figment of the chiropractor's imagination?

Now, I've never been big on criticizing "chiropractic" and chiropractors because their chiropractic therapies may (or may not) cause unintended and/or undesirable effects. Like I said, most every medical and chiropractic effort has this potential. So, this is not a reason, by itself, to criticize "chiropractic" and chiropractors, anymore than it is medicine and MDs. 

In fact, I warned producers of the PBS "Scientific American Frontiers" production, A Different Way to Heal? that they should not raise this issue in the chiropractic segment Adjusting the Joints. It's not like it's NOT an issue, especially for chiropractors who "crack" necks for a living. It is ... obviously, given the resistance of chiropractors to point fingers and deny ownership of "Thuh" Adjustment when things go south. 

But, because a stroke is such a dramatic occurrence and undesirable effects are possible with any treatment, it draws a viewer's focus away from the medical emptiness of Subluxation Dowsing and Correction, which is all you really need to know about the Chiropractic Enterprise. In this context then, a stroke is an insult to the primary chiropractic injury -- the treatment of a fictitious and proprietary lesion.

~TEO.