Subject: RE: [healthfraud] No-Touch Chiropractic
From: jbadanes
Date: Mon, 01 May 2006
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Hardy har har ...
The "lack of action" (as you put it) in these last ten minutes of more than 101 years of chiropractic history isn't "bureaucratic" and "legal" in nature, doctor Perle. And, it's telling that you would, like a Press Secretary trying to put the best possible spin on something so obviously "dirty," rush to assure the Q-busting nation that these "actions" are NOT those of the chiropractic government that you represent. But, there is no amount of damage control that you can bring to this discussion, Doctor Perle, that could have meaning without the chiropractic profession first taking responsibility for the continued existence of all of its quackery, which is, at this point, so institutionalized, that only the most florid examples -- those chiropractors strutting down Chiropractic Lane proudly wearing their chiropractic antlers --might be recognized by some of your colleagues as being too overt for chiropractic comfort.
One thing is "fer-darned" sure, doctor Perle ... the continued existence of a NUCCA in Chiroville, USA is not, ahem ... a "bureaucratic" and "legal" issue except to the extent that licensed chiropractors can legally do and bill for a full roster of quack chirodigms -- all of them "chiropractic" and all of them within the practice scope of the Doctor of Chiropractic. Licensed chiropractors can practice "chiropractic," after all. NUCCA Technic is "chiropractic," as are the BioEnergetic Synchronization, Chiropractic BioPhysics, S.O.T., Gonstead and Activator techniques, to name a few. Pretending that there's a glitch in the Department of Public Health instead a problem of institutionalized chiropractic quackery is like saying that the problem is NOT that fairies all over the U.S. are currently allowed to dance on their respective chiropractic pintips; rather, according to you, it's that someone submitted the wrong "form" questioning whether or not a particular fairy who's practicing in a single office somewhere in the U.S. is wearing the PROPER shoes.
Besides, as I wrote privately to Dr Hall regarding the proper shoes to wear when practicing NUCCA:
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What Dr. Hoeller is doing is NUCCA ... to the core -- from the x-ray analysis to determine the line of correction (LOC) right down to the delivery of "Thuh" Adjustment, leg-checks and post-X-rays. She's on
the Board of the National Upper Cervical Association (Secretary, I believe) and is fully certified in all the ways a chiropractor can be as a NUCCA practitioner. If you watched the film of Dr. Gertner (the
links I forwarded), you can see that what she says, thinks, and does, is exactly what NUCCA practitioners think, say and do. If NUCCA is allowed in Washington State, then there's nothing to be done or to
say by critics who are shocked and dismayed by its emptiness ... OR her application of the NUCCA protocols. She's doing it "right."
If Dr. Hoeller does or doesn't touch the patient, that really isn't the point, is it. I hope you can appreciate this after seeing Dr Gertner's application of "Thuh" Adjustment. He touches the patient.
And, you don't know that within all that writhing of Dr. Hoeller's maneuvers, she doesn't, at some critical moment, slightly brush the neck of the patient making an ever so brief and minor contact with the patient's neck. The other "hand-waving" stuff is just "getting the LOC right" ... practice runs, for example. Remember, the video-story played up the miracle part -- the "non-touch" chiropractor.
Even so, this is the least of it.
If I were on the Board, I would conclude that both of these chiropractors were practicing NUCCA. Why? Because they are. No question about it. If you feel that Dr Hoeller has violated a Washington law that says the chiropractor must "touch" the patient, without arguing what constitutes "touch" (since many patients believe they "felt" something), at best, you're talking about a technicality (so lame) that could only produce a reprimand, or at most, a three hour remedial NUCCA CE (for example) ... probably offered by the organization of which she's on the Board. And, not even that. So, she'll "touch" the patient, which she does, sometimes, even as she "sets-up" or ... as I described above.
Besides, your objection wouldn't even rise to the level of busting Al Capone for tax evasion -- a technicality (unrelated to his criminality) that put him in jail where he died of syphilis. I find it troublesome that you would even argue the point. I graduated from a school that was founded by a NUCCA practitioner, took one quarter (required) of NUCCA analysis and "adjustment" methods, signed-off on students who "performed" NUCCA adjustments when I was a Senior Intern, and was faculty in the clinic evaluating students' proficiency in this, and other chiropractic methods.
You are being as bizarre as Doctor Perle on this, Harriet. I'm just talking about the fact of the NUCCA matter ... not how stupid and preposterous the chirodigm is.
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I'm pretty sure that Drs Perle and Hall both want the same thing with regards a quackery in "chiropractic." But, like strange bedfellows, I suspect their concerns and interests are informed differently. Doctor Perle is likely embarrassed by chiropractic stupidity since, well, he is a chiropractor who is always trying to put his best chiropractic foot forward -- especially when attending a Q-buster dinner party where "chiropractic" is being served. When another chiropractor takes a dump on the carpet or eats with their chiropractic fingers, it must be upsetting to doctor Perle in some way. At least he seems compelled to apologize, defend, and/or explain these chiropractic "faux pas" when they occur. Dr. Hall is similarly "upset," judging from her outrage that Dr. Hoeller is allowed to practice her "chiropractic" with such "bad table manners"; but she doesn't share doctor Perle's embarrassment since she is NOT a chiropractor.
I think they're both banging their heads against the same chiropractic wall -- the institutionalization of chiropractic quackery. It's a larger discussion than a Dr Hoeller letter-writing campaign can generate -- never mind, penetrate; but importantly, it's what allows for any and all "Dr Hoellers." That's the fulcrum around which "chiropractic" and chiropractors rotate -- even so-called "modern" and reform chiropractors.
In other words, if chiropractors want to bust a "Dr Hoeller," they have to first eliminate NUCCA from chiropractic's menu of chirodigms -- totally. In order to do this, they need to say, out-loud, in writing, and in no uncertain terms, why they will not permit a chiropractor to do this sort of therapy. To do this, they must then show that any remaining chirodigms in the profession's repertoire are not informed similarly, or these Technics, too, must be eliminated from the roster -- since chiropractors have made their case so solidly with the NUCCA Technic, that is. And, so on. I think you will find that the chiropractic profession can't risk too much, if any, "elimination" because of this sort of "If them, then me" predicament. The chiropractic profession can't even risk a "Dr Hoeller," it's so entangled in chiropractism and sticky with chiropractic oobleck.
For example, in a post "B.E.S.T" = the "R.E.S.T" -- submitted to the health fraud list many years ago -- I argued this very point with a chiropractor who blustered that BioEnergetic Synchronization
Technique (B.E.S.T) was so much "crap" (was the word he used). It's a slippery slope for a chiropractor to point to a colleague and say what *that* chiropractor is doing is "crap" -- at least, not without
being sure that when making the accusation, every other chiropractor's fly (never mind their own) is fully zipped. The fact is, B.E.S.T isn't all that different at its core than NUCCA, Activator, Thompson, Gonstead, CBP, and SOT, for example. When you start eliminating one of these chirodigms with good reason, you must act on the others for that same good reason. But, these are all bricks in the foundation of chiropractic's house you're tampering with. So, you can't simply eliminate any of them without risking the collapse of the entire chiropractic house and enterprise.
That said, take two chiropractors and call me in the morning.
~TEO.
John Badanes, DC, PharmD
LCCW '84, UCSF '97