Category: Chiropractic

Pseudoscience sneaks into Ohio guidelines for non-drug pain treatment

Ohio recently issued Acute Pain Prescribing Guidelines as part of an effort to reduce the epidemic of opioid abuse and death from overdose. They were drafted under the auspices of the Governor’s Cabinet Opiate Action Team (GCOAT), assisted by medical organizations and other groups. The guidelines include recommendations for non-pharmacologic treatment, a typical feature of pain treatment guidelines and a worthy effort...

/ February 4, 2016

Legislative Alchemy 2015: Another losing season for CAM practitioners

One of the main, but perhaps underappreciated, reasons quackery thrives in the United States is that the states legalize it by licensing practitioners of pseudoscience as health care providers. These practitioners are placed under the regulatory jurisdiction of, well, themselves. I call the whole deplorable process Legislative Alchemy, and you can see all posts on the topic here. It gives practitioners an...

/ January 7, 2016

Australian review finds no benefit to 17 natural therapies

A review by the Australian government has assessed the evidence for a variety of natural products covered by private health insurance. Their conclusion was that most lacked clear evidence of clinical efficacy. Hopefully this will end insurance coverage of seventeen different pseudosciences.

/ November 19, 2015

The DC as PCP: the battle resumes

It has been almost five years to the day since I wrote my first post in “The DC as PCP” series. These posts (listed here) chronicle the continuing battles among various factions within the chiropractic profession over the subluxation and its many iterations, educational requirements for chiropractic colleges, their legal scope of practice, and whether chiropractors are – or are not—primary care...

/ November 12, 2015

Chiropractors Lobby for Acceptance by the VA and TRICARE

It seems alternative medicine is infiltrating into more and more organizations that should be based on science. We have quackademia in medical schools, integrative medicine clinics in hospitals and medical centers, government funding for alternative medicine research and education, coverage of alternative medicine by government and private health insurance, and acceptance of alternative practitioners in the VA and in military hospitals. Two...

/ October 6, 2015

October is National Chiropractic Health Month!

October is National Chiropractic Health Month (NCHM) and chiropractors can’t resist the opportunity to overstate, obfuscate, and prevaricate in celebration. They do this in the face of some unfortunate (for them) statistics revealed by a recent Gallup Poll. The Poll was paid for by Palmer College of Chiropractic as part of an effort to increase the chiropractic share of the health care...

/ October 1, 2015

The Enigma of Chiropractic: A Brief Review with a Perspective on Chiropractic as a Specialty

Much of what is discussed in this article has been said before in previous articles I have written for Science-Based Medicine. But since the audience for SBM has greatly increased over the past few years, some subject matter should be repeated for the new readers and researchers coming to this site for reliable information on health care. Many consumers now search SBM...

/ September 27, 2015

Learning quackery for Continuing Medical Education credit

The Integrative Addiction Conference 2015 (“A New Era in Natural Treatment”) starts tomorrow in Myrtle Beach, SC. Medical doctors, doctors of osteopathy, naturopaths and other health care providers will hear lectures on such subjects as “IV Therapies and Addiction Solutions,” given by Kenneth Proefrock, a naturopath whose Arizona Stem Cell Center specializes in autologous stem cell transplants derived from adipose tissue. Proefrock,...

/ August 20, 2015

Do You Believe in Magic? Oregon Does. Chiropractic and Acupuncture for Pain.

Do You Believe in Magic? Do you believe in magic for a back pains fix How the needles can free her, where ever it pricks And it’s magic, if the chi is groovy It makes you feel happy like an old-time movie I’ll tell you about the magic, and it’ll free your soul But it’s like trying to tell a CAM ’bout...

/ August 7, 2015

Neck Adjustment for Newborn Supraventricular Tachycardia: More Chiropractic Manipulation of Reality…..

[Editor’s note: Not enough Clay for one day? Check out this post on homeopathy over at The Scientific Parent!] It was recently brought to my attention that a chiropractor was promoting his profession on Facebook by claiming to have treated and cured a potentially life-threatening cardiac arrhythmia. The condition in question, supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), can be very serious and even deadly in...

/ July 31, 2015