Tag: subluxation

Questions and Answers about Chiropractic: The Bottom Line

I am often asked, “What do chiropractors do?” That’s not an easy question to answer. The answer is usually expected to be, “They treat back trouble.” But as alternative medicine practitioners, chiropractors do a lot of things, and they treat a variety of ailments, based largely on a scientifically-invalid vertebral subluxation theory which proposes that nerve interference resulting from a misaligned vertebra...

/ October 19, 2014

Upper Neck Manipulation: Caveats for Patients and Providers

Chiropractors often deny that neck manipulation can be a primary cause of stroke by injuring vertebral arteries. But according to Jean-Yves Maigne, M.D., head of the Department of Physical Medicine at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital in Paris, France: It is now a well established fact that cervical thrust manipulation can harm the vertebral artery. This accident was formerly regarded as very rare, although...

/ July 31, 2014

Chiropractic: A Summary of Concerns

Although obscured by controversy, there is evidence to indicate that spinal manipulation can be as effective as conventional treatment methods in relieving low-back pain.1,2,3,4 This grain of truth mixed with chiropractic vertebral subluxation theory that encompasses a broad scope of ailments makes it difficult for the average person to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate use of manipulation by chiropractors. A person who...

/ April 2, 2014

The Exciting Conclusion

On the slim chance that you’ve been perched on the edge of your seat wondering how the New Mexico appellate court ruled on chiropractic prescription privileges, whether the Council on Chiropractic Education got approved for another three years as an accrediting agency, if NCCAM ever came clean about spinal manipulation, and the fate of Brandon Babcock, DC, at the hands of the...

/ December 26, 2013

The Council on Chiropractic Education Straightens Up?

Three years ago, we reported that the Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE) was deeply embroiled in a heated dispute among various chiropractic factions over its new accreditation standards for chiropractic colleges. In a June, 2012 update of that post, we found the CCE still deeply embroiled in a heated dispute among various chiropractic factions over new accreditation standards for chiropractic colleges. Current...

/ December 12, 2013

Update: Chiropractic Neck Manipulation and Stroke

Chiropractors frequently manipulate the neck. New evidence suggests that this is not without risks, in some cases of catastrophic outcomes.

/ November 5, 2013

CAM Docket: Functional Endocrinology Update

Sometimes the media gets it right. From time to time, SBM has reported on the disheartening credulity of reporters when they cover so-called “alternative” medicine. Denver’s Channel 7, an ABC affiliate, is a happy exception to the rule. Reporter Theresa Marchetta first broke the story of Brandon and Heather Credeur, chiropractors practicing “Functional Endocrinology.” And for three years Marchetta, with the assistance...

/ September 19, 2013

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...

/ February 21, 2013

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...

/ January 24, 2013

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...

/ November 15, 2012