Scrooge

by

CHIROPRACTIC SCROOGE

For at least one month in December, people act kindly toward one another if not while biting their lip, turning their cheek, and swallowing their pride.

During this Christmas season we count our blessings, show our gratitude with gifts to love ones, listen to great music, watch old movies  like The Bishop’s Wife, It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street,  A Christmas Story, It Happened on 5th Avenue, and perhaps one most appropriate for our profession, Scrooge: A Christmas Carol.

This year it may take more effort to be merry and hopeful considering the present strife in our national Capital, conflicts around the world, and issues within our profession by the Chiropractic Scrooges who try to dampen our spirit.

Bah Humbug!

Once again, we find ourselves in a war of words with the release of two critical papers; one calling for a revolt against traditional chiropractic and another calling for a professional divorce:

ABSTRACT

Background: The chiropractic profession has a long history of internal conflict. Today, the division is between the ‘evidence-friendly’ faction that focuses on musculoskeletal problems based on a contemporary and evidence-based paradigm, and the ‘traditional’ group that subscribes to concepts such as ‘subluxation’ and the spine as the centre of good health. This difference is becoming increasingly obvious and problematic from both within and outside of the profession in light of the general acceptance of evidence-based practice as the basis for health care.

CONCLUSION: There is a need to pause and consider if the many reasons for disharmony within the chiropractic profession are, in fact, irreconcilable. It is time to openly debate the issue of a professional split by engaging in formal and courageous discussions.

In effect, these Chiropractic Scrooges are attempting to do exactly what the AMA sought – to divide and conquer our profession. Paradoxically, these rebels are following the infamous Iowa Plan, “What Medicine Should Do about the Chiropractic Menace,”[1] and at the top of its list was to “encourage chiropractic disunity.”

Is this not the same attitude when Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde et al. speaks of “reasons for disharmony within the chiropractic profession are, in fact, irreconcilable. It is time to openly debate the issue of a professional split…”

Secondly, these Chiropractic Scrooges also are endorsing the illegal Principles of Medical Ethics[2] that the Wilk v. AMA antitrust trial revealed. At the heart of these evil ethics was Principle 3 that sounded eerily similar:

“A physician should practice a method of healing founded on scientific basis; and he should not voluntarily associate professionally with anyone who violates this principle.”[3]

Just as the Principles of Medical Ethics dictated to the AMA’s members, “A physician should practice a method of healing founded on scientific basis,” is this not the same attitude as Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde et al. who  speaks of those who do not  follow  “the general acceptance of evidence-based practice as the basis for health care”?

In other words, if DCs don’t follow the sanctified path of EBM deemed appropriate by Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde, then there should be a divorce.

I also find it shocking to hear her mocking “the ‘traditional’ group that subscribes to concepts such as ‘subluxation’ and the spine as the centre of good health.”

Indeed, if the brain, spine, and CNS are not the center of good health, what is more important?

I must ask: did Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde flunk Anatomy & Physiology 101?

Fallacy of EBM

Fortunately, not everyone has the same faith in EBM as Leboeuf-Yde. For example, Trisha Greenhalgh argues EBM has had negative unintended consequences in her paper, Evidence based medicine: a movement in crisis? (BMJ 2014). She believes problems have unexpectedly arisen in this movement, such as “Evidence based medicine has not resolved the problems it set out to address… This is particularly true when ideological biases are at play.”

Not only is the EBM path debatable, it is led by biased Chiropractic Scrooges who pick and choose which evidence to follow such as when they turn a blind eye to critical Cochrane Reviews, the Holy Grail of EBM.

This “unhappy family” declaration emphasizes “the ‘evidence-friendly’ faction that focuses on musculoskeletal problems based on a contemporary and evidence-based paradigm…” but they’ve lost sight of this claim.

This is the elephant in the room Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde and her colleagues seem to ignore. If these EBM advocates want strictly to follow the evidence, why did they omit the evidence of their European compatriot, Sidney M Rubinstein, DC, PhD, and his Cochrane Reviews on chiropractic that suggest SMT is no better than sham manipulation?

Yes, you heard me right — Rubinstein decided chiropractic care is no better than fake. In one fell swoop, he disembowels the third-largest physician-level profession in the world.

If the Rubinstein reviews are to be taken as gospel, Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde and her ardent supporters, Drs. Kawchuk, Hartvigsen, Wickes, and Perle, immediately need to shutter their colleges and the “evidence-friendly chiropractors” in private practice using sham adjustments must close their doors, including Dr. Rubinstein who is also a practicing chiropractor in the Netherlands. He must be terribly conflicted; after all, the Cochrane Reviews have spoken and must be followed by these EBM advocates!

Read for yourself the conclusions of the Rubinstein reviews:

CONCLUSION:

High-quality evidence suggests that there is no clinically relevant difference between SMT and other interventions for reducing pain and improving function in patients with chronic low-back pain.

CONCLUSION:

SMT is no more effective for acute low back pain than inert interventions, sham SMT or as adjunct therapy. SMT also seems to be no better than other recommended therapies.

These Chiropractic Scrooges also have more “friendly evidence” to follow by another medical curmudgeon, the notorious chirophobe Edzard Ernst, with his 2003 study[4] on LBP that concluded:

CONCLUSION: 

Collectively these data do not demonstrate that spinal manipulation is an effective intervention for any condition. Given the possibility of adverse effects, this review does not suggest that spinal manipulation is a recommendable treatment.

So, according to Ernst, chiropractic is no good for nothing; plus, he suggests without a shred of evidence that chiropractic care is dangerous despite being the safest of all spine treatments.

It’s important to investigate these critics who stand behind the mantle of evidence-based medicine as they lash out at our profession. Others have commented on Ernst’s bias, such as Professor Robert Hahn, a Swedish physician, scientist and professor at Linkoping University: “I’ve never seen a science writer who was so obviously biased as Edzard Ernst.”[5]

Dr. Avery Jenkins, a chiropractor and writer in Australia, also accused Ernst of misrepresenting the actual safety of spinal manipulation:

“What is interesting here is that Edzard Ernst is no rookie in academic publishing. In fact, he is a retired professor and founder of two medical journals. What are the odds that a man with this level of experience could overlook so many errors in his own data?

“So, Ernst’s article is either extremely poor science, or witheringly inept fraud. I’ll let the reader draw their own conclusion.”[6]

If these Chiropractic Scrooges are true to their word and follow the Cochrane Reviews, they must close their colleges and quit their research jobs since the EBM has spoken! Let’s say good-bye to CMCC, Univ. of Southern Denmark, and the University of Bridgeport, the bastions of these chiropractic curmudgeons. Goodbye, au revoir, auf wiedersehen, and farvel to these Chiropractic Scrooges!

There appears a double standard in spine care in this era of EBM considering a case can be made medical spine care–deemed a “national scandal” by the editor of the BackLetter–ignores any and all guidelines evident by its trail of opioid abuse/ addiction, the blatant overuse of epidural steroid injections, and the wake of disability left by unnecessary spine surgeries based on a debunked ‘bad disk’ diagnosis.

In fact, the AMA doesn’t follow guidelines, it follows the money. While these Scrooges argue over literature reviews and EBM, they totally ignore the important issues such as the wake of disability left by medical spine care, the lack of market share for chiropractors, and the epidemic of failed back surgery that we could be helping if our so-called leadership had its focus on real issues rather than arguing over trivial pursuits.

But their biggest faux pas is the disdain for vitalism and chiropractic philosophy. Just mentioning the possible metaphysical aspects of chiropractic will cause these Scrooges  to react as if they’ve just seen the Ghost from Christmas Past. “Bah humbug” is their attitude.

Undoubtedly, Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde and her friendly Scrooges also slept through Chiropractic Philosophy 101.

Aside from the balderdash of the Cochrane Reviews and Ernst, practice-based evidence (PBE) is the pragmatic evidence we find in the real world. Anne K Swisher, PT, PhD, in her paper, Practice-Based Evidence, puts the conflict between literature reviews and practice into perspective:

By now, most of us have become very familiar with “evidence-based practice” as the key to utilizing the best research to inform practice. However, this term is often misconstrued as “if it isn’t proven via an RCT (randomized controlled trial), it should never be done.” This misconception stems from the historical concept of the scientific method, which infers that we can understand our world in a cause and effect way.

However, to quote Albert Einstein, surely one of the greatest scientific minds in history: “Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.”

In the concept of Practice-Based Evidence, the real, messy, complicated world is not controlled. Instead, real world practice is documented and measured, just as it occurs, “warts” and all.

Fortunately for millions of patients, field chiropractors have been adjusting these “warts and all” for over a century getting great results as the new evidence has found despite the recent criticism by chiropractic curmudgeons.

Doubting Thomas

In keeping with the religious holiday season, most people understand the story about the Apostle known as Doubting Thomas, the one skeptic among the original disciples who refused to believe that the resurrected Jesus had appeared to the other ten apostles until he could see and feel the wounds received by Jesus on the cross.

We now see our own brand of Doubting Thomas among our Chiropractic Scrooges who are irrefutable nonbelievers of the Big Ideas of chiropractic. Clearly, Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde et al. have omitted the Big Ideas from their paradigm of chiropractic instead focusing solely on MSDs. In their quest to be ‘friendly’ with the evidence, they focused on the mechanical aspects and left out not only the neurological factor but, once again like Ebenezer Scrooge, they missed the vital spirit of healing itself, telling those who believe, “Bah humbug!”

In effect, there are many atheists who demand, “Show me your God.” Like Doubting Thomas, they must be shown the scars before they let themselves believe — faith in practice-based evidence (PBE) is not enuf, ya folla?

Inexplicably, these cynics have taken a blind eye to perhaps the most obvious, important, yet intangible aspect of health and chiropractic – vis medicatrix naturae,[7] the “healing power of nature.”

DD Palmer spoke of the incorrect analogy used by too many physicians and chiropractors alike:

“Man is not a machine – he is not subject to the laws which govern inanimate matter. The body has been likened to a pharmaceutical laboratory; to an electrical machine; to a gas machine; to an engine. But none of these express the action of functions directed by intelligence.”

Again, we are not machines. Indeed, they attempt to take the “bio” out of  biology; they want to remove the “life” from life sciences and ignore the “intelligence” in our bodies. On all counts they are sadly mistaken.

This dire Doubting Thomas situation was illustrated by another paper signed by more academic Scrooges who challenged traditional chiropractic principles, foremost vitalism:

[Note: this document was signed by 12 foreign chiropractic academic institutions or departments and one American chiropractic department (UB). Another North American chiro college, Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College, has also signed on. There are 40 chiro colleges throughout the world: 20 in the USA.]

CMCC affirmed in its position paper, “Backgrounder and Questions and Answers”:

“The concept of vitalism (or ‘neo-vitalism’) also widely varies among users of the term, and this debate has gone on for centuries among philosophers and biologists. Few practitioners would deny the very simplest use of the term to describe the human body’s inherent ability to regulate and health itself. It is when the use of the term expands to include metaphysical connotations of a life force connected to all organisms and which becomes blocked by vertebral subluxation, that most scientists, and the Position Statement, reject the concept.”

This declaration offers no proof that “most scientists…reject the concept.” To be precise, it should have read “most atheistic scientists…”

This paper only offer the opinions from the usual group of Scrooges who publish in Chiropractic & Manual Therapies, a magazine not considered a top-tier journal with any empirical value to practitioners but regarded more as a political opinion rag touting “chiropractic medicine” that also promotes prescription rights.

Their literary style is deemed “citation laundering”[8] whereby they play loose with the facts, embellish each other’s bias, and pass them on as “perceived wisdom” by like-minded dogmatists who quote each other or parrot incendiary comments such as we witness on FOX News and also with the notorious Institute of Science in Medicine, the medical propagandists of a similar cloth.

A fascinating 2014 paper, Academics and Practitioners Are Alike and Unlike: The Paradoxes of Academic-Practitioner Relationships,  found similar problems between academicians and practitioners that we see in chiropractic:

“Two other characteristics of this body of literature stand out. The debate has taken place mostly in journals aimed at academics rather than practitioners, and the journals in which it has evolved are not always regarded as top-tier.”

They also found many articles were op-ed articles:

“…the vast majority of the publications (87%) are non-empirical; during any given decade there have never been more than 20% empirical articles… the great majority are essays, many of which consist primarily of opinion statements.”

Like many “op-ed talking heads” on TV, these Scrooges characterize BJ Palmer’s comment on intellectual myopia blind to the real meaning of the Chiropractic spirit when he said:

“Many people suffer with a constipation of thought and a diarrhea of words. Many a man has the eyesight of a hawk and the vision of a clam.”[9]

These Chiropractic Scrooges simply do not understand the higher levels of life and health transcend merely the material world of bones, blood, and sinew tissue. Instead, the Palmer ‘principled’ chiropractors speak of the mind, energy, intelligence, homeostasis as well as explore the higher aspects of healthcare in the burgeoning field of health neuroscience[10],[11] including the exciting field of quantum physics.[12],[13]

Former Palmer President Virgil Strang explained how the early chiropractic philosophy worked with science:

The problem with trying to mesh chiropractic philosophy with science was that science at that time was still mainly mechanistic in its conceptualizations. Therefore, scientists were still quick to reject any form of vitalism.

From the very beginning days of chiropractic, there was a realization within the profession that the mechanistic philosophy of the allopaths was obviously missing something; their philosophy simply was unable to account for the fact that all of life seems to possess an organizing, purposeful force. In an attempt to remedy this situation, DD Palmer used the exquisite phrases “Universal Intelligence” and “Innate Intelligence” to speak of the organizing force that pervades everything from the vast galaxies to the simple squamous cells of the epithelium.

One must remember that DD Palmer was writing at a time when important mechanisms of neurology, homeostasis and genetics were still to be discovered. It was the age before scientific thinking was turned on its ear by the development of the concepts of energy and field in electro-magnetism, light, gravitation and the atom… there are today solid parallels in science which can allow us to assume with more confidence than ever that there is an overall organization in living matter which can be (and should be) accounted for by chiropractic philosophy…

The interesting thing about scientific research is that as it has unfolded over the past 100 years, the findings have invariably supported the major premises of chiropractic. Scientific research has done one thing in the 20th century for chiropractic philosophy: it has enabled us to now present a stronger case for the presence of intelligence (an organizing force) in both the universe and the human organism.[14]

The God Factor

This  conflict between believers and atheists is not a new concept in healthcare. Unknown to the chiropractic naysayers, there are brilliant scientists who believe in a vital force and who  cannot be disregarded by the chiropractic Scrooges.

For those unenlightened to such concepts in healthcare, they need to realize vitalism did not start with DD Palmer. According to Harvard professors David Eisenberg, MD, and Ted Kaptchuk, OMD, vitalism is a trans-professional concept:

Alternative medicine offers a person threatened by illness or disease a connection with fundamentally benign, lawful, coherent, potent, and even meaningful powers. When illness isolates, alternative health care allows a rescuing connection to life-supporting cosmic forces. This vital energy takes myriad forms: homeopathy speaks of a “spiritual vital essence”, chiropractic refers to the “innate”, and acupuncture is said to involve the flow of “qi”. Ayurvedic medicine is based on the power called “prana”, and new age healing practices work with “psychic” or “astral” energies. The alternative alliance routinely claims that its methods rely on enhancing “life forces” as opposed to “destroying” them with artificial drugs and surgery.[15]

Once again it appears the Chiropractic Scrooges flunked Chiropractic Philosophy 303.

Another famous medical leader spoke of his personal and professional conflicts as a believer working in an atheistic medical profession.

Dr. Francis R. Collins, author of The Language of God, The Language of Life, the past director of the Human Genome Project, presently the Director of the National Institutes of Health, and undoubtedly the most powerful medical voice in the nation today, spoke of the conflict of metaphysics vs. science.

Not surprisingly, Dr. Collins admits as many as sixty percent of doctors and scientists are atheists.

Click here to view his video.

Dr. Collins addressed this conflict between religion and medical science when he said for many “faith can be seen as an enemy,” a notion echoed by the chiropractic cynics who belittle chiropractic philosophy:

Scientists are very troubled by a suggestion that other kinds of approaches can be taken to derive truth about nature.  And some I think have seen faith as therefore a threat to the scientific method and therefore it to be resisted.

I think for many scientists, particularly for those who have seen the shrill pronouncements from extreme views that threaten what they’re doing scientifically and feel therefore they can’t really include those thoughts into their own worldview, faith can be seen as an enemy.

And similarly, on the other side, some of my scientific colleagues who are of an atheist persuasion are sometimes using science as a club over the head of believers basically suggesting that anything that can’t be reduced to a scientific question isn’t important and just represents superstition that should be gotten rid of.

Part of the problem is, I think, the extremists have occupied the stage.  Those voices are the ones we hear.  I think most people are actually kind of comfortable with the idea that science is a reliable way to learn about nature, but it’s not the whole story and there’s a place also for religion, for faith, for theology, for philosophy.  But that harmony perspective does not get as much attention, nobody’s as interested in harmony as they are in conflict, I’m afraid.[16]

One of the most important physicists of the 20th Century, Max Planck, a German theoretical physicist considered to be the initial founder of quantum theory and, also gave his endorsement of the God Factor when he said:

Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: Ye must have faith. It is a quality which the scientist cannot dispense with.[17]

Both religion and science need for their activities the belief in God, and moreover God stands for the former in the beginning, and for the latter at the end of the whole thinking. For the former, God represents the basis, for the latter – the crown of any reasoning concerning the worldview.[18]

Under these conditions it is no wonder that the movement of atheists, which declares religion to be just a deliberate illusion invented by power-seeking priests, and which has for the pious belief in a higher Power nothing but words of mockery, eagerly makes use of progressive scientific knowledge and in a presumed unity with it, expands in an ever faster pace its disintegrating action on all nations of the earth and on all social levels.[19]

Lest the nonbelievers within our ranks recall the vitalistic concept is also shared by many of our leaders including Dr. Louis Sportelli, past president of the ACA, WFC, and NCMIC:

“Vitalism is part of who we are as healers and chiropractors, and now the evidence is overwhelming that vitalism is as important as the scientific aspect of health care.  I make no apologies for knowing and understanding that vitalism is a critical component, and we need that balance of both to be effective.”[20]

Conflict in Canada

CMCC President David Wickes may rue the day when he referred to chiropractors who manage vertebral subluxation as the “gangrenous arm that needs to be cut off to save the chiropractic profession.”[21] I daresay his incongruous remark not only rejects Dr. Strang’s comment,  it also flies in the face of his CMCC predecessor, Dr. AE Homewood.

Dr. Wickes also made another bold yet unproven announcement that needs to be challenged:

“As an educational institution, CMCC is willing to challenge dogma and practices that are founded primarily on beliefs and which have become invalidated by emerging science.”

Yet Dr. Wickes fails again to cite any “emerging science” that has invalidated these beliefs of the God Factor. I am curious to learn of any scientist who can disprove there is a vital force.

Contrary to Wickes’ daring dogma, Max Planck mentioned the compatibility of religion and science:

The most immediate proof of the compatibility of religion and natural science, even under the most thorough critical scrutiny, is the historical fact that the very greatest natural scientists of all times—men such as Kepler, Newton, Leibniz — were permeated by a most profound religious attitude. [22]

Dr. Planck’s concern about atheists who mock a “higher Power” was also evident with the clash at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College between its legacy and current leader.

Dr. Wickes asserts his willingness to “challenge dogma,” but fails to recognize his own dogma conflicts with not only Max Planck and Francis Collins, but with his predecessor at CMCC, the late Dr. AE Homewood, DC, ND, FICC, former president of Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College and the Los Angeles College of Chiropractic, wrote a fascinating leading-edge book in 1962 (updated in 1977), The Neurodynamics of the Vertebral Subluxation:

DD Palmer recognized full well the importance of the nervous system in its controlling and integrating activities, but went beyond this in his recognition of the necessity for normal neural activity to maintain the integrity of the cellular elements of the entire human structure. This latter activity he relegated to the supervision of “Innate Intelligence,” an arbitrary name to designate a peculiar functional capacity of the nervous system, more recently called homeostasis.

First, he recognized a superhuman, infinite force, “Universal Intelligence.” God Cosmic Law, etc. Within each individual he visualized a tiny segment of that Universal Intelligence. Furthermore, an infinitesimal spark of Innate resides in each living cell. Thus, each cell “knows” how to acquire nutrition, eliminate metabolites, reproduce, function according to a plan, and react to environmental conditions, both normal and adverse.

Many have scoffed at the use of the term “Innate Intelligence,” but, as utilized by DD Palmer, it possesses the explanatory significance few other terms boast. Unfortunately, the term has been abused and utilized as a subterfuge to disguise ignorance, intellectual laziness or frank intellectual dishonesty. There seems little reason to discard such an expressive term and no apology should be made by the chiropractic profession for the utilization of this portion of the heritage in proper context.[23]

Certainly, Dr. Wickes’ comments about vitalism today typify what Max Planck wrote about the disintegrating “words of mockery” that would have both he and Dr. Homewood rolling over in their graves.

Dr. Homewood wrote about the “evolutionary process” of chiropractic:

“Certainly, this text is not intended to be a final theory upon which chiropractic explanation will be based for posterity, but, rather, a step in the evolutionary process of understanding the basic principles enunciated by DD Palmer and a step closer to the truth and realization of the broadness of the principles upon which chiropractic methods were founded.”

“It must be appreciated that research continues and that what is accepted as fact today may be supplanted by new knowledge tomorrow…

Homewood’s comment about research being supplanted by new knowledge was analogous to Planck who commented on the role of “imaginative vision and faith in the ultimate success”:

Again and again the imaginary plan on which one attempts to build up that order breaks down and then we must try another. This imaginative vision and faith in the ultimate success are indispensable. The pure rationalist has no place here.[24]

This may be the main problem regarding the ICY Policy proponents in that they cannot ‘think out of the box’ with “imaginative vision and faith” and offer no evidence, no hope, nor any new research to disprove the basic Palmer principles. Instead, they are merely gaslighting the profession.

Building Another Berlin Wall

In their effort to belittle classic chiropractic these Chiropractic Scrooges stooped to a new low with an openly brazen spectacle at the Berlin WFC conference:

  • Chair of the WFC Research Council and ICY signee, Greg Kawchuk DC, PhD, also pulled no punches when he compared bringing children to a vitalistic chiropractor was equivalent to taking them to a pedophile Catholic priest. His supporters (obviously not Catholics) joyfully responded by throwing empty plastic water bottles from the audience onto the stage.
  • At the WFC Berlin conference, Jan Hartvigsen DC, PhD, also a member of the WFC Research Council, said “subluxation was imaginary” and the practice of using x-rays to identify subluxation and outcomes of care was “absolutely rubbish.”
  • CMCC President Dr. Wickes didn’t mince words when he called chiropractors who manage vertebral subluxation the “gangrenous arm that needs to be cut off to save the chiropractic profession.”[25]
  • Dr. Stephen Perle from UB revealed himself in a debate on the ACA Open Forum when he said, “I’ve never seen a subluxation… So please show me one.  Please provide the evidence that one exists…We don’t know that any chiropractor has ever detected or corrected one.” Is it any wonder students graduating from UB are confused?

While two naysayers, Drs. Greg Kawchuk and Jan Hartvigsen, enjoyed their 15 minutes of blasphemy in Berlin as their impudent brown shirt fraternity brothers in the audience threw plastic water bottles onto the stage, their unprofessional show was totally contrary to the unifying goal of the WFC that lost a fine leader when Dr. Laurie Tassell from Australia resigned immediately.

It is a sad day when a leader of his stature is shamed by the extremists who occupied the stage. It must have broken his heart to hear their disrespect on a worldwide platform under this leadership.

Hopefully at the next WFC in Tokyo the principled proponents will be given the floor in an open forum to clear the air in a fair debate. I doubt they will be having disrespectful tantrums or partaking in ugly name-calling when confronted by their peers of a different mindset.

In front of the worldwide WFC audience, I would love to hear Stephen Perle justify his gaslighting to prove subluxations don’t exist or have Jan Hartvigsen explain why “subluxations are imaginary.” We all would be curious to learn how traditional chiropractors are equivalent to “pedophiles” according to Greg Kawchuk or why David Wickes believes vitalism is the “gangrenous arm” that needs to be excised. Such callous remarks demand an explanation and apology.

If these four Scrooges have the backbone to hear push-back from the audience, perhaps it’s a good “time to openly debate the issue of a professional split by engaging in formal and courageous discussions” as Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde urged. Perhaps it’s time to let them fly the chiropractic coop to find a new flock to annoy with their regressive ideas.

DD Palmer once wrote, “Is it possible that the science of Chiropractic has arrived before its time?”[26] Apparently the Big Ideas of chiropractic are still ahead of the Scrooges who have the “vision of a clam” as BJ added. [27]

Chiropractic Impeachment

Again, Dr. Collins foresaw this conflict between the atheists and believers when he warned how “the extremists have occupied the stage”:

“Those voices are the ones we hear.  I think most people are actually kind of comfortable with the idea that science is a reliable way to learn about nature, but it’s not the whole story and there’s a place also for religion, for faith, for theology, for philosophy.  But that harmony perspective does not get as much attention, nobody’s as interested in harmony as they are in conflict, I’m afraid.”  

I would be remiss not to mention one problem fueling the fire of our malcontents have been the chirovangelists, demagogues, and scalawags who occupied the stage in the name of straight chiropracTIC with hyperbolic claims (“The only thing chiropractic can’t cure is rigor mortis”) and charismatic theatre including the infamous Money Hum.

Neither extremist group ranging from atheists to chirovangelists is without sin, but somewhere in the middle of this conflict are the majority of DCs who use PBE and “best practices” but have no qualms about the unique chiropractic terminology, philosophy of natural healing, or the implications of the God Factor. 

We just don’t hear from them because they haven’t access to the stage.

And they certainly don’t throw plastic bottles onto the stage.

Perhaps at the next ACC-RAC or WFC conference, a panel discussion on the Big Ideas would also be appropriate to bring together the philosophers, neuroscientists, quantum physics proponents, vitalists, and naysayers to discuss these issues in an open format rather than spouting dogma from their ivory towers or taking childish cheap shots on stage with no accountability.

This discussion should raise this “divorce” issue as CYL suggests where the atheists and vitalists can argue their points by “engaging in formal and courageous discussions” without throwing plastic bottles onto the stage.

I don’t know if atheists and believers can co-exist together, but as Benjamin Franklin once said, “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

[1] G McAndrews, “Plaintiffs’ Summary of Proofs as an Aid to the Court,” Civil Action No. 76 C 3777, Wilk, (June 25, 1987) Throckmorton, Howard, Taylor, and Monaghon Deps. PX-172 (November 11, 1962)

[2] G McAndrews closing argument, Wilk v. AMA, p. 69.

[3] PX-56, 156A

[4] Ernst E, Canter PH. Chiropractic spinal manipulation treatment for back pain: a systematic review of randomized clinical trials. Physical Therapy Reviews. 2003;8:85–91

[5] http://www.homeopathyheals.me.uk/site/front-page/111-frontpage/4336-swedish-professor-says-edzard-ernst-s-meta-analyses-on-homeopathy-are-biased

[6] http://www.averyjenkins.com/?p=1941

[7] Vis medicatrix naturae (literally “the healing power of nature” and also known as natura medica) is the Latin rendering of the Greek Νόσων φύσεις ἰητροί (“Nature is the physician(s) of diseases”), a phrase attributed to Hippocrates.

[8] “On the Media”, NPR, March 18, 2012, http://www.onthemedia.org/2012/mar/16/calculating-body-counts

[9] Don’t Take Yourself So Damn Serious (the value of travel)

[10] Health Neuroscience: Defining a New Field

[11] Behavioral Interventions in Health Neuroscience

[12] Quantum physics in neuroscience and psychology: a neurophysical model of mind–brain interaction

[13] Hypothesizing the body’s genius to trigger and self-organize its healing: 25 years using a standardized neurophysics therapy

[14] VV Strang, Essential Principles of Chiropractic, Palmer College of Chiropractic, Davenport, (1984): 33-35.

[15] Kaptchuk Ted J., OMD, and David M. Eisenberg, MD The Persuasive Appeal of Alternative Medicine, Annals of Internal  Medicine, 15 December 1998 | Volume 129 Issue 12 | Pages 1061-1065

[16] Interviewed by David Hirschman, Recorded September 13, 2010, BigThink.com

[17] Where Is Science Going? (1932)

[18] Religion und Naturwissenschaft (1958 edition), p. 27, as quoted in 50 Nobel Laureates and Other Great Scientists Who Believe in God (2008) by Tihomir Dimitrov

[19] Religion und Naturwissenschaft (1958)

[20] https://www.pspexpert.com/courses/psp-masterclass-series/lectures/10453120

https://www.pspexpert.com/courses/psp-masterclass-series/lectures/10453126

[21] Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College Joins Anti-Subluxation Hate Group, The Chronicle of Chiropractic, April 21, 2019 

[22] Religion und Naturwissenschaft (1958)

[23] A.E. Homewood, The Neurodynamics of the Vertebral Subluxation, Valkyrie Press, Inc, (1962): 267.

[24] Where Is Science Going? (1932

[25] Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College Joins Anti-Subluxation Hate Group, The Chronicle of Chiropractic, April 21, 2019 

[26]  DD Palmer, ibid. p. 847

[27] Don’t Take Yourself So Damn Serious (the value of travel)

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