Paralyzed woman sues chiropractic for half billion

I'm not a big fan of chiropractors but this is crazy...and I would suspect it doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell, as a class-action suit.

Now, the damages that this woman suffered, if due to the negligence of her particular chiropractor, is an entirely different matter (she should be fully compensated--at least to the extent money can ever mend a permanent and severe physical injury). But to sue an entire profession for the individual injury she may have suffered due to the actions of an individual professional??

Yes. I've read the article. And, like I said, I'm not a big fan of chiropractic.

But, it's kinda like the quackery of herbal medicines, no? None (or very, very little) of that is scientific and I suspect that some people have relied on herbal remedies to their detriment when they should have relied on traditional medicine. I suppose we could sue all the purveyors of herbal treatments as well.

Ditto the purveyors of "Christian Science" (pray to Gawd instead of getting proper medical treatment).

What about FN "medicinal" treatments?

But, I have a better idea: If these non-scientific methods of treatment are, on balance, more harmful that good, why permit their practice at all? Make a legislative decision. Don't have lawyers and courts making public policy decisions.

I also have a jaded view of class-action lawsuits. In large class-actions, the individual members of the class usually get a pittance while the lawyers make millions. Let's say a mere 1/10th of one percent of all Canadians were in the class (or 99.9% of all Canadians being excluded). That tiny fraction of the population would, after the lawyers skim 40% off of the top of a half-billion award, each receive about ten grand. The lawyer? Well, at 40% of the total award, he would walk away with $200 million!!!

It's a pretty inefficient means of establishing public policy.

I wouldn't say that chiropractors have no use. Certain types of lower back pain for instance. The problem is of course people going to see them for years when they don't need to. People getting their neck manipulated for no reason. People saying well my benefit package says I can spend up to whatever amount on chiropractors without a prescription so I am going make sure I use it all even though I have no medical reason to go. Imagine if someone said: well my benefits say that I can use $10,000 dollars of prescription meds a year - there is nothing wrong with me, but I wouldn't want that benefit going to waste unused so I will take 200 metoprolols, 200 labetalols etc, etc.

[url=http://www.ukskeptics.com/article.php?dir=articles&article=chiropractic.... skeptic's view of chiropractic care[/url]

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What about FN "medicinal" treatments?

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And what of them Sven? Do you anything about FN treatments? WTF do you always use FN people's methods and ways to show some nasty point? This isn't the first time you've done that (I suspect it won't be the last).

But please do tell us, what are FN medical treatments Sven? I am really interested in hearing what you think they are, exactly.

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So under the constant care of her chiropractor she was perfectly healthy....thanks for making my point.

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But she wasn't made healthy by chiropractic, she didn't go to him with a condition, he practiced on a perfectly healthy person with nothing wrong, and caused terrible harm.

I used to go to a chiropracter years ago, because of some stiffness in my kneck. i admit that the adjustments fet sort of good, and I was a bit loose for a while after. Gave me headaches though. This guy used to have a whole family come in for weekly adjustments. Mom, Dad, and at least three small kids including a toddler. While mom had once hurt her back somehow, with the kids, it was purely prophelactic. Wasn't a think wrong with them

The same chiro, on finding what I did for a living, told me chiropractic would cure schizophrenia. I was out of there shortly after.

Oh, he did mention something about a one in millions chance of adjustments being related to a stroke, but that it couldn't happen the way he did it.

Another chiro I had been to years earlier suggested I start adjustments on my newborn son. My family Dr., a calm and openminded person flipped when he heard.

As someone who works in the mental health field, I am very sensitive to the limitations of maain stream medicine, and open minded to alternatives, but chiropractic is appearing to be dihonest and potentially destructive.

RF, I'm glad you've found a treatment which helps you, but you might want to check what the statisiics regarding risk really are. In my case, I think I was lied to.

double post.

[ 13 June 2008: Message edited by: farnival ]

Farnival, you are quite wrong that chiropractors receive the "same initial medical training as doctors, then specialize". Yes, they get training in anatomy etc. but they cannot do differential diagnosis. They cannot do hospital rounds, cannot operate, cannot prescribe medications cannot order a host of tests, interventions and treatments those who graduate as medical doctors can offer.

You don't go to med school at McMaster or U of T, get an M.D. and then specialize in chiropractic. you go to the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College (or other chiropractic college) which, unfortunately, along with bio-medical classes also teaches and supports a lot of training based on subluxation and pseudoscience.

Chiropractors can call themselves doctors, yes, but if you look at their [url=http://www.cco.on.ca/scope_of_practice_and_authorized_acts.htm]scope of practice[/url] you will see it is limited primarily to musculoskeletal issues.

Chiropractors themselves believe that gives them license to treat all manner of disease and to be primary health professions. That is not the intent of their circumscribed scope of practise.

And, the chiropractic adjustment of subluxations is very different from a dentist cleaning someone's teeth. The difference is, teeth exist.

[ 13 June 2008: Message edited by: Wayne MacPhail ]

Catchfire, in terms of studies that prove chiropractic is useful for lower back pain, it's important to note that those studies, including the most famous "RAND" study, (The Appropriateness of Spinal Manipulation for Lower Back Pain, Shekelle et al) looked at spinal manipulation by all health care professionals, not just chiropractors. For example, the RAND study did a meta-analysis of fifty studies but only four involved chiropractic adjustment. Even then, considering all the studies, the RAND researchers found very little value in spinal manipulation for back pain.

There are a good number of non-scientific but highly political reasons why chiropractic has not been effectively regulated, and we go into them in the book. And, it is precisely why the class action suit goes after the Ministry of Health and Wellness in Alberta.

"Why should we value the anecdote in the article and not, say, Francesca's?"

We all have to set our own standards of evidence. I would offer the coincidence of events, the damage to the vertebral arteries, the outcome and the experience of Edmonton neurologists as pretty compelling. You must make your own call.

I guess to add to that point, I at one time had positive anecdotes. It felt kind of good really, and was loosening me up a bit. Then I was getting more headaches, and the more I heard the more things failed to pass the "sniff test".

The complainant probably had positive anecdotes right up until the day she didn't.

Lets look at the number of people who die from unnecessary surgery every year, plastic surgery, liposuction, breast implants. A friend of mine lost movement in one shoulder because a she got in infection after receiving a cortisone injection from a qualified physician. Every person should know, every procedure performed by any person, has a risk, qualifications and type of training are a side issue to that.

As for chiropractors do nothing. That's just idiocy. My brother in law came home from a party one night, rather hammered, and woke up the next morning unable to speak, well he could say "shit" or "fuck" but nothing else. He went to his doctor who's response was, "He's got a pinched nerve in his neck. There's nothing I can do about it, lets just leave it for a few weeks. " He went to his chiropractor, the manipulation put the nerve back in place, and my brother in law was spared any permanent damage that might have been incurred had the nerve had remained pinched for a long period of time. So really, lets not get in to laundering our biases because someone got hurt in an chiropractic adjustment. People get hurt in car accidents driving to the cottage. We don't sue cottage builders or car makers or highway builders most of the time. People are expected to perform to the best of their ability within the acceptable practices established by their disciplines. No one is expected to be perfect. Not car builders, not road builders, not chiropractors, not plastic surgeons, not GPs not orthopedic surgeons, not even your hairdresser. They are expected to practice with the best information they have, and every patient should know that in cutting your toe nails, you're taking a risk.

Should this woman be compensated? Of course. Should we be launching a witch hunt against a whole discipline of care? Get real.

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Every person should know, every procedure performed by any person, has a risk, qualifications and type of training are a side issue to that.

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Do you think that the practitioner and their college owe it to the patient to be fully honest about the risk?

Do you think proceedures which carry a level of risk be performed on patients who have no presenting health issues?

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Originally posted by oldgoat:
...I [b]believe[/b] it is being suggested here that the chiropractic industry, (i make no statement about individual practitioners as I don't know enough) is routinely misleading the public about risks, efficacy of treatment, and is practicing intrusive techniques on fundamentally healthy people, which is fundamentally unethical. This is big, and needs to be looked at.
...

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from the wiki on
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiropractic]Chiropractic[/url] (yeah, yeah, slag the source. it's referenced nicely though)

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Wilk et al. vs. American Medical Association
Chester A. Wilk, DC from Chicago initiated an antitrust suit against the AMA and other medical associations in 1976 - Wilk et al. vs AMA et al.[89] The landmark lawsuit ended in 1987 when the US District Court found the AMA guilty of conspiracy and restraint of trade; the Joint Council on Accreditation of Hospitals and the American College of Physicians were exonerated. The court recognized that the AMA had to show its concern for patients, but was not persuaded that this could not have been achieved in a manner less restrictive of competition, for instance by public education campaigns.[9] A summary of the court's opinion concluded:
"Evidence at the trial showed that the defendants took active steps, often covert, to undermine chiropractic educational institutions, conceal evidence of the usefulness of chiropractic care, undercut insurance programs for patients of chiropractors, subvert government inquiries into the efficacy of chiropractic, engage in a massive disinformation campaign to discredit and destabilize the chiropractic profession and engage in numerous other activities to maintain a medical physician monopoly over health care in this country."[9]
On February 7, 1990, the AMA lost its appeal,[90] and could no longer prevent medical physicians from collaborating with chiropractors.[9]

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a similar action was taken here in Canada by Canadian Chiropractors shortly after that ruling and the CMA lost. Doctors can no longer lose their professional licenses by "associating" with chiropractors and can now refer them.

If it wasn't for chiropractors i would be a drugged up pain victim, unable to walk properly or turn my head side to side. no, i didn't "grow out of it" or " it was in my head" like every damn medical doctor told me.

I got severe whiplash as a kid, when i was about 7 years old. unfortunately for me, i moved to the interior of BC shortly afterwards, and spent the next six years waking up with what doctors said was a "pinched nerve/s" causing me to not be able to turn my head or lift it off my shoulder for days or weeks.

i had a "minor scoliatic curve" in my middle back that apparently , when i occasionally bent over to tie my shoes, or reach for something on a high shelf, would cause my middle back to "go out" and leave me gasping for breath and doubled over, unable to stand straight up.

i dislocated my shoulder skateboarding when i was 15 and now if i sleep with my left arm above my head, it causes a "pinched nerve" that makes pain shoot up the left side of my neck, brutal stiffness and a facial tic around my left eye and eyelid.

my right leg pronates outward. occasionally, when i am less fit, this causes a "pinched nerve" in my lower back and i can't walk. literally. oh, you've got "sciatica" i'm told.

i've used quotes on the diagnoses from medical doctors. how does subluxation, or a misalignment of vertebrae, not exist if conventional doctors attribute my problems to "pinched nerves" or "sciatica" which is a "pinched nerve"?

in every case, i have been told for years to lie down, don't be so clumsy, you're just going to have to get used to it (my favorite), or the best, well, it's in your head.

then...here's a prescription for xyz pain killer. stop riding your bike and doing sports. you just aren't able to do that any more.

well fuck you medical establishement.

i found an excellent chiropractor in winnipeg when i was 16, who thoroughly examined me, [i]actually listened[/i] to my thoughts on my injuries and pain, and was the [i]the first medical practitioner to question me about my diet and excercise/fitness levels.[/i]. he very logically suggested that a poor diet inhibits healing (duh) and rehabilitative excercise would help in maintaining health (duh). such quackery eh?

he then took x-rays, showed me what he considered to be the problems i was suffering, and we went to work. i say we, because i was informed and educated in a totally transparent manner on what was going on, and what he expected from me in order to facilitate my recovery.

When i moved to Toronto 7 years ago, i was recomended an excellent chiropractor whom my winnipeg chiro transferred all my records to. I recently reviewed my progress with him after not going for a year and a half, due to him leaving and transferring his practice to his partner. we looked at all my x-rays since i was 16. i'm now 38.

i no longer have neck or middle back issues. if i sleep with my arm up, 1 adjustment fixes it. no drugs. no lying down. if my hip "goes out" as the medicos say, usually about 3 adjustments fixes it. no drugs. no time off work.

did i mention the hip issue is worsened by lack of fitness? well, i cycle year round, am vegetarian, and have no illnesses. a year and a half ago, i built up a new touring bike for commuting, with ergonomic advice from my chiropractor, who is also a lifelong road cyclist. i am certain this has been the reason i haven't been to see him in a year and a half. i do pilates once a week for core strength (oops, another quack discipline) and as long as i do, no hip issues. a few years ago, my pilates instructor was invited by my chiropractor to observe one of my adjustments. they talked and he expressed his views on my hip and that he was considering referring me to a specialist for orthotics. she said "give me 3 months", and we focused on alignment excercises.

before the 3 months were up, i had to buy all new shoes, and didn't need orthotics, and my hip has only been a problem once, when i was severely out of shape from hernia surgery. (which i saw a surgeon for, not a chiropractor, duh)

so. chiropractic care fixed what ailed me without drugs, counselled a healthy diet and excersise, and in my chiro's case, has a rule of after 12 visits or a lengthy absence, a full examination of range of motion, balance and weight distribution by [i]a trained kinesiologist on staff[/i] , and possibly x-rays again if the last visit was long enough ago to see what's going on and to guage progress.

what MD has ever engaged in such thorough proceedures and treatment, or has taken such an active, long-term interest in my well being? he even called me at home to see how i was doing during the past year. i said i felt great, and we chatted about my health and how my bike/cycling was feeling. who does that these days? well, apparently only my chiropractor.

conventional medicine told me i was wrecked for good, get used to it, and here's a prescription for codiene and some stool softener because you get bunged up from codiene. lovely.

conclusion? i'll stick with the quackery thank you very much. and i will wait for the underlying medical condition in this particular case to come to light, just as it did with the similar lawsuit against the Saskatchewan chiropractor accused of the same thing. btw, what ever happened to that? oh, right. nothing. they lost. even after all the hullabaloo and similar vilification in the media.

have fun with your pain folks. robaxicet platinum works as a band-aid pretty well if you can't get codeine, but don't try to work on it, and for heaven's sake, don't operate any heavy machinery, drive, or participate in normal life while under it's spell.

[ 13 June 2008: Message edited by: farnival ]

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Originally posted by Michelle:
[b]The issue in this case is not one of someone who is in pain and went to a chiropractor to get fixed. This is a case of a perfectly healthy woman in no pain whatsoever who went regularly to a chiropractor who allegedly performed a dangerous and unnecessary invasive treatment on her without informing her of the risks.

And apparently, it's quite common for people to get their necks cracked regularly by chiropractors as "preventative" therapy.

If the profession is allowing and endorsing such dangerous treatment, they should be made to stop.

[ 13 June 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ][/b]

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yes, michelle, the "preventative" therapy is the same as dentists promote. the reason i didn't go during the year and a half hiatus for a checkup was financial. chiropractic is not fully covered by Medicare. i go for preventative care now my problems were corrected. i cycle, xc ski, and sail, all of which are hard on your body. why wouldn't i want to be healthy?

like i said before, i look forward to this case collapsing just like all the others have before them. as it was said, does this woman deserve compensation? yes? does her case throw out the whole profession? no.

btw, chiropractors prescribe no drugs, and don't penetrate any part of the body, so it's by definiton [i]non-invasive[/i]

[ 13 June 2008: Message edited by: farnival ]

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Originally posted by Michelle:
[b]

How very interesting.

Do dentists and dental associations suggest that their patients
a) use too hard of a toothbrush
b) not floss
c) share toothbrushes?

If so, then you'd have a good analogy. Otherwise, you're proving my point - dentists tell people to NOT do these things in order to prevent illness.

Chiropractors, on the other hand, tell their patients that they SHOULD submit to dangerous treatments as "preventative" therapy.[/b]

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read my post again. you see a dentist for regular checkups and cleanings to prevent your personal practices and habits from becoming dangerous or degenerative. If i go to the dentist and have no cavities, does he give me a filling anyway? no. of course not.

if i go to the chiropractor because my hip, not my neck, hurts, does he adjust my neck? no. of course not.

when i go to the dentist every 9 months (funny that. dentists recommend 6 but my work plan only covers every nine.) to get my teeth cleaned and checked, he cleans them as a matter of course, as a preventative. i could have brushed and flossed for the whole 9 months, but they still clean them.

when i'm feeling good, but am involved in my physical endeavours that strain my musclulo-skeletal system, i go to get a preventative checkup at my chiropractor to make sure everything is ship shape and there isn't a hidden problem developing. if isn't, i have a nice conversation and checkup, and no adjustment. that hasn't happened much in my case as i'm a klutz and wipe out or fall down or exceed my skill level regularly (and hilariously) and adjustments keep me in good alignment and health. chiropractors are not robots that are programmed to do a task without analysis.

there is nothing wrong at all with holding an individual health practiioner responsible for their actions or unskillful delivery of care. i don't see class action lawsuits from people dying from hospital aquired infections or misprescribing or misdiagnosing illnesses.

oh, wait. botched cancer test on the east coast. let's ban radiology.

oh wait. botched forensic pathology in Ontario, resulting in real people having real lives destroyed and going to real jail to do real time. let's ban pathology.

oh wait. people being accused of pedophelia based on flawed or untrue testimony, or accused and convicted of murder based on hypnosis or vindictive jailhouse derived testimony. lets ban the police and courts and lawyers!

these were individuals not living up to thier professional standards of practice, not an indictment of a whole profession.

this whole thing will disappear just like the other lawsuits. just watch.

[ 13 June 2008: Message edited by: farnival ]

well, based on that testimony boom boom, i think we have a case for outright banning of the profession!

i went to the doctor for the pain in my neck and he told me to take some pain killers and get used to it. i went to the chiro and he fixed it with out drugs and took me seriously.

so lets ban doctors that don't care too.

[ 13 June 2008: Message edited by: farnival ]

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Originally posted by farnival:
[b]the best thing about this lawsuit is that it will prove the science and efficacy of chiropractic once and for all.[/b]

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But there, unfortunately, you are wrong. A court is not designed, or equipped, to make scientific judgments. A jury makes a decision of what seems to be correct. There’s no science involved.

The only practical means of establishing the science and efficacy, or lack thereof, of chiropractic is to have a legislative inquiry into the matter, with public hearings of experts, and then a legislative decision to either permit it (perhaps with additional regulations) or prohibit it.

This is another reason this class-action is a sham. It will enrich a lawyer or two (if successful), it will divert a pittance to each individual class member, and it will establish nothing scientifically.