Paralyzed woman sues chiropractic for half billion II

I haven't read the entire thread but if someone is going to take the entire concept of chiropractic treatment and manipulation to task they'd better be willing to pick on osteopaths as well. Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine is wide spread.

By the same token, "mainstream medical schools" have departments of "manipulative medicine" which is essentially chiropractic by a different name.

It's Me D asked for citations

When the National Association of Letter Carriers Health Plan included chiropractic, it received claims for treatment of cancer, heart disease, mumps, mental retardation and many other questionable conditions. In 1964, chiropractors were asked to justify such claims by sending x-ray evidence of spinal problems. They submitted hundreds, all of which were supposed to show subluxations. When chiropractic officials were asked to review them, however, they were unable to point out a single subluxation.

In the late 80's Joseph Keating conducted a controlled trail to see if chiropractors using common diagnostic techniques could find the same subluxations. They could not. A meta-analysis of literature on the subject by David M Panzer discovered that palpatation (often used to detect subluxations) revealed only marginal-to-poor interexaminer reliability.

In 2001 Paul Benedetti and I conducted our own test, sending a perfectly healthy child to a handful of chiropractors, all of whom detected different subluxations in her spine and all of whom had different diagnosis for what was wrong with a perfectly normal young girl with a healthy spine.

Since subluxations don't exist, this was not a surprising outcome.

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

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

Thanks for providing more information Wayne, though I am still curious from whence this information comes; excepting the 2001 example where you were personally involved. As to that example:

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In 2001 Paul Benedetti and I conducted our own test, sending a perfectly healthy child to a handful of chiropractors, all of whom detected different subluxations in her spine and all of whom had different diagnosis for what was wrong with a perfectly normal young girl with a healthy spine.

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This sounds like capitalism's problem not chiro's but why not apply some scientific method to your study, ie: a) try this with mainstream doctors? b) try this in a scenario where the chiropractors derive no personally income from whether or not they treat the "patient"? This would make your data a lot more valuable IMO.

I can certainly name more than a "handful" of examples of misdiagnosis by mainstream medicine and many such examples have already been named in this thread. Drugs are often unncessarily perscribed for one, particularly to children.

By the way, care to comment on my experience with signing the waiver and being able to refuse neck adjustments?

No, I'm not a chiropractor. I related my experience with chiropractic in the first thread. I wish that some Babble chiropractor would speak up, though. Not likely in this environment, however.

What I was told about the risk of neck adjustments was that, in a few very rare instances something has happened, and I do remember hearing about stroke. Naturally, this freaked me out. So I think I probably didn't allow her to adjust there for quite some time, and may have only allowed it on a few occasions. Not having the neck adjustment sometimes made the treatment feel a little incomplete. But I trusted my body to deal with that imbalance over time.

I often adjust my own neck, which of course feels safer to me. Many people do. It's a fairly common practice. And I have had cold symptoms nipped in the bud both through chiropractic and through massage. It's usually a problem with a knot or some tension or pinching in the c-spine pulling one of the vertebra out of alignment.

It is worth noting that not all chiropractors operate using the same theoretical assumptions.

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Common themes to chiropractic care include holistic, conservative and non-medication approaches via manual therapy.[29] Still, significant differences exist amongst the practice styles, claims and beliefs between various chiropractors.[13]

Straight chiropractors are the oldest movement.[30] They adhere to the philosophical principles set forth by D. D. and B. J. Palmer, and retain metaphysical definitions and vitalistic qualities. Straight chiropractors believe that vertebral subluxation leads to interference with an Innate intelligence within the human nervous system and is a primary underlying risk factor for almost any disease. Straights view the medical diagnosis of patient complaints (which they consider to be the "secondary effects" of subluxations) to be unnecessary for treatment. Thus, straight chiropractors are concerned primarily with the detection and correction of vertebral subluxation via adjustment and do not "mix" other types of therapies.[31] Their philosophy and explanations are metaphysical in nature and prefer to use traditional chiropractic lexicon (i.e. perform spinal analysis, detect subluxation, correct with adjustment, etc.). They prefer to remain separate and distinct from mainstream health care.

Mixer chiropractors are an early offshoot of the straight movement. This branch "mixes" diagnostic and treatment approaches from naturopathic, osteopathic, medical, and chiropractic viewpoints. Unlike straight chiropractors, mixers believe subluxation is one of the many causes of disease, and they incorporate mainstream medical diagnostics and employ myriad treatments including joint and soft tissue manipulation, electromodalities, physical therapy, exercise-rehabilitation and other complementary and alternative approaches such as acupuncture. Mixers tend to be open to mainstream medicine.[11] Mixers are the majority group.[32]

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[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiropractic]wiki on chiropractic[/url]

I'm not arguing that it isn't important to investigate dangerous practices within any discipline and being aware of the precise danger of neck manipulations. I also think one should consider the dangers and disabilities that result from unnecessary back surgeries.

[ 14 June 2008: Message edited by: N.R.KISSED ]

What happened to this woman is tragic! And if indeed it is proven that this stroke was the result of chiropractic neck manipulation, then she should be fully compensated by the chiropractor. But I have to agree with the posters who are shocked that an entire profession is being held responsible. I am an experienced medical professional who has worked in the medical system for 35 years. The deaths, injuries and iatrogenic conditions that I have seen caused by "normal" medicine's treatments and mistreatments would boggle your minds! I have, of course, also seen fantastic treatments, surgeries and positive outcomes. But modern medicine is actually based largely on "anecdotal" & "historical" practise, with surprisingly little of it having been "scientifically proven". It can be rigid-thinking, extremely resistant to change, and very self-righteous. There are numerous books, research articles and lots of information on these problems. The death rate actually falls during doctors' strikes, for example. As one poster said, midwifery used to be "quackery", & is still regarded as such in many obstetric circles. Yet it has better outcomes for moms & babes than obstetrical care for normal women.
And then there is the question about "self-regulation" of these professions. They are all self-regulated & its is not an effective system for any. They are supposed to "police" themselves, but this rarely happens - either in medicine or any of the other professions. They are all extremely reluctant to punish their own colleages. Physicians are particularly bad at this in my experience.
My last point is my real dismay at the tone on this topic thread. For "alternative" people, there are an awful lot of really conservative, pro
medico-industrial proponents who really seem to have no idea either of the benefits of alternative medicine, nor the risks of "modern medicine". The fact is that all of these - both regular medicine & alternative medicine have their pros and cons, and risks and benefits, depending on the situation, the condition, the individual patient and the individual practitioner. As a medical professional, I would caution people to always be an informed & questioning consumer of ALL forms of alternative AND regular medical treatments. And to explore the alternatives before making an informed decision.

Maven, you are right. Damage is done by medical doctors etc. Couple of points, the story this thread supports isn't about that, it's about a specific class action suit against chiropractors. Second, when medical doctors make mistakes and do damage they are at least taking action against something real for some real reason (removing a clot to increase blood flow, for example.

When a chiropractor adjusts the neck of a perfectly healthy woman to "fix" and "subluxation" they are treating nothing and most of the time, doing nothing. But, some of the time, doing dreadful harm.

WendyL, I wish it were a single isolated incident. It is not. It is only one example of a profession that has gone awry. In our book Paul and I outline the history of the profession and what has gone wrong. You are right, there is much wrong with mainstream medicine too. That's just not the focus of this piece or Sandy's fight.

Trev, I can respect your need to believe in herd inoculation, but I do not believe you have the right to impose it upon me. You make incorrect assumptions about my research/knowledge base and my level of care for my and other people's children. I would not assume anyone posting here is naive, you included. So, please, do not sigh over my blind negligence and total disregard for the health of the world's children.

Wayne, you are correct, I have strayed from the point of chiropractic care being under scrutiny here. Though analogy, metaphor, and allegory are all fair means of public debate are they not? Having not completed sufficient research on chiropractic practice to write a book, I can easily defer to your accumulated knowledge on the topic. Publication, however, does not automatically confer validity of conclusions. It seems to me there are many truths here and that, in fact, it is diversity and difference which accounts for the open society I would like to live within. That stands for both ability to express opinion and select methods of health care. Thank you again for your respect. Thank you for your passion.

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[b]originally posted by Trevormkidd:[/b]
drug companies make ridiculous profits from drugs, but almost no profit (if any at all) from vaccinations which is why most drug companies no longer produce them.

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Actually the reason that companies don't produce vaccines anymore is more closely tied to lawsuits than anything else. The number of lawsuits resulting from vaccinations is unbelievable. Many (most?) would be humourous if the injury to the child wasn't so severe.

As an example, DPT vaccine is almost uniformly administered. A very small percentage of children will have a severe reaction to the Pertussis component. While the percentage is predicable, there is no way to identify which children will have the reaction until they actually receive the vaccination. And even then it's not clear. Some children will have no reaction to the first injection but will react negatively to the second or third shot.

As an aside, our pediatrician was extremely insulted when I asked him to record the manufacturer and lot number of the shots he gave my kids. But he did it. [And when I get my own flu shots at the local clinic I confirm that they record that info as well.]

Back to DPT. The last Canadian manufacturer told me that they had never received a claim until there was a television special (circa 1985 I believe) about vaccine liability. And all of a sudden, out of the woodwork, they started seeing lawsuits. Since at that time there were still several manufacturers whose product was being used in Canada (except for the company in question none of them were Canadian) absent evidence of who had produced the vaccine, the claims were being dismissed.

Even then, companies could not continue in business if they kept making vaccines. [If DPT wasn't enough there have been inumerable claims with people attempting to link MMR to autism. Those aren't going anywhere, at least to date, but it does make you ask why anyone would want to be in the vaccine business.]

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Originally posted by Wayne MacPhail:
Another sad part about vaccination is that there are a lot of Canadian chiropractors who oppose them on the grounds that a well-adjusted body has no need of them. Katrina Kulhay in Toronto is a good example of this. She has hosted anti-vaccination sessions for young mothers at her clinic.

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I remember reading about a recent survey of Canadian Chiropractors where it said that about 40% opposed vaccinations. I can't remember where I read that - it might have actually been your book (which brings me to my only complaint about the book - no index). But if you don't believe in Germ Theory - and many don't - then why would you support vaccinations.

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Originally posted by abnormal:

Actually the reason that companies don't produce vaccines anymore is more closely tied to lawsuits than anything else.

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Maybe, maybe not. I imagine that it is impossible to know for sure. However, both the book "The truth about the drug companies" and Arthur Allen's book Vaccine, plus a recent CMAJ article of which I can't remember the name place the blame more on the expense of making vaccines than on lawsuits.

From Arthur Allen's book (page 426):

Lawsuits were not, in fact, the main force that had winnowed out vaccine makers. The trouble with the American vaccine system was that the safe, effective shots we relied upon to protect us from the scourges of infectious disease were expensive and difficult to make - yet they had to be cheap enough to be widely used or they would not protect the community. Vaccines were square pegs that didn't fit into the triangular holes of market capitalism. In 1967 there were 26 companies making vaccine in the United States. In 2006 only four firms remained on the market.

[ 14 June 2008: Message edited by: Trevormkidd ]

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Originally posted by abnormal:
I do know there are a lot of people that object to vaccinations.

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I spent several years fighting against vaccines myself (something I am embarrassed to admit).

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Having said that, if I were a drug manufacturer, I'd run for the hills long before I'd produce vaccines.

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I wouldn't produce vaccines either. There a pile of court cases where it is easily proven that it was not the vaccination that caused the injury, but big compensations are still awarded.

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Trevor, I understand your passion on this issue, but I would appreciate it if you would not be rude to other people, like your remark to WendyL to "read a book, any book" on innoculation.

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I did say please.

I think that public health is one of the greatest achievements of progressives throughout the world. I view anti-vaccination groups and the disinformation they spread the same way I view those groups that promote private and/or two tiered health care - as opponents of public health (I am not just referring to publicly funded health care here - but public health in general). For various reasons (all of them both wrong and stupid) vaccination rates started to fall in former USSR in the early 1980s. Not long after there were extreme increases in occurances of those diseases for which vaccination rates were falling. People say that vaccinations are not as valuable these days because we treat those infections with antibiotics etc, and that is true as long as vaccination rates are high. When they are not high then public health collapses under the strain of epidemics. So for instance in the early 90s outbreaks in the former USSR of diphtheria not only were those outbreaks strongest where vaccination rates were lowest, but also death rates were much, much higher where vaccination rates were lowest (In Lithuania and Turkmenistan 23% - more than 10 times the normal rate in those countries - of diphtheria cases were fatal - most of them of course were children. On top of the Diphtheria outbreak also absorbing too much of the limited resources and leaving all other patients at increased risk. And for no good reason.) And this has not been limited to the former USSR of course - there are examples from throughout the world.

Simply put vaccination is a public good in every way that progressives are supposed to stand for. It not only saves lives, but it is most helpful to those who are most vulnerable. It saves countless children (again the poorest children were always the hardest hit) from suffering from terrible illnesses that left many survivors permanently disabled or otherwise disadvantaged for the rest of their lives. It is preventative medicine - in fact the absolute best example of that we have. It is traditional African and Chinese medicine, which is predominantly rejected by those who are most in favor of traditional medicines. It saves resources so those can be put to other uses. And the list could go and on.

Michelle, I will do my absolute best to refrain from being rude and insulting people on this board. However, I have decided that I really don't think I can do so on this issue, so instead I will refrain from posting about vaccinations in the future.

(But I will encourage people to read Laurie Garrett's "Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health")

[ 14 June 2008: Message edited by: Trevormkidd ]

Wow, I just checked in to see how we're doing and we still have a witch hunt going by the look of it.

Things you can have done for no good reason, that you can die from.

Liposuction
Breast implants
Any form of cosmetic surgery
Any incision (they all have the ability to become infected.)
Prescription drug overdoses or reactions.
You can die from having a gun in your house (for nothing other than it makes you feel more secure.)

There are so many things that can mess up your life, that are legally sold services.

I also have to point out that someone, after a long spiel against the kind of anecdotal evidence that supports chiropractors then launched into an anecdotal spiel against them. I'm not going to go into every little negative thing I saw above, except to note that the biases of many of the posters are quite evident. Right now I'm making up my own mind about chiropractic treatment. The thing is, no one is forcing me to go. If this woman went to a chiropractor for 7 years, she was getting something out of it. To claim she got nothing is ridiculous.

At one point I exhibited some ability in the area of psychic healing. SO I just started doing little things for people. Checking them out, doing little healings on non-medical situations. I found a strange thing happened. I realized some people were asking for my time just because they liked me, and this healing thing was a handle that allowed them to ask for it under the pretext of "doing something." When I decided to stop doing this type of work it was because I realized, jut walkin in, doing something without telling anyone what I was doing and leaving my appointment schedule to "the universe" was the only honest way to do this work. If there is attention to be had through some type of quasi medical appointment, people will make them. This is true of doctors, physiotherapists, traditional healers, anyone who males themselves available for money. This it would seem is a universal human trait. And it can even be justified by noting the placebo effect. If a placebo works for you, maybe it's a worthwhile service and be paying for it. But, to single out one "profession" , chiropractors and to try and clam they are the only ones benefitting from the human failing, sorry, but that's just ignorant. To a certain extent, every health professional benefits from unnecessary appointments and treatments. That's just part of the game. People use other people's social needs to sell cars, clothes, food. People have been killed at baseball games, at hockey games, places where they went for no "good" reason. If there is any thing I have pick up from this thread it would be the extreme gullibility of those attacking chiropractors, in believing that for benefitting from the same social branding that is an acceptable contributing mechanism of fleecing consumers in almost every area of human endeavor.

All this woman has done, is to claim that she chose not to understand the risks. There have been documented cases of stroke and suits related to them before. Was this woman living under a rock? But this is so typical of so many bogus lawsuits. "He said blah blah blah and I believed him." Well, I believe we don't know if he said blah blah blah, and more than that, we don't know if she believed the treatments were harmless, or just chose to believe that they were, because of her own psychological needs. Compensate her for her loss. But if you want to launch a campaign against quack, go after them all with comprehensive legislation the prohibits the exchange of money based on qualification, branding, reputation or tradition. Make it illegal to sell anything but results. I'll tell you, there's going to be a lot of bankrupt professional in many professions, not just chiropractors. ANd the crazy thing is, in our messed up society you are considered a "marketing genius" is you can con people into buying things they don't need at prices that are way more than their cost of production. In such a society, complaining about chiropractors is insane. You could pick much more culpable targets.

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There's also been discussion of "ancient treatments" or treatments and knowledge that has been around "thousands" of years. Unfortunately, antiquity doesn't equal veracity. Racism, foot binding and female circumcision are also ancient beliefs most cultures have either laid aside or at least condemn. Yes, many herbal treatments contain active ingredients that have resulted in some extremely useful drugs when the active chemical compounds are identified. Yes, there is a good deal of value from listening well to history's lessons. But there is a lot of nonsense too. We need to study and learn from the past critically, I think. If something done historically is repeatably, provable shown to be effective, great. If it was based on misunderstandings of how the body is constructed or functions, perhaps it's time to set it aside and look elsewhere.

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It's not a matter that these systems are "ancient" it's a matter that these are comprehensive and systematic approaches to health based within alternate cosmological frameworks. Comparing non western traditonal and indigenous healing methods to female circumcision, foot binding or racism is just insulting. The entire paragraph is suffused with western cultural arrogance.

The entire amazon faces yet another threat as western pharmaceutical companies plunder the rainforest in search of "active incrediant" displacing the indigenous people who have a profound knowledge and understanding of the plants
that are being harvested. According to your assumptions this knowledge is misguided superstition.

You also operate from the misguided assumption that the west has near perfect knowledge of "how
the body is constructed or functions."

What N.R. Kissed said.

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Second, when medical doctors make mistakes and do damage they are at least taking action against something real for some real reason (removing a clot to increase blood flow, for example.

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This is certainly not the case for psychiatry.

Jas, there is no definitive stroke per manipulation number. There are numerous studies that detail a variety of best estimates and we devote an entire chapter to those studies in our book.

But, when there is no benefit for a procedure any number is too great when the outcome can be catastrophic.

The subluxation is not just a vertebra out of place, for a chiropractor it is a specific entity, the definition of which has been shifting over the years as the demands of proof (x-ray etc.) have been made by insurers. The confusion you demonstrate is understandable and played on by chiropractic, but the subluxation as imagined by chiropractors is illusionary. Even chiropractic academics themselves admit that.

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Originally posted by abnormal:
[b]I haven't read the entire thread but if someone is going to take the entire concept of chiropractic treatment and manipulation to task they'd better be willing to pick on osteopaths as well. Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine is wide spread.

By the same token, "mainstream medical schools" have departments of "manipulative medicine" which is essentially chiropractic by a different name.[/b]

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No. Osteopaths (at least in the U.S. where most of them are located) are trained in a very similar way to MDs, and are licensed in a similar fashion as well. Recent surveys suggest that far from being "widespread", OMM is not practiced by a majority of Osteopaths and those that do practice it use it only in a small number of cases. Overall, the use of OMM by Osteopaths is on a decline.

Furthermore, Osteopaths have been much more conservative in their manipulation techniques than chiropractors for a number of decades. For instance, OMM of joints does not push the joints far past their "normal" range of motion, in contrast to chiropractic. There is a significant amount of testing beginning on Osteopathy of late (e.g. [url=http://fampra.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/20/6/662)]http://fampra.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/20/6/662)[/url] and we should see more results in the next few years. In many cases, however, preliminary results show certain benefits from OMM on certain conditions such as lower back pain, ankle injuries, and more. In the case of lower back pain, where osteopathy doesn't show significant benefits over standard treatments, patients do use less painkillers and physio-therapy. What that means will require further testing, however.

OMM isn't as far off the mark as chiropractic, in large part because Osteopaths are operating with virtually the same understanding of physiology as MDs. They aren't trying to release "life energy", but to use physical manipulations on joints to aid in their healing by increasing blood-flow and nerve distress [i]in addition to[/i] practicing what is nigh-on indistinguishable from standard medicine. At the moment, many MDs prescribe "physical manipulations" in the form of massage, physio-therapy, and other forms of sports medicine. The "manipulation" techniques taking hold in some "mainstream medical" schools, is the result of the amalgamation of Osteopathy with so-called Allopathic (standard) medicine; a process that began when the Osteopaths were subsumed under the AMA almost a century ago.

There are questions to be asked about some of the techniques used by [i]some[/i] Osteopaths (cranial and cranial-sacral manipulation, etc.) but lumping them in with chiropractors does a disservice to their education, training and ethos, in my opinion. The vast majority of Osteopaths are not using those highly questionable treatments.

[ 15 June 2008: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]

Jas suggested that I should have a problem with my embracing of the scientific method given my interest in a progressive publication like rabble.

Not really. I think that those on the left need great critical thinking skills and tools so as not be fooled by bullshit. That works politically, socially and scientifically.

If you don't have the critical thinking toolkit that can help you understand that subluxation-based procedures are unproven nonsense then it's easy to imagine how one could be the goat of conspiracy theories on the one hand or deluded into thinking Iraq had WMDs on the other.

Critical thinking, the evaluation of evidence and the testing of hypothesis are important progressive tools so we can take the right action at the right time. Otherwise we open ourselves to tilting at any windmill that swings our way.

If anything, those of us on the left need to be more critical, skeptical and rigorous about evidence than most. That's all the scientific method is.

And, more specifically, the progressive left press has the chance to grab hold of the scientific method and critical thinking skills to evaluate treatments and political gambits as the dominate media does a piss-poor job of both.

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

WP, you really need to listen to the CBC series how to think about science.

In your statement
"N.R. Kissed, science proceeds and evolves based on testing assumptions, applying rigour to testing and expecting repeatability. So no, it's not perfect but it has a pretty perfect way of moving closer and closer to better understanding and that's the scientific method. It's a wonderful yardstick by which to measure proof, evidence, assumption and hypothesis. You are quite welcome to toss that yardstick aside when evaluating claims. However, it would be a good idea to replace it with something better otherwise you open yourself up to nonsense. What's your yardstick?"

You have made a fundamental error of assumptions in interpreting the data.

For example, lets say we have a drug that in 25% of cases is proved to cure disease Y. But has certain side effects that affect 25% of the users. Such a drug would have been subject to the approval process, licensed and probably heavily marketed under our current system. The problem is 75% of the people who use this drug are going to get no benefit from it. And 25% of the people who get no benefit will experience side effects. So in essence as many people are being harmed by this drug as being helped by it. In the "scientific" world that you champion, the numbers for cure rate can be as low as 10-12% and the side effects can be higher than 25%. SO even though you are trying to make a case for the scientific evaluation of product and procedures, you ignore the fact that scientifically approved product may do you harm, may not do you any good, or may help you out. It's pretty much a crap shoot. Not only that, there injuries where doctors rotate medication to find out which one might work, because though they know one of two or three medications is likely to help your condition (like a brain injury) they have no idea which one will work , so they randomly go through the medications and observe the results, anecdotally. So much for you acertation that anecdotal evidence has no place in the world. Not only that but there are simple procedures for C. Dificile that are 100% effective but are not used in North America because North American practitioners find them "distasteful".

This distaste you have for anything other than science completely ignores the fact that scientists don't sell product. Corporations striving for big profits sell product. And currently, modern medicines reliance on chemical substances of proved scientifically proved efficacy but which are probably personally useless or even harmful demonstrates your complete lack of understanding of how "science" is interpreted and marketed. As stated before, your trust in the scientific bases of modern medicine is naive as is your criticism of alternative medicines. What you are talking about is theoretical perfection when you discuss science. And your criticism of alternative medicines is that they don't offer someone with your intellectual capacity a perfect (to your sensibilities) theoretical model that you can buy in to.

In other words, you're head is so far up your ass you can't see the light of day.

I actually concur with many of these comments on all sides.

As I stated before I actually have I guess what can be labeled a alternative though I prefer complementary medicine background. I have had some training in several types of herbal based modalities as well training in what would fall under mainstream medicine in biology, things like cell science and anatomy and nutrition. I also use mainstream medicine. My issues come up when people try to write it off as an either or proposition. In my view it's not, neither do I write off science as being an important part of puzzle. As some have pointed out there are problems with assumptions from the different sides as well as problems that occur with language and the conceptual level of understanding what each is talking about on a philosophical level.

I get just as troubled by people on the alternative side who write off the mainstream as I do on the other. There is a lot of bunk out there about alternatives and proclamation about miracle cures and pop this herbal pill and you will be fine and dandy. IMO this is more connected with issues of capitalism and money. A quick fix for the seller mostly. It also actually mirrors the pharmacutical allopathic model of popping a pill and one will fixed and get healthy. As most, or I at least hope most understand that health is much more then that. One can pop all the pills whether herbal or pharmacutical all they want but if their diet is just cheeseburgers and french fries neither is going to be overall effective.

There are major problems and issues with manufactured herbal remedies in terms of efficicy and standardization and whether one is actually getting what the bottle says they are getting in reference to active compounds etc etc and in some cases toxic adulterations. Scientific studies have shown this and I don't take them lightly. It's a problem.

In my opinion I do see some things out there for ready sale that simply shouldn't be messed around with if one really does not know what they are doing and sometimes that concerns me. Ephedra is one that comes to mind.

Herbs run a spectrum from those that could be considered on the benign end of the scale more like food stuffs to the other end where you have things like foxglove/digitalis. As someone that uses herbs I operate on the benign end of the spectrum for a number of different reasons which I can explain in more detail if people want.

I am fully aware that much of the knowledge around different plants and there uses are anecdotal, though in some cases scientific studies are now being done that back up such anecdotal evidence in in some cases they don't. I am also aware of the placebo effect, which medical people are now admitting can play much into allopathic medicine as well as alternative medicine and now according to some of the info I've come across in the past few days since reading this thread is actually being looked at more seriously and scientifically.

Why I'm saying all this is to try to explain that many alternative and complementary medicine people do operate in both worlds or at least recognize that they aren't in so much opposition as some may think. In my opinion there should be more cross modality work done.

Maybe an example would help in seeing where they cross as well as where it crosses into the commercial aspects of medical care. Take aspirin for instance which was mentioned in a previous thread, a known and well proved medicine both scientifically an anecdotally. It's used for things like pain and fever. It is a similar compound found in willow bark, Willow bark has a long anecdotal history on several continents of being used for similar indications. Aspirin was scientifically 'discovered' and created because of much of this anecdotal evidence. The similar compound salicin has also been biologically found in many other plants and in some cases those plants also have a traditional use for similar indications.

So as a person I could choose the pill or the plant. With the pill I can pretty much be 100% assured of the dosage of the compound. With the plant I have to know the recommended dosage of the plant material. To get into more scientific knowledge, know how the plant actually functions biologically and what time of year the compound may be more or less potent.
The other question with the plant is there an issue of whether the preciseness of the dosage will have acute negative effects. As such as a herbalist I just simply wouldn't mess around with something at the level of foxglove. If I needed the effects of the active substance found in foxglove I would go the allopathic route.

The other question of course does it work. If I have pain, or a fever does it help. Does it make my headache go away. I take it and it does. I use it over a period of time and it works. Now some would argue that it could be also due to the placebo effect. Yes it could. I don't think so, because there are now studies that back up it's use, but I can be open to that possibility.
The same though could be said of aspirin, or at least be pointed out that if I got the same effect from something that has no real chemical effect why should I bother to take an aspirin pill (which apparently does) when a fake aspirin pill would do the same thing.
The main thing that it really comes down to for me though is money and choice. I don't need to buy willow bark. I can walk out into my backyard and get it for free. Why if it appears to work fine would I pay for it. And oh just to note I do have aspirin pills in the house as well, because sometimes it's simply more convenient.
The same goes for a number of other things, why would I go spend money on a cream that works on bug bites or skin irritation when I can get the same effect from using common 'weeds' in my backyard. The spider bite and imflamation goes away whether I use the allopathic cream or chew up some plantain and rub it on the area. I have actually tested this on myself. I'm a bit of geek that way.

I've also done the same with cuts and scrapes. Not that I purposely go out and hurt myself but if the opportunity arises I have tried it out. At one time I scraped my shin up pretty bad. So one part of the scrape got an allopathic treatment with a store bought salve, one part got it with a homemade herbal salve, from plants that I gathered myself and one part got nothing. Both treated areas healed faster and better, the untreated didn't heal as fast. There wasn't much difference between the treated areas, no miracles with the herbs or anything but they both worked fine enough.

Does this prove it scientifically? No of course not though I could get into detail of each of the likely chemical compounds in each of the plants in the remedy and likly why it appears to work.

With regards to antibiotics. As an herbalist I am not against antibiotics altogether just because they are mainstream. I am also aware though of the serious problems that have been scientifically shown with their overuse and use when they may not be needed. I avoid them if I can for me they are not the first course of action. At one time in my life because of a longterm health problem I actually became quite resistant to many of the common antibiotics and it got to the point that if I did get sick and need them only the most powerful would work. In some cases the side effects were actually worse then the actual illness. Not a good state to be in in my mind.

Once I got into looking at alternatives my conception of the whole thing changed. I actually used to get chest infections and things like that a lot...always with antibiotic treatments. So I started to try the alternatives. Slowly because I was a skeptic at first. For a while I did both...then I would go to the doctor, get the prescription and go the herbal route...knowing that if the herbal route failed to show any improvement over the days I had a fall back. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't, but what I did start to notice was the difference and I grew to be able to tell when antibiotics were needed and when I could work through the illness without them.

Then I started at working at not getting the durn chest infections in the first place and yes that part was pretty much from 'anecdotal' information from the alternative realm, including a visit to one of those 'hokey' Chinese medicine doctors whose main recommendation on a practical level was on diet. He explained it all in reference to 'chi' and whatnot and regardless of his 'quack' philosophy on the purely energetic level all I know is that when i stopped eating white bread, cheese and milk in the quantities that I was, like he told me to I found marked improvement. I can't 'prove' scientifically how it worked or if it was all just mere coicidence, but I went from getting about one infection every few months to maybe one a year if it all. And now if I do reach a state where I do need antibiotics my resistance levels appear to be reduced to the point where common penicillian actually works again.

Personally I think and yes I know its a bias of my experience but I do think there is something to it. Looking at it all from a purely scientific viewpoint I can see where some of the potential problems lie. Take my case...yes all anecdotal..but how would one actually go about actually studying it in order to prove it one way or another. How would all the factors be accounted for from a scientific method perspective which by nature tends to zero in on specifics. What would the controls be etc etc. These are just questions and I don't have any real answers to them as of yet.

All I know is that I'm heaps more healthy overall since I started the combo route.

I understand the point you're making about subluxation. I am trusting that you agree with me that vertebral misalignment does exist.

Since you seemed to miss the rest of my post, I'll repeat the pertinent points here:

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Originally posted by jas:

The progressive left also needs to recognize, in its embrace of scientific empiricism, that it is not reiterating the same colonialism and exclusion that the western medical model imposes on "outside" and older forms of health treatments.

When you are discounting others' first-hand experiences with chiropractic as merely "belief" or "hope, emotion and coincidence", you are invalidating what they have to say. For your sake, I hope your book hasn't taken this tone. Your single, [i]second-hand[/i], negative experience with chiropractic should certainly be heard, but it is [i]not[/i] more valid than others' [i]positive[/i] experiences.

It's amazing that people who apparently are well-schooled in anti-oppression thinking and action - much more so than I am - cannot see how imperialism and colonialism operates within science (and medicine). Many posters here see science as the liberator from centuries of religious and metaphysical confusion, but don't recognize how science has co-opted the claim to knowledge, just like the church did six hundred years ago. They don't see that the scientific method has any limitations. They don't see science as being motivated by cultural bias (political interests being easy to spot, but cultural less so).

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And as for

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Sandy Nette's case is only one of many. It is not an isolated incident.

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what I'm asking is, where, when, who? How often? I would think you would have this right at your fingertips. Is there no online source you can quickly refer me to?