Nexus - 0216 - New Times Magazine-pages

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"Door key' restraint. A two-stage arrangement used in workers’ compensation: (1) The law closed the door on direct, initial contact between injured workers and chiropractors by requiring that the worker first receive certification from a medical practitioner; (2) AMA ‘ethics’ turn the key by restraining the liberty of AMA mem- bers to refer patients to a chiropractor. Access restraint. Nationwide, no chiropractors were employed within taxpayer-funded departments of health to assist in planning or providing chiropractic care to public patients. In the USA, implementation took considerable organisation: "for over twelve years, and with the full knowledge and continued support of their executive officers, the AMA paid the salaries and expenses for a team of more than a dozen medical doctors, lawyers and support staff for the expressed purpose of conspiring (overtly and covertly) with others in medicine to first contain and, eventual- ly, destroy the profession of chiropractic in the United States and elsewhere."? In the United States and else- where, the absolute, intense, AUTON remorseless and unrelenting opposition from organised med- icine effectively dried up the EYE stream of referred patients from (Ca medical practitioners. The ER blackban successfully denied Penroraiey eas public patients access to chiro- practors within public health facilities and programmes. In LACRIMAL GLAND SUBMAXILLARY GLAND SUBLINGUAL GLAND —— awe spite of restraints, the profession Pea ae are is now university-based with PAROTID GLAND —— Tey millions of patients and, in the face of intense medical opposi- HEART tion, registered in most Western countries. ae adequate qualification to do so. Extremely few medical personnel have qualifications that equate with the courses in chiropractic. The courses are funded by the fed- eral government and accredited by governments throughout Australia, This creates the 'gold standard! for the registration of chi- Topractors. The Chiropractors’ Association of Australia (CAA) supports the terms set by governments throughout Australia for the qualification standards and registration of chiropractors. The CAA has no objec- tion to medical practitioners manipulating the spine, providing they hold relevant separate qualification to do so. The Australian Medical Association recently circulated a warning to MPs re the hazards of manipulation. The New South Wales Coroner recommended that minimum qualifications be established. Perhaps the lack of authority to do so prevents medical registra-* tion boards from (1) banning weekend or correspondence courses in manipulation for med- NERVOUS SYSTEM ical personnel; (2) demanding that regis- —— trants who attempt manipulation of the spine first attain the gov- ernment's ‘gold stan- dard’; (3) ensuring that Tegistrants practise and charge for only those services that are within the terms of their board- approved qualifications. Medicare, a prime example of prejudiced refunds, depends upon registration boards to “assure appropriate skills and qualifications,"* Perth Coroner David McCann, in a different matter, warned that hos- pital management “should ensure that med- ical practitioners only ptactise within the terms of their accreditation." Apparently medical personnel, with or with- out any formal training in manipulation, may practise and charge Medicare for manipula- tion of the spine. Parliaments continue to discriminate against chi- ropractors by denying 1 LIES NOT WITH JOINT MOBILISATION BUT THE ROLE them inclusion under SUBLUXATIONS. THAT 1S THE FIELD OF CHIROPRACTIC Medicare and hospital privileges. Regarding AMA members who manipulate the spine, the AMA's claims of concem for ‘scientific method’ and ‘patient interest’ will have no credibility unless it sees that those members follow the advice of Perth Coroner David McCann to hospital management and "only practise within the terms of their accreditation". Regarding patient interest, the 1977-8 Australian Health Survey looked at why people chose other health professions. It stated that: "The main reasons for changing were dissatisfaction with conven- tional medicine and concern about drugs and their associated side- effects." More recent figures reflect the degree that consumers are changing. A key point of a US survey reported in the New England Journal of Medicine (01-28-1993) was that patients chose to visit unconventional health care practitioners for a total of 425 million visits as compared to 388 million times to medical practitioners. AUTO! NERVOUS SYSTE! EYE LACRIMAL GLAND MUCOUS MEM NOSE & PALATE SUBMAXILLARY GLAND SUBLINGUAL GLAND —— MUCUS MEM.MOUTH PAROTID GLAND —— HEART LUNGS STOMACH _ BLOOD VES.OF ABD. LIVERKOUCTS, PANCREAS ADRENAL GLAND SMALL INTESTINE LARGE INTESTINE RECTUM KIDNEY BLADDER SEXUAL ORGANS EXTERNAL wn€ Chiropractors regard medical opposition to chiropractic as LUNGS being self-serving and economi- i cally motivated, and regard the STOMACH : y 5 motives of ‘patient interest’ and 7 ‘concem for scientific method’ $1000 VES.OF ABD. poem as merely hypocritical smoke- LIVERBOUCTS screens to conceal avarice. Scientific medicine’ is guilty detained eB of condemnation without scien- anne, Quant . tific, correctly structured clini- emanate G = cal trials and inter-professional LARGE INTESTINE = investigations. It has failed to Nem BEA do comparative outcome assess- KIDNEY ments between the real outcome BLADDER of medical treatment and chiro- SEXUAL ORGANS practic care on patients with like EXTERNAL GENITALIA canna, \ THE HEART OF THE MEDICAL CONFLICT Turning fact upon its head WHICH THE NERVE SYSTEM PLAYS IN Si became a principal weapon in EXPERTISE. medicine's armament against chiropractic; for example, medicine has criticised the adequacy of the qualifications of chiropractors. ‘Scientific medicine’ must attempt to deliver an appropriate standard of care. This requires that its own practitioners practise within the confines of their own accreditation. With regard to manipulation of the spine, that criteri- on is not observed. Relevant adequate qualification is a comerstone underwriting patient interest and ‘scientific method’. The intent of governments who registered chiropractors clearly was to protect the public by (a) limiting the practice of chiropractic to properly qualified registered chiropractors, and (b) excluding unqualified or unsuitable people from practice. That intent is being undermined by those medical manipulators who attempt to practise manipulation of the spine without relevant THE HEART OF THE MEDICAL CONFLICT LIES NOT WITH JOINT MOBILISATION BUT THE ROLE WHICH THE NERVE SYSTEM PLAYS IN SUBLUXATIONS. THAT IS THE FIELD OF CHIROPRACTIC EXPERTISE. NEXUS¢41 THE TWO MOTIVES OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 1993