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IS PATIENT CONCERN ABOUT DRUGS AND THEIR ASSOCIATED SIDE-EFFECTS JUSTIFFEDS WHAT OF AUSTRALIA? During the era of the establishment of that conspiracy in the USA, the Australian Medical Association also moved to boycott chiro- practors.? The boycott underwrites the AMA's public motive for supporting containment. The exposure of the central conspiracy, the replicating of the boy- cott elsewhere without proof it is needed to protect patient safety or public welfare, have destroyed the credibility of those who boycott an innocent, registered, licensed profession. The term ‘innocent’ is used in the broad sense that medicine failed to prove its case when the chiropractic profession was the subject of six Royal Commissions, three commissions of inquiry, six reports, and the extensive scrutiny of the Wilk trial. This history leaves medical advice about matters chiropractic as highly suspect. Harmful effects of operations or prescribed medical treatment are called iatrogenic (physician-induced) disorders. According to Dr Tony Taylor, Chairman, Australian Association of Surgeons: "There are thousands of complications that can develop from any particular operation or treatment."* Many patients attending chiropractors have previously had anal- gesics prescribed by their medical practitioner. According to The Age (15/5/1991), some 15% of organ transplants in Australia were a direct result of analgesic drug-induced kidney failure. Australian doctors had wrongly prescribed up to eight million treatments in the past year, a new report by Roy Harvey, head of Health Service of the Australian Institute of Health, found. “One consequence of this...was some 30-40,000 pharmaceutical-related hospital admissions in one year."’ According to The Bulletin (24/3/92), the study goes so far to claim this could be leading direct- ly to the deaths of up to 900 people a year. CONCERNING GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT Without proof that containment is either warranted or justified, the governments that help to educate and/or to register chiropractors, exile them from the domain of public health care. These govern- ments would not knowingly permit laws, regulations or ‘ethics’ that precluded Jews, Aborigines or females from access to public health care, but their laws discriminate against the chiropractic community. If parliaments throughout Australia are to end that discrimination, they would need to (1) outlaw the AMA restraint; (2) ensure the intent of registration excludes those who manipulate without proper accreditation to do so; and (3) change laws and regulations that per- mit containment. Such a market-place may suit the needs of patients who have subluxation-related disorders but it would create a conflict of interest for many members of the medical profession. Anti-competitive practices can no longer be represented as credi- ble measures to protect patients' or public interests. Chiropractors remain unimpressed by answers regarding why parliaments =—¥ out Australia permit the boycott. Replies have included that ‘ethics’ are "an issue for the Australian Medical Association and its mem- bers"” or the AMA is a "powerful lobby". Medicine's conflict of interest is also a conflict of interest for politicians. Knowing this, informed patients are increasingly sceptical about whose priority is being served by medical practitioners and politi- cians who support the spirit of the AMA boycott and containment in Australia. The Western Australian Parliament is about to review of all the health registration acts in the health portfolio. Its actions regarding the containment of chiropractic and the AMA boycott should make its integrity self-evident. Australian courts may give consumers protection. According to WA Minister for Health, Peter Foss, MLC: "...Trade Practices leg- islation provides similar avenues of redress as the United States leg- islation..."" The multimillion dollar Wilk trial required years of preparation documenting the incidents in which people, depart- ments, employees, associations, insurance companies, etc., acted to restrain trade. Those actions may be grounds for very substantial damages. This avenue is now being explored. Because of the everyday heroines and heroes, chiropractic has survived a trade war spanning nations and generations. The profes- sion is indebted to those ‘ordinary’ people, who continue to lend it their support and encouragement. If you wish to assist to end con- tainment please ask your politician to support that change. eo IS MEDICAL CONCERN ABOUT CHIROPRACTIC JUSTIFIED? Medical associations have had ample opportunity to convince the judges in the Wilk trial, as well as numerous commissions and inquiries, that chiropractic poses a serious risk to patient interest. Their failure to do so is reflected in the Report of the Commission of Inquiry, "Chiropractic in New Zealand” (1979): "Tens of thou- sands of patients have gone through chiropractors’ hands in this country, They have apparently suffered no ill effects. We have no doubt that every effort was made to locate verifiable cases of harm caused by chiropractors. The conspicuous lack of evidence that chi- Topractors cause harm to occur through neglect of medical referral can be taken to mean only one thing: that chiropractors have on the whole an impressive safety record.” [Emphasis added.] (Chapter 15, section 15, page 78.) What is really in the patients’ interests—attending a profession that has on the whole "an impressive safety record", or being treated with modalities with that appalling rate of morbidity and mortality? What becomes of patients who have subluxation-related disorders and who consult a medical practitioner? Normally medical practitioners are not qualified to practise chiro- practic and so they may either miss, or perhaps ignore, the validity and significance of subluxations as chiropractors understand them. That may lead to the patient being exposed to incorrect treatinent and unnecessary prolonged suffering and expense. Most consultations with a general practitioner lead to a prescrip- tion for drugs. Some of these patients are advised to have surgery. Under normal circumstances, surgery and/or drugs are not the man- agement of choice for subluxation-related disorders. It is increasingly common to hear patients relate that medical per- sonnel attempted to manipulate their spine. This should not be attempted by a ‘weekend medical manipulator’, although if the prac- titioner has qualifications that equate with a chiropractor, that is fine. The unsatisfactory outcome of medical treatment, iatrogenic dis- orders or unnecessary suffering stemming from failure to refer, may cause patients to seek legal redress. Chester Wilk, a leading DC in the Wilk trial, claimed: “I believe that it is inevitable that some day an MD or hospital will be sued for malpractice (if not fraud) after a chiropractor gets prompt results with a patient who has spent months or years of suffering and expenses with MDs and hospitals. Once this happens and a prece- dent is established, many enterprising attorneys, seeing the econom- ic potential for themselves, will take these cases." The lawyer for the chiropractors in the Wilk trial, Mr George McAndrews, claimed: "Now that the medical profession is put on notice through the AMN (American Medical News) and other journals, they can no longer sit on their hands and say 'I did not know’." References: 1. US Appeals Court decision re Wilk et al. y. AMA et al., page 8. 2. American Medical News, 13 January 1992, 3, MPI Report of Wilk trial, page 2. 4. Department of Community ‘ices and Health, ref. CO7(5003F). 5. The West Australian, 17 May 1993, page 32. 6. The Bulletin, 12 January 1993, page 6, 7. The Courier-Mail, 9 October 1409, e 1. 8. "Expose Medical Malpractice/Fraud 'By Exclusion’ of Chiropractic”, by Chester Wilk, DC, Digest of Chiropractic Economics, February 1992. 9. Medical Journal of Australia, supplement, 1965, page 126. 10. Opinion by WA Minister for Health, Keith Wilson, ref. 27396, 27 March 1993, 11. Letter 035742, 23 July 1993. 42¢NEXUS THE RIGHT TO LEGAL REDRESS OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 1993