The Past Chairman of the Board of the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) once again defended the scope expansion efforts of drug pushing chiropractors in a Letter to the Editor to Dynamic Chiropractic. Simone, who practices in Colorado and has been pushing for scope expansion there stated that: "Here in Colorado, more than 1000 chiropractors have had the authority to prescribe over-the-counter medications for years. DC's in other states also have the authority to use medications in one way or another."
Without providing any evidence whatsoever, Simone claims that chiropractors are prescribing drugs judiciously, that prescribing such drugs is part of conservative care and that no adverse events have occurred.
Stating that "The fear mongering by the more conservative segments of our profession is getting old" Simone added:
"The chiropractic world is not going to collapse if a few DC's have the ability to provide an occassional muscle relaxer or the ability to inject a trigger point."
Simone who is a former District 6 Governor of the American Chiropractic Association and Immediate Past President of the ACA Board of Governors is a champion of chiropractic scope expansion to include drugs while also denigrating the practice of subluxation care. Simone is a well known Subluxation Denier and has called for the elimination of subluxation based chiropractors. The ACA recently issued policy recommendations calling for the elimination of x-rays to assess the biomechanical components of subluxation as well as follow-up x-rays to measure post care outcomes.
Simone, who claims that "vitalism has been dead for decades", is a also a member of the Anti-Subluxation Special Interest Group: The West Hartford Group (WHG). According to leaders of the WHG:
"One of the problems that we encounter frequently in our interaction with chiropractic educational institutions is the perpetuation of dogma and unfounded claims. Examples include the concept of spinal subluxation as the cause of a variety of internal diseases and the metaphysical, pseudo-religious idea of "innate intelligence" flowing through spinal nerves, with spinal subluxations impeding this flow. These concepts are lacking in a scientific foundation and should not be permitted to be taught at our chiropractic institutions as part of the standard curriculum."
Chiropractic scope expansion including the addition of drugs is taking place across the US. The New York State Board of Chiropractic recently opined that Chiropractors in NY may prescribe over the counter drugs and both NY Associations have been working closely with the State Board to expand the scope.
There is no organized effort within the chiropractic profession to stop these efforts.
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