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Brown is the immediate past President of the British Chiropractic Association and has stated his and the BCA’s support for prescriptive drug rights for chiropractors as well.
In response to physiotherapists and podiatrists in England being given the right to prescribe drugs such as anti-inflammatories and painkillers BCA President Richard Brown stated:
“This decision will provide significant benefits for patients and complement the care they are able to receive from physiotherapists and podiatrists. It will also reduce the need for patients to return to their GPs for their medication”.
The BCA statement continued:
“The BCA, which is committed to improving quality and enhancing patient choice in the provision of musculoskeletal services, has already made representation to the statutory regulator, the General Chiropractic Council for the chiropractic profession to acquire prescribing rights and supports on-going dialogue to achieve this objective."
Brown admittedly had “argued that the scope of practice for chiropractors should not be restricted and that an opportunity for the profession to compete with its physiotherapy colleagues in the competitive marketplace of musculoskeletal services would be strengthened by permitting limited prescribing of drugs.”
At the WFC’s 2011 Congress in Rio de Janeiro, Brown defended his view in a debate with other leaders in the profession making representations to the General Chiropractic Council, maintaining “that the declared view of the membership of the UK’s largest national association should be acted upon.”
No Fan of Subluxation Centered Chiropractors
In addition to his support for drug rights, Brown is also a harsh critic of subluxation centered chiropractors.
In a paper published in Chiropractic & Manual Therapies in 2012 Brown referred to such chiropractors as “one trick ponies”:
“For chiropractic to gain credibility, we must also accept that we cannot simply be one-trick ponies. Claims by some chiropractors that we should not be diagnosticians but merely the correctors of vertebral subluxation perpetuate the myth that consulting a chiropractor will invariably involve lengthy programmes of spinal manipulation.”
The notion that subluxation centered chiropractors all recommend “lengthy programmes” is a recurring theme in Brown’s writing. In a presentation at the WFC Conference in 2013, Brown refers to these chiropractors as “evangelists” practicing what he refers to as “pseudo-religious systems”:
“There must be no place in our modern evidence-based era for evangelists who treat the profession as a cult and deride anyone who disagrees.”
“We must eradicate from the profession those peddling pseudo-religious systems of so-called care, who prey on the vulnerable and coerce them into financially crippling extended care contracts.”
It is not known what, if any, organized group of chiropractors Brown is referring to but certainly the International Chiropractors Association, which is a dues paying member of the WFC, supports pre-payment plans for subluxation correction.
Brown also seems to have a disdain for high volume practitioners. In the same issue of Chiropractic & Manual Therapies Brown states:
“Perhaps first and foremost, there is a clear need to promote a consistent message. It is a matter of great regret that chiropractic’s identity is often blurred and the good work done by a hard working majority can very quickly be undone by a damaging minority of evangelists who preach a message of high volume, practitioner-centered practice building.”
Is he referring to ICA members who see high volume and assist their patients with pre-paid plans of care to reduce or correct subluxation?
The invitation for Brown to speak comes on the heels of the re-branding of the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) and its adoption of guidelines that make it impossible for an ACA member to practice the management of vertebral subluxation.
It appears that half of Northwestern's chiropractors who serve on the Board of Trustees of the school are ACA members including:
Christopher D. Jo, DC - Chairman of the Board
Keith M. Johnson, DC - Board Member
Molly J. Magnani, DC, MMA - Board Member
And the Board of Trustees are not alone in their love for the ACA. Several administrative leaders at the school are also ACA members including the Dean of the College of Chiropractic:
Charles Sawyer DC - Special Assistant to the President
Michele Maiers, D.C., Ph.D. - Executive Director, Research and Innovation
Trevor Foshang, D.C., H.B. Kin., D.A.C.B.R. - Dean, College of Chiropractic
Northwestern appears to be joining other schools that have come under the control or influence of ACA supporters including Palmer and Logan.
