In a statement released today Phillip Ebrall PhD, PhD (Cand) and President of the Tokyo College of Chiropractic, responded to the recent false claim by the Chiropractic Board of Australia that ". . . there is no current clinical guideline, or peer-reviewed publication to guide chiropractors with respect to the care of infants and young children, and the use of spinal manipulation in particular."
In his release, Professor Ebrall states the Board is ". . . ignorant of the evidence strongly supportive of the chiropractic care of children under two."
Ebrall stated that this is an ". . . example of a regulatory body collapsing to political pressure led by the members of the medical profession now holding elected positions in governments and Ministerial advisors throughout Australia."
Chiropractors around the world were shocked to see such a blatant attack on the practice of chiropractic which has a record of safety over the past 100 + years that is unmatched by the practice of medicine.
In fact, Ebrall points out:
This planned political infiltration for the purpose of subverting chiropractic has been reported by chiropractic historians such as Rome and Painter and is documented in the papers of The Wilk Trial as The Iowa Plan, having originated by the Iowa Medical Society. The Iowa Plan is summed up in the plaintiffs’ 132-page aid to the court, submitted June 25, 1987, in the Wilk case. The Iowa Plan’s section “What Medicine Should Do About The Chiropractic Menace” includes a Part G titled “Undertake a positive program of ‘containment'” to ensure chiropractic as a profession will ‘wither on the vine’ and the chiropractic menace will die a natural but somewhat undramatic death. The Iowa Plan states that such actions taken by the medical profession should be persistent and behind-the-scenes whenever possible.
Ebrall goes on to warn:
"Any professional chiropractic body that dismisses The Iowa Plan as a 'conspiracy theory' is negligent in their duty of care to its members and the profession."
One of the problems raised by the Chiropractic Board's ban is the conflation of terminology in regards to "spinal manipulation". While the profession of chiropractic has been strongly associated with spinal manipulation such procedures are but one method chiropractors use to address vertebral subluxations there are actually a host of low and non force procedures that are utilized when caring for people across the life span.
As Ebrall points out:
"The use by the CBA of the vague term 'manipulation' demonstrates its isolation from real-world chiropractic practice where conventional chiropractors 'adjust' within an evidence-based clinical framework and rarely, if ever, manipulate children. The notion that chiropractors 'manipulate' babies is a deliberate myth of political medicine with nefarious intent."
This most recent attack in Australia comes on the heels of overblown and childish outrage by the medical and public health community after the posting of a video online of an infant receiving chiropractic care.
Australia has a growing 34% caesarean section rate and 19% of babies delivered in Australia are yanked out using forceps or vacumn extraction.
Things don't get any better if they are lucky enough to survive the early years of medical intervention. 18,000 people die every year in Australian hospitals through preventable medical negligence, 50,000 people suffer from permanent injury annually as a result of medical negligence in Australia and 80,000 Australian patients per year are hospitalized due to medication errors. Another report suggests at least 230,000 admissions annually in Australia are caused by patients taking too much or too little of a medicine, or taking the wrong medicine – with an estimated annual cost of at least $1.2 billion.
But apparently this crisis is nothing to worry about because the Victorian Health Minister and the President of the Australian Medical Association are instead focusing their outrage on the chiropractic profession for caring for babies.
CLICK HERE for the full text of Dr. Ebrall's Release
