Chiropractic Focused on Subluxation is Hastening the Descent of the Profession into Irrelevancy
That people getting their subluxations corrected in a vitalistic, salutogenic model leads to profound improvement in health outcomes should come as no surprise to many chiropractors - you see it day in and day out in your practice and probably have for all the time you have been in practice.
However, did you know that there is an organized effort in chiropractic to stop you and future chiropractors from doing that?
This isn't some Chicken Little paranoia. Its reality.
Here's an example: A two part series was recently published in a research journal that is controlled by a group of chiropractic researchers, editors, peer reviewers and academicians that exists for the sole purpose of seeding the chiropractic literature with anti-subluxation propaganda and disinformation. Its not the first time they have done something like this - its what they live and work for and they derive a great deal of pleasure and professional accolades from it. The intention is for the literature they publish to be used to create policy designed to stop you from delivering care focused on vertebral subluxation.
In their paper they issue a call for action stating that this:
"cannot be ignored anymore but must be dealt with resolutely and with urgency."
The papers titled: A new role for spinal manual therapy and for chiropractic? Part I & II: weaknesses and threats. published in the Journal of Chiropractic and Manual Therapy and were written by:
- Søren Francis Dyhrberg O’Neill
- Casper Nim
- Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde
- Dave Newell
They are affiliated with the following institutions: Medical Spinal Research Unit, Lillebaelt Hospital, Spine Centre of Southern Denmark, University Hospital of Southern Denmark, Department of Regional Health Research, University of University of Southern Denmark, Center for Muscle and Joint Health, Department of Sports Science and Clinical Biomechanics, University of Southern Denmark and the AECC University College.
Here is just a summary of what these Subluxation Deniers say in these papers about your model of practice and what they say needs to be done about it. This is just a summary of the highlights. The two papers contain a great deal more opinionated nonsense that bookend these key points followed by a lot of self referencing so that they can give the appearance of scholarship. And before you dismiss it as the rantings of some obscure "fringe" group within the profession understand that these positions are widely supported within the scientific, academic and political factions of the profession:
- Chiropractic philosophy is by its very nature divisive and thus detrimental to progress in chiropractic.
- Traditional chiropractic is merely hastening the descent of the profession into irrelevancy.
- The profession needs to decide, embrace and communicate that its raison d’être is not anchored to the adjustment and must be replaced with an "actual evidence-based scope of practice".
- The profession needs to declare unequivocally that it treats only musculoskeletal disorders.
- The profession needs to put a stop to any reimbursement for ‘correcting vertebral subluxations’ in the USA.
- Importantly, the profession needs to decide how to ensure and enforce these developments.
- That practicing in a vitalistic, salutogenic model focused on reducing and correcting subluxations is not evidence based and is instead "dogma based" and this dogma is rooted in the “art, science and philosophy” of chiropractic.
- That teaching institutions need to teach students that such practices are pseudo-science and dogma.
- That spinal adjusting should be embraced as non-specific and that we need to "dial down" the "preoccupation with technique details" and any notion that specificity matters because its "of little clinical consequence".
- That we should be concerned about, and put a stop to, the "pre-occupation" with the "minutia" of adjusting techniques and the rationales used to claim this is important in clinical practice.
- That chiropractic "influencers" stop presenting the adjustment as "an exceptional tool".
- That adjustments do not "optimize health or promote a life of maximum potential".
- That we "accept that a case-report carries no real scientific weight".
- That chiropractors "once-and-for-all" abandon the historical tenets of the profession and reject such doctrines.
- That chiropractors stop chasing these poorly defined and unmeasurable concepts.
- That the teaching of vertebral subluxation complex as a vitalistic construct that claims or implies that it is the cause of or contributes to disease is unsupported by evidence.
- The inclusion of vertebral subluxation in a modern chiropractic curriculum in anything other than an historical context is inappropriate and unnecessary.
- That "high volume" chiropractic care models, "open plan" adjusting and pre-payment plans/packages and the use of pre and post x-rays are "not acceptable in terms of the best interests of patients or the chiropractic profession".
- That chiropractic programs support the World Health Organization vision and mission in immunization and vaccines.
Most of what these people claim in the paper is just repurposed from previous papers they have either written together or collaborated on. And the claims they make and the self referencing they engage in has been thoroughly exposed through the work of Simon Senzon DC, Ph.D through his dissertation Titled: Truth, Lies and Chiropractic that was supported by the Foundation for Vertebral Subluxation.
CLICK HERE for more about Senzon's work
David Newell is a well known Subluxation Denier and has been exposed many times before in regards to his contempt for chiropractors who embrace a subluxation model.
Leboeuf-Yde has been thoroughly exposed for her intellectual challenges in a paper by Ebrall - CLICK HERE for more on that
If you want even more about the intellectual dishonesty of Leboeuf-Yde - CLICK HERE
Other than spending his time attacking subluxation based chiropractors Søren Francis Dyhrberg O’Neill's claim to fame is back pain research
And Casper Nim is a CARL Fellow who has been groomed through their program to take on the fight of the older Deniers as they go out to pasture.
Make no mistake about it though, despite their intellectual dishonesty and challenges the Deniers control peer reviewed research journals and their research and rhetoric is used to buttress insane policy decisions designed to hasten the demise of the practice of chiropractic in a vitalistc, salutogenic, subluxation model.
So much so that 17 Chiropractic programs including the University of Bridgeport and Keiser University College of Chiropractic Medicine in the United States have signed on to position statements that support their main arguments. Both of those schools are accredited by the Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE) which apparently doesn't care about their pseudo-scientific claims.
