The Chiropractic Board of Australia has reinstated a ban prohibiting spinal manipulation for infants and children under two years old, following a recent Health Ministers Meeting. This move comes despite evidence suggesting the safety of chiropractic care for infants, highlighting the complex and often contentious nature of healthcare policies.
Background and Interim Ban Reinstatement
On June 14, 2024, Australian health ministers demanded the reinstatement of the ban on spinal manipulation of infants. Dr. Wayne Minter, Chair of the Chiropractic Board, embarrassed all chiropractors stating that while no serious harm has been documented from chiropractic care in
Australia, the primary duty of the Board is to protect the public.
Minter made this absurd claim despite the fact that there is no evidence that chiropractic results in adverse events beyond soreness and fussiness following chiropractic care. According to the Chiropractic Board the ban will remain "until further consultations can lead to a more permanent resolution."
The Board initially introduced the ban in 2019 following a meltdown by then Australia's Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos, a lawyer presumably with no health care training who said a video posted of an infant being gently adjusted by a chiropractor was “extremely disturbing” going on to assert that children undergoing chiropractic was appalling and that they were being ". . . exposed to potential harm."
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Mikakos reported the chiropractor to the Chiropractic Board of Australia and the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, and asked them to investigate and take action. This led to a cascade of emotional histrionics from Australian medical doctors resulting in the Chiropractic Board and the Australian Chiropractors Association to cave in to the ignorance and fear mongering and go along with the ban.
Apparently Mikakos, the current health ministers and the rest of the Medical Mafia in Australia haven't spent much time around infants being cared for in the industry they regulate. Perhaps they should attend some births where the medical doctors twist baby's necks, use forceps and vacuum extraction causing the very problems that the chiropractor was attempting to correct. Those facts are some of the most well documented in the medical literature.
Perhaps instead of worrying about one of the safest health care professions in the world, they should check the statistics on birth trauma in Australia - or better yet investigate the 18,000 people that die every year in Australian hospitals through preventable medical negligence, the 50,000 people who suffer from permanent injury annually as a result of medical negligence in Australia or the 80,000 Australian patients per year that are hospitalized due to medication errors.
Nope. Lets put a stop to those chiropractors instead.
Following the original ban a painstaking and controversial filled effort to gather patient satisfaction and safety data was undertaken by the Australian authorities. No evidence of harm was found and the research should overwhelming parental satisfaction with chiropractic care for their children.
By November 2023, updated guidelines allowed chiropractors to treat children based on current best practices and evidence though those guidelines are extremely restrictive and not evidence based since they excluded everything except randomized controlled trials.
Yet the Australian chiropractors, including the ACA, went along with it.
Reaction from the Chiropractic Community
The Australian Chiropractors Association (ACA) has expressed support for the Board’s decision with ACA President David Cahill DC stating in a press release:
"Today, the Australian Chiropractors Association (ACA) president, Dr David Cahill (chiropractor) welcomed the updated statement on paediatric care by the Chiropractic Board of Australia."
Strangely, the press release goes on to assert that the decision reaffirms the safety and benefits of chiropractic care for children.
We have reached out the ACA regarding the statement and confusion it has caused since the date of the Press Release is prior to the reinstatement of the ban.
The press release is dated June 13th and states the following:
"Today, the Australian Chiropractors Association (ACA) president, Dr David Cahill (chiropractor) welcomed the updated statement on paediatric care by the Chiropractic Board of Australia."
Since the press release announcing the reinstatement of the ban by the chiropractic board is dated June 17th, what was the "updated statement on paediatric care by the Chiropractic Board of Australia" that the ACA "welcomed" and that their press release was referring to if it wasn't the
June 17th release?
According to Cahill's press release:
"ACA member chiropractors are healthcare professionals who effectively treat a wide range of
musculoskeletal disorders."
Cahill commits the fatal mistake made by many apologist leaders in chiropractic who limit what chiropractors do to the "treatment" of "musculoskeletal disorders" when in fact chiropractic's focus is the management of vertebral subluxation which by definition must include the neurological system.
The ACA attempts to highlight the findings from the Safer Care Victoria Review, which indicated no reports of harm to children from chiropractic care among nearly 30,000 submissions. Furthermore, 99.6% of parental submissions reported benefits from chiropractic care for their children, underscoring its perceived safety and efficacy.
Hysterical Views from Medical Professionals
Despite the chiropractic community’s assurances, medical professionals, including the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), remain skeptical. Associate Professor Michael Clements of the RACGP argues that there is no evidence supporting the curative benefits of spinal manipulation for infants and emphasizes the potential risks stating:
“The idea that children should now be subject to spinal manipulation … is quite scary."
Paediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Patrick Lo also voiced a host of ignorant concerns including stressing that infants are not fully developed and that any manipulation poses risks to their future health. Considering this nonsense is coming from a neurosurgeon its quite an embarrassment to
the medical profession. This ignorance however is believed to be feigned and intended to instill fear into the public, take the focus off the medical atrocities they commit every day and keep kids, who the medical profession has failed, away from chiropractors who might help them instead of drugging them and removing organs they don't think they need.
Moving Forward or Backwards
The Chiropractic Board's decision to reinstate the ban and the ACA's acceptance of it highlights once again the weakness of chiropractic leaders and our trade associations which was brought to light during the "pandemic" and the pushing of the unscientific and unconstitutional mandates by these same leaders.
Minter indicated the Board’s lapdog status begging to collaborate with health ministers to develop another "final' evidence-based policy that protects patients while respecting parental choices in healthcare.
As the debate continues, the Board expects chiropractors to comply with the ban and adhere to the unscientific dictates they refer to as "guidelines".
Conclusion
The reinstatement of the ban on infant spinal manipulation by the Chiropractic Board of Australia underscores the ongoing debate surrounding pediatric chiropractic care and how the Chiropractic Cartel is doing the bidding of medical mafia by accepting only RCT's when considering evidence in an evidence informed model.
