| BOOK REVIEW (This review was also published at www.701.com) |
| This thoroughly researched "bashing" of the chiropractic industry will tell you everything you want (or do not want) to know about it. The authors themselves are quite willing to admit, in the Acknowledgements section, that "writing a book like this is a painstaking task that can smother you in data and detail." They will get no argument from me there. Nevertheless, statistics are a necessary evil (although they can be manipulated accordingly), and the authors' contention that this "profession" (or set of beliefs) fits right in with faith healing, astrology, acupuncture and outright fraud in its claims to rid the body of "dis-ease" seems very well-documented. Amazingly, chiropractic has managed to become a multi-billion dollar industry in both Canada (Burlington, Ontario, particularly) and the U.S., rivaling the more scientifically controlled (or logical) fields of physiotherapy, massage therapy, aqua-therapy and osteopathy. MacPhail and Beneditti, along with medical doctors, concede that some spinal manipulation techniques, performed by both the medical profession (physiotherapists) and chiropractors, can be an effective tool for musculoskeletal disorders, but their major complaint is the chiropractors' high-neck manipulation technique (which involves abrupt stretching and twisting of the neck). The authors, and certainly many medical doctors, are convinced that this dangerous procedure was most likely responsible for the stroke deaths of two Canadian women in the '90s - Lana Dale Lewis (45) and Laurie Jean Mathieson (20) - as well as for several other incidents of permanent disabilities resulting from high-neck manipulations. Legal, medical and chiropractic factions are still warring over the cause of these deaths and disabling incidents. The history of chiropractic is quite fascinating. Founded in the mid-1800s in the American Midwest by a Canadian, one Daniel David (D.D.) Palmer, born in Brown's Corner, near Port Perry, Ontario, widely varying doctrines of it were carried into the 20th century by his first-born son, Bartlett Joshua (B.J.) and many other devotees. D.D. Palmer seems to have had an early obsession with the spine and vertebra, as he allegedly inflicted regular beatings on his sons and daughters, apparently resulting in a fractured vertebra and spinal curvature for his son, B.J. D.D. liked to compare himself to Jesus [and the healing power of His hands] and was quoted as saying, "They crucified the first chiropractor." D.D.'s hands seemed to have been used for hurt rather than healing; maybe chiropractic developed from a guilty conscience. D.D. Palmer was heavily influenced by a charismatic German physician, Franz Anton Mesmer, apparently a friend of Amadeus Mozart (a "ladies' man" in his own right, if the movie is to be believed), who, in the late 1700s in Vienna, had apparently convinced rich female members of the aristocracy that he could cure their various illnesses (real or imagined) either by placing his hands on them in a synchronous manner, or by simply "wishing them [the illnesses] into the cornfield". He was eventually denounced as a fraud. Things got fairly clouded whenever they discussed the terms "subluxation" and "adjustment", key points at issue here. A subluxation, literally defined as a "partial dislocation", is referred to by chiropractors as a misaligned vertebra that pinches nerves and causes all sorts of nastiness in the body, with or without symptoms. Although the authors assert that a vertebra could not become misaligned through normal daily activities, it wasn't really made clear whether a vertebra could, in fact, become misaligned at all, either through birth (as claimed by chiropractors) or in an athletic mishap, for example. According to chiropractors, an "adjustment" or "cracking" of the spine makes everything work fine, as long as you come back again and again for "fine-tuning". You would think that, because the existence of subluxations can be neither proven nor disproven (according to the authors), the theory would then be discarded as nothing more than a personal belief, like astrology or numerology, or even "getting your colours done". To discover that taxpayers, through government health ministries, are actually footing the bill for treatments that claim to keep the entire body disease-free is absolutely preposterous and outrageous. I personally prescribe a lover, a heating pad and supportive family and friends to get rid of aches and pains! |
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| SPIN DOCTORS - PAUL BENEDETTI AND WAYNE MACPHAIL Book Review by Diane Wells |
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