We have all been told that stroke from neck manipulation is rare...if this is so, why do I have three patients that have all had strokes as a result of Chiropractic Neck Manipulation?
One of these patients was a 25 year old pregnant mom (with twins) that suffered a vertebral artery dissection in her neck, immediately following getting her neck cracked for back pain during her final week of pregnancy. I see her once a month for ongoing complications of this dissection.
I personally congratulate the two Alberta Lawyers that are suing the Government Regulators and Alberta Health for allowing Chiropractic Neck manipulation to thrive despite the ongoing and repeated warnings and pleas of Physicians over the decades to the contrary! In short - I hope that the Government gets nailed to the wall in this lawsuit - because they more than deserve it!
I know and respect an excellent Chiropractor. He is basically a highly trained Physiotherapist and Massage Therapist. And he doesn't "crack necks". I believe that the College of Chiropractors should be taken to task to protect the public from the quacks that are destroying a potentially respectable profession. The "legit" Chiropractors should ban together and toss these "quack supporters" out of their own College!
Herald Article Follows:
Cracking necks destroys lives
Sandra Nette of Edmonton suffered a locked in syndrome stroke immediately following a chiropractic highest neck manipulation on Sept. 13, 2007.
Journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby described his own suffering from locked in syndrome stroke in the 2007 AcademyAward-nominated French movie, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, adapted from his memoir.
Nette remains able to understand, see, think and feel. Yet, she will never again speak, walk, feed herself or take a normal clear breath of air. Who locked a healthy 40-yearold Alberta woman in an under water diving bell?
The first locksmiths were two quacks, David Palmer and his son B.J. Palmer. One hundred years ago, David started manipulating the backs of people and his son B.J. began cracking the highest neck as a cure for most diseases. “I have found the only cause of disease,” he claimed. The omen of chiropractic highest neck manipulation was born.
Nette, now 41, who is suing her chiropractor and Alberta Health, was locked in the diving bell by graduates of schools of chiropractic all over North America who have adopted the Palmer belief as the very essence of chiropractic philosophy. The Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College in Toronto is named after Palmer. Graduates of chiropractic schools are allowed by the politicians to call themselves “doctor.” None have studied a day in a hospital or had their teaching approved by a faculty of medicine. Years of non-scientific study, no matter how long, lead to graduates who claim to be experts of the nervous system. These experts falsely believe that neurological function is centred on the spaces between our backbones, especially in the highest neck. This teaching has no brain.
Sandra was locked in the diving bell by the false notion that quacks could regulate quackery in the public interest. Thus a recent president of the College of Chiropractors of Alberta, the body here to protect the public, swears his allegiance to “the principles taught by the founder D.D. Palmer.” He sets the healthcare standard for chiropractors that they should manipulate the bodies of “those who are only moments old to just before they leave to the next state of existence.”
Log onto the Alberta public information website of the College and Association of Chiropractors (www.albertachiro.com)and you will find a spokesperson, Gregory Stiles pointing to a Chart of Effects of Vertebral Subluxations. At the highest neck area, these subluxations are claimed to cause an endless number of diseases including crossed eyes, deafness, pituitary gland disease and the common cold.
The final lock on the bell was placed on Sandra by those in government. Public officials have totally ignored the evidence and warnings about this. Alberta pediatricians met with government officials to explain to them how useless and potentially dangerous spinal manipulation in infants and children is. Alberta Health paid more than $40 million in the past decade for chiropractors to take the heads of babies and children, turn them suddenly and claim that they have done an adjustment for subluxations. Neither the diagnosis nor the treatments are valid. Taxpayers keep paying.
While this is a scam, the ministry may have become complicit in strokes and deaths when one recent health minister totally ignored the personal pleas of an Alberta physician to do something about the near death of a 21-year-old woman who fell on her tailbone and yet had her neck manipulated by an Alberta chiropractor. Subsequent ministers ignored the clear statement of 62 neurologists all across Canada to do something to stop the strokes and deaths.
The biggest myth is that stroke and death from neck manipulation is rare. Indeed rare is not the issue. The bottom line is that twisting the highest neck to produce a cracking sound — nitrogen gas coming out of solution — is never necessary. It is not a treatment, it is a deadly philosophy, started 100 years ago by quacks, taught in non-scientific schools, supported by regulatory bodies and ignored by governments who had the ultimate responsibility.
To try to downplay the risk, the chiropractors have produced non-scientific “research,” studies done on people already dead, self-serving insurance statistics done by their own company and Medicare billing records, which have nothing to do with the issue. The families of these chiropractic victims have now provided 70 years of scientific data to every member of the legislatures in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
Alberta lawyers Daryl Wilson and Philip Tinkler have taken the risky, yet inspiring and necessary legal action to go after the head of the snake, the regulators and the government. Their motivation is not financial; it is simple humanity and pain at the unnecessary suffering of their client. These lawyers will not go away. Chiropractic subluxations will be on trial. If they are shown not to exist, which they do not, chiropractic will be reduced to simple manipulation therapy for the almost negligible instances where it is helpful. Chiropractic highest neck manipulation in particular will be gone.
The physicians who care for Nette in Alberta as well as those caring for stroke victims in B.C., Manitoba and Saskatchewan have issued a public warning. They never want to see another case of neck manipulation stroke. The victims and doctors have also outlined exactly what the provincial health ministers must do. They have to impose six specific restrictions on chiropractic which would in effect lead to all chiropractic highest neck manipulation being stopped. Only a foolish minister of health would not recognize the opportunity to limit possible liability. The time for political protection of chiropractors is over. One look into the eyes of Sandra Nette and her devoted husband, Dave, tells you why. As in the movie, The Butterfly and the Diving Bell, only the imagination can set Sandra free. That imagination is the end to chiropractic highest neck manipulation strokes and death.
4 comments:
John, your article is incorrect and uneducated. Don't forget that medicine as you practice is a leading cause of death, even when patients take medications and follow directions as perscribed. Medicine is the biggest failure to date, and still the most dangerous form of Sick Care known toda y.
It is impossible to create vertebral artery dissection using grade 5 manipulation on a healthy individual, which you wouldknow had you studied manipulation. In the cases reported and studied, all patients had been predisposed to the dissections due to prior injury or weakening of the vessels. All patients are screened for this prior to recieving treatment.
My advise for you. Stick to colds and hemmorhoids, because you are cleary giving uneducated and biased opinions on topics you clearly know nothing about. As a family practitioner, this could not be further from your specialty. It is uphauling that you are giving public medical advise as done so on this post, without the proper study and knowledge to do so. Study the research then call me.
Thank-you for your comment. It obviously touched a nerve for you - and though I disagree with your comment - it is appreciated and is something that I will certainly consider.
The problem with my critique of a "grade 5 manipulation" is that I have no idea what it means. What sort of scale does "grade 5" come from? Has it been studied in randomized clinical trials? What levels of evidence have been published to validate the scale for safety and efficacy, etc., etc.
You are correct that Physicians probably kill and hurt more people than any other profession - that is certainly why we call it "Medical Practice". But we also save and heal more people than any other profession and follow a very carefully crafted set of standards that has been traditionalized in an ascending spiral of professionalism for centuries. Physicians are widely regarded as the penultimate professionals. This certainly no accident, and is the direct result of the Profession's self policing nature that accepts only the highest standards of education, data and conduct of its members. We have come to realize the inevitability of human nature in its non-perfectness, and have learned to expect deficiencies, mistakes, arrogance and many of the other unavoidable nuances of human nature in our members. We just strive to have less of these elements in our membership than other professions - and while our success is certainly debatable; our resolve is not.
Your derisive comment about sticking to hemorrhoids and colds is perhaps the result of your emotional reaction to this post and is understandable. Please understand that I proudly serve the poor patient that has been suffering from hemorrhoids or a cold....or severe congestive heart failure, emphysema, Wegener's Granulomatosis, Pneumocystic Carnii Pneumonia, HIV, Schizophrenia, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Depression, Brain Tumour, Pancreatic Cancer, Crohn's Disease, Leprosy, Chlamydia or a nose that occasionally drips too much.
I proudly see these things every day and do what I can to not only help these folks - but I humbly learn from them as well.
Your comments, like I said; are appreciated and I will reflect on them some more. You are correct that one should not pontificate much upon areas where ones' knowledge is incomplete. I will take your comments and resolve to learn more about Chiropractic Neck Manipulation and the data attached to it so that my comments in the future are at least more fairly weighed.
Thank-you.
JF
There are different types of chiropractors. There are Mixing, Straight and Reform chiropractors.
Chiropractor Adelaide
This is interesting, John. I have been going to a chiropractor when I have back pains. It's been going on for a while now. I guess there are medications that works for some and for others does not. Fortunately, it works for me.
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