Post by KenNiemann on Oct 13, 2012 13:39:56 GMT -5
This post from British skeptic Bluewode so well highlights the self-reference, circular reasoning, and navel gazing of the chiropractic industry - especially our own National Board of Chiropractic Examiners who do competency testing on much of the world.
Read more: chirotalk.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=uk&thread=5630&page=1#ixzz29CoIw6b9
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Here’s an excellent piece on why the regulation of ‘alternative’ medicine doesn't work, and never will, by Prof. David Colquhoun in the Scottish Universities Medical Journal (Dundee)
sumj.dundee.ac.uk/data/uploads/epub-article/016-sumj.epub.pdf
He doesn’t take any prisoners with regard to the statutory regulation of chiropractors in the UK:
It’s worth noting that the UK General Chiropractic Council appears to continue to turn a blind eye to the regulation of chiroquacks...
www.thetwentyfirstfloor.com/?p=3534
…and allows mythical subluxations to be linked to “health concerns”
www.ebm-first.com/chiropractic/uk....o-evidence.html
"The are various levels of regulation. The "highest" level is the statutory regulation of osteopathy and chiropractic. The General Chiropractic Council (GCC) has exactly the same legal status as the General Medical Council (GMC). This ludicrous state of affairs arose because nobody in John Major's government had enough scientific knowledge to realise that chiropractic, and some parts of osteopathy, are pure quackery.
The problem is that organisations like the GCC function more to promote their discipline rather than regulate them. This became very obvious when the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) decided to sue Simon Singh for defamation, after he described some of their treatments as "bogus", "without a jot of evidence"[14]. In order to support Singh, several bloggers assessed the "plethora of evidence" which the BCA said could be used to justify their claims. After judicial review the claim of deformation was rejected with the court decision summarised by lawyer, David Allen Green, in The BCA's Worst Day [15].
In the wake of this, over 600 complaints were made to the GCC about unjustified claims made by chiropractors, thanks in large part to the work of two people, Simon Perry[16] and Alan Henness [17]. Simon Perry's Fishbarrel 18] allows complaints to be made quickly and easily. The majority of these complaints were rejected by the GCC, apparently on the grounds that chiropractors could not be blamed because the false claims had been endorsed by the GCC itself. My own complaint was based on phone calls to two chiropractors, I was told [19] such nonsense as "colic is down to, faulty movement patterns in the spine". However, my complaint never reached the Conduct and Competence committee because it had been judged by a preliminary investigating committee that there was no case to answer. The impression one got from this (very costly) exercise was that the GCC was there to protect chiropractors, not to protect the public.
The outcome was a disaster for chiropractors, who emerged totally discredited. It was also a disaster for the GCC that was forced to admit that it hadn't properly advised chiropractors about what they could and couldn't claim. The recantation culminated in the GCC declaring, in August 2010 [20], that the mythical "subluxation" is a "historical concept” and it is not supported by any clinical research evidence that would allow claims to be made that it is the cause of disease." Subluxation was a product of the fevered imagination of the founder of the chiropractic cult, D.D. Palmer. It referred to an imaginary spinal lesion that he claimed to be the cause of most diseases. Since 'subluxation' is the only thing that's distinguished chiropractic from any other sort of orthopaedic manipulation, the admission by the GCC that it does not exist, after a century of pretending that it does, is quite an admission.
The President of the BCA himself admitted in November 2011 [21] "The BCA sued Simon Singh personally for libel. In doing so, the BCA began one of the darkest periods in its history; one that was ultimately to cost it financially." As a result of all this, the deficiencies of chiropractic, and the deficiencies of its regulator were revealed, and advertisements for chiropractic are somewhat less misleading. But this change for the better was brought about entirely by the unpaid efforts of bloggers and a few journalists, and not at all by the official regulator, the GCC. This was part of the problem, not the solution. And it was certainly not helped by the organisation that is meant to regulate the GCC, the Council for Health Regulatory Excellence (CHRE) that did nothing whatsoever to stop the farce."
Read more: chirotalk.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=uk&thread=5630&page=1#ixzz29CoIw6b9
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here’s an excellent piece on why the regulation of ‘alternative’ medicine doesn't work, and never will, by Prof. David Colquhoun in the Scottish Universities Medical Journal (Dundee)
sumj.dundee.ac.uk/data/uploads/epub-article/016-sumj.epub.pdf
He doesn’t take any prisoners with regard to the statutory regulation of chiropractors in the UK:
It’s worth noting that the UK General Chiropractic Council appears to continue to turn a blind eye to the regulation of chiroquacks...
www.thetwentyfirstfloor.com/?p=3534
…and allows mythical subluxations to be linked to “health concerns”
www.ebm-first.com/chiropractic/uk....o-evidence.html
"The are various levels of regulation. The "highest" level is the statutory regulation of osteopathy and chiropractic. The General Chiropractic Council (GCC) has exactly the same legal status as the General Medical Council (GMC). This ludicrous state of affairs arose because nobody in John Major's government had enough scientific knowledge to realise that chiropractic, and some parts of osteopathy, are pure quackery.
The problem is that organisations like the GCC function more to promote their discipline rather than regulate them. This became very obvious when the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) decided to sue Simon Singh for defamation, after he described some of their treatments as "bogus", "without a jot of evidence"[14]. In order to support Singh, several bloggers assessed the "plethora of evidence" which the BCA said could be used to justify their claims. After judicial review the claim of deformation was rejected with the court decision summarised by lawyer, David Allen Green, in The BCA's Worst Day [15].
In the wake of this, over 600 complaints were made to the GCC about unjustified claims made by chiropractors, thanks in large part to the work of two people, Simon Perry[16] and Alan Henness [17]. Simon Perry's Fishbarrel 18] allows complaints to be made quickly and easily. The majority of these complaints were rejected by the GCC, apparently on the grounds that chiropractors could not be blamed because the false claims had been endorsed by the GCC itself. My own complaint was based on phone calls to two chiropractors, I was told [19] such nonsense as "colic is down to, faulty movement patterns in the spine". However, my complaint never reached the Conduct and Competence committee because it had been judged by a preliminary investigating committee that there was no case to answer. The impression one got from this (very costly) exercise was that the GCC was there to protect chiropractors, not to protect the public.
The outcome was a disaster for chiropractors, who emerged totally discredited. It was also a disaster for the GCC that was forced to admit that it hadn't properly advised chiropractors about what they could and couldn't claim. The recantation culminated in the GCC declaring, in August 2010 [20], that the mythical "subluxation" is a "historical concept” and it is not supported by any clinical research evidence that would allow claims to be made that it is the cause of disease." Subluxation was a product of the fevered imagination of the founder of the chiropractic cult, D.D. Palmer. It referred to an imaginary spinal lesion that he claimed to be the cause of most diseases. Since 'subluxation' is the only thing that's distinguished chiropractic from any other sort of orthopaedic manipulation, the admission by the GCC that it does not exist, after a century of pretending that it does, is quite an admission.
The President of the BCA himself admitted in November 2011 [21] "The BCA sued Simon Singh personally for libel. In doing so, the BCA began one of the darkest periods in its history; one that was ultimately to cost it financially." As a result of all this, the deficiencies of chiropractic, and the deficiencies of its regulator were revealed, and advertisements for chiropractic are somewhat less misleading. But this change for the better was brought about entirely by the unpaid efforts of bloggers and a few journalists, and not at all by the official regulator, the GCC. This was part of the problem, not the solution. And it was certainly not helped by the organisation that is meant to regulate the GCC, the Council for Health Regulatory Excellence (CHRE) that did nothing whatsoever to stop the farce."