Why are people so ignorant of Chiropractic?

Question

I read a question that disturbed me to no end. Apparently People are not aware of a chiropractors education level. Doctors of chiropractic do attend premedical studies and study exactly the same course material as an MD. In fact the course work for a Chiropractor exceeds the coursework for an MD by 139 hours. Most of that education is focused on neurology, neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, etc. The MD education focuses on Pharmaceuticals and the related symptoms for which to prescribe Pharmaceuticals. Also, the MD is at present in 2010 the leading cause of preventable death in the Untied States of America. Only three years ago they were in third place, now they have achieved the top spot. Current numbers are 700,000 per year. chiropractors have a bad reputation only because they cannot afford the air time necessary to out pace pharmaceutical advertising. It happens to be the pharmaceutical industry that support the current MD image as the industry requires the MD to prescribe their product in order to maintain profit. In 1910 the Harrison act spurred the Pharmaceutical industry to begin donating to medical colleges in order to influence the education of the next generation of MD who they needed to help maintain profits which were now subject to regulation.

Chiropractors have been offered the opportunity to 'write' prescriptions. The profession has refused that offer for the simple reason that pharmaceuticals are not absolutely necessary for the promotion of proper health and wellness. In fact chiropractors view most medications as a temporary stop-gap for momentary and temporary issues, not life long daily intake.

Answer 1

"Rhianna" Your statement is a complete fabrication of your indoctrination and ignorance of the facts. Again and again you make statements that are very feeble and further evidence that you support anything that fits your little box agendas. This statement: "You are not on the same parr as MDs, and conventional medicine isn't the leading cause of death, stop lying" is false and you know it or at least should know it. You do need to free yourself from the lies you believe.



Here is a study that was done that proves the leading cause of death in the U.S. is from iatrogenic problems. The number of deaths far exceeds any one major disease.



In July 2004, Gary Null Ph.D, Carolyn Dean M.D., N.D, Martin Feldman M.D., Debora Rasio M.D., Dorothy Smith Ph.D. wrote a paper that revealed very disturbing facts regarding an annual iatrogenic (induced inadvertently by a physician or surgeon or by medical treatment or diagnostic procedures) death rate of 783,936 in one year. It is further disturbing to realize that as few as 5 percent and only up to 20 percent of iatrogenic acts are ever reported. This means that that iatrogenic death rate of 783,936 is much higher.



As we look at the causes of death from degenerative diseases and other causes in America in 2004, it is obvious we are not good at solving this problem on any level. Deaths from: Heart Disease 652,000, Cancer 553,000, and Stroke 150,000.



When comparing the iatrogenic acts of modern medicine in America with the statistical numbers of people dying of any particular disease, it is evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the United States. And when we look at the cost of these iatrogenic deaths, the cost is in the billions.



A definitive review and close reading of medical peer-review journals, and government health statistics shows that American medicine frequently causes more harm than good. The number of people having in-hospital, adverse drug reactions (ADR) to prescribed medicine is 2.2 million. Dr. Richard Besser, of the CDC, in 1995, said the number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections was 20 million. Dr. Besser, in 2003, now refers to tens of millions of unnecessary antibiotics. The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually is 7.5 million. The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization annually is 8.9 million.



In regard to chiropractic care helping diseases of any kind other than muscle or skeletal problems, you are again completely out of your league of understanding. Chiropractic care is more preventative focused and helps all kinds of diseases that modern medicine cannot because it provides very good immune improvements to the body that drugs do not and in fact, most drugs damage the body in many ways. These "side effects" from drugs and interactions that take place with drugs are killing people everywhere. When did a chiropractic adjustment kill someone?



Your non descript, non committal, double talk is getting very old to most people here, except for the little group that follows you around vomiting the typical indoctrination.



Good luck to you

Answer 2

With chiropractors claiming to treat things they cannot treat then trying to defend this by claiming it's a Big Pharma led conspiracy theory, I'm not surprised that the public hear "chiropractor" then think "quack" before going to a real doctor.



Pretty ridiculous to think that MDs are a cause of death! They certainly don't make it into the top 10:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_preventable_causes_of_death



Saying they are is probably as stupid as saying "lots of people die in hospitals, so I keep out of them at all cost".

Answer 3

The point you are missing is this; It does not matter how long you've spent at Uni, it does not matter how much knowledge you have on the human body; this does not alter the fact that chiropractic has never been demonstrated to alter the course of any specific disease entity. Conventional medicine has.



Providing chiropractors stay within their realms of minor muscklo-skeletal problems, I have no specific issue with them. Any that make claims beyond this, in particular subluxations are...



1. Dishonest lying

2. Need psychiatric evaluation



Conventional medicine isn't the leading cause of death either, stop lying. MDs training does not just focus on Pharmaceuticals. Thats a big misconception.



And you aren't doing the chiropractic world any favors either. Attempting to justify the lack of evidence base for chiropractic with a conspiracy theory is just childish. Also, in most of Europe, Pharmaceutical companies have nothing to do with medical schools. And even if they do provide funding to some medical school, this does not make conventional medicine wrong and this STILL does not demonstrate efficacy of Chiropractic.



Your attitude and general opinion of MDs and conventional medicine is part of the reason why chiropractic isn't taken seriously in the medical and scientific community.

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@ Onlymatch4u: There are multiple logical problems with the data you’ve quoted, or rather your interpretation of it. And the use of it in your argument against conventional medicine. I’m at work and we are quite busy so I haven’t got time to have a proper look at your source, but it’s likely that most of the figures you have quoted have been extrapolated.



Regardless of numbers, the problem is this, it’s fallacious to list the negatives without listing the benefits. You have to include the denominator. Unless you include the benefits of conventional medicine, how can you determine that conventional medicine does more harm than good?



How many people owe their lives to conventional medicine? How many peoples lives and quality of life has been prolonged and improved with conventional medicine? Just because conventional medicine has the ability to be harmful and medical errors have been made, does not mean we should abandon conventional medicine and ignore all the benefits- which by far outweigh the risks. Of the people who died as a result of medical negligence, error and drug reactions, how many of those would have died anyway? Ex: technically speaking, hypoglycaemia as a result of insulin, can be classed as an adverse drug reaction, however without the insulin, the patient would die anyway.



Lets take food for example. I, like many people, have a severe allergy to peanuts, if I eat peanuts I would go into anaphylactic shock and without urgent intervention, likely die. Should we ban peanuts too?



Even if conventional medicine killed everyone, this STILL does not demonstrate efficacy of Altmed. Yes homeopathy, etc does not cause side effects, water in normal amounts generally doesn’t, however it does not work either. You cannot determine one is better on the basis it causes less side effects.



You mentioned heart disease, cancer and stroke.Heart disease ( in particular CAD) and cardiovascular events such as MIs and strokes often as a result of it, are to a certain extent a natural part of the ageing process. We are all living longer, so we are bound to see increased instances of these diseases and events. Also, in the case of CAD and a few other chronic diseases, an unhealthy diet and lifestyle (e.g. excess alcohol and food consumption, smoking and lack of exercise) accelerate these problems. Just because conventional medicine cannot undo some of the damage we cause ourselves (I’m not saying all these diseases are a result of damage we cause), does not equate to conventional medicine fail. Cancer is a disease of ageing and the majority of cancers are diagnosed in older people. However, other factors such as genetics, viruses, enviromental factors etc come into play. Just because we cannot cure all cancers, does not equate to conventional medicine fail.



With regards to antibiotics, yes, Doctors were incorrectly prescribing antibiotics for infections that were often of viral origin (e.g. many throat and upper respiratory infections)and this has indeed contributed towards antibiotic resistance. However, steps have been put in place to reduce the number of unnecessary Rx. Again this does not equate to conventional medicine fail. And its not as simple as that either, you haven’t taken patient non -compliance into consideration and numerous other factors.



Finally you haven’t presented any evidence that contradicts what I have said about chiropractic and there have indeed been documented cases of chiropractic causing strokes due to neck adjustments.



Conventional medicine unquestionably has it's limitations, but it is increasing based on evidence and reproducible results. And consider this: conventional medicine actually bothers to review and discards treatments shown to be ineffective. The alties seldom to the same and apparently have never heard of the concept of quality improvement.



FAIL.

Answer 4

Chiropractors can't fix my hip problems, that is why.