A few years ago theBritish Medical Journalconducted a reader
poll to ind the 15 most important advances, discoveries or
breakthroughs in medicine since the magazine was founded in
- Here’s the list: anaesthesia, antibiotics, the antipsychotic
medication chlorpromazine, computer use, the discovery of
DNA’s structure, evidence-based medicine, germ theory, imaging,
immunology, oral rehydration therapy, the contraceptive pill, risks
of smoking, sanitation, tissue culture. and vaccines.
Alternative medicine supporters were horriied at the list.
Not only did it contradict much quackery by including germ
theory and antibiotics, admit to the reality of mental illness by
including the irst antipsychotic drug, highlight the value of
evidence and recognise the value of vaccines, but one of altmed’s
most demonised villains, Louis Pasteur, was associated with two
advances listed.
The best thing that supporters of alternatives to medicine
came up with for advances in the past century-and-a-half was
chiropractic. While chiropractic has been demonstrated to have
some beneit for the treatment of lower back pain, its eicacy
seems to be no different to taking a couple of ibuprofen tablets
or simply resting in bed without any medication. In layman’s
terms, this means that, for that condition anyway, chiropractic
is an expensive theatrical placebo.
There has been a lot of talk recently about the claims that
chiropractors make about the conditions that they can treat.
They like to call themselves “Dr”, wear white coats, and even
have an oicial government-sanctioned Chiropractic Board of
Australia with its “gov.au” website address in the same way that
real doctors have the Medical Board of Australia.
The CBA periodically issues decrees about how and what
chiropractors can advertise and the claims that they can make
for treating certain diseases. The most recent set of rules is very
similar to the ones that were issued in 2013, which have been
almost totally ignored ever since.
Speciically, chiropractors are not allowed to claim that they
can treat anything for which there is no evidence of a beneit
from chiropractic. This includes the standard claims on many
websites that chiropractic is useful for treating many childhood
conditions such as colic, asthma and ADHD.
A friend of mine recently spent an afternoon looking at the
websites of Australian chiropractors and gave up when he found
the 69th example of claims that are in total contradiction to
the CBA’s guidelines. Signiicantly, he did not ind one site in
his Google search that complied with the regulations.
As well as the CBA, there are two professional associations
of chiropractors in Australia. The Chiropractors Association
of Australia claims membership that includes more than half
the members in the profession. Its board and spokespeople seem
to be dominated by vaccine deniers, believers in the mythical
subluxations in the spine, and promoters of the value of paedi-
atric chiropractic. They pay lip service to the CBA’s recom-
mendations (and they areonlyrecommendations, because there
appears to be no action taken against people who break the
rules), but in reality it’s just business as usual as it has been for
the past 150 years.
A smaller organisation called Chiropractic Australia has been
formed in an attempt to put chiropractic on some sort of scien-
tiic basis. However, a similar organisation in the United States,
the National Association for Chiropractic Medicine, folded
after a few years due to indifference and even hostility from the
majority of members of the profession. I predict the same will
happen here.
At a recent seminar on the advertising of therapeutic goods
I spoke to a representative of Chiropractic Australia, and within
5 minutes he used the tu quoquelogical fallacy (doctors can’t
cure everything either) and denied that the word “allopathic” was
derogatory almost immediately after using it to disparage the
medical profession. This did nothing to raise any optimism I
may have had that any reform of chiropractic is possible.
If chiropractors can’t treat real diseases and conditions maybe
they could turn their sights on things that don’t really exist. The
current disease du jourin the alternative medicine world is Lyme
disease. This is caused by the bacteria Borrelia burgdorfericarried
by ticks indigenous to the north-east corner of the United States.
No evidence of any ticks carrying this bacteria have ever been
found in Australia, but that has not stopped a thriving industry
testing for and treating “chronic” Lyme disease. I put the scare
quotes around the word chronic because Lyme disease is cured
by a short course of antibiotics so it does not it the deinition
of chronic. The point of view of chiropractic, however, is that
everything requires a long and expensive course of treatment.
And are there chiropractors in Australia offering treatment
for Lyme disease? What a silly question!
Pretend doctors treating a pretend disease. How appropriate
is that?
JUNE 2016|| 47
Peter Bowditch is a former President of Australian Skeptics Inc. (www.skeptics.com.au).
THE NAKED SKEPTIC Peter Bowditch
Put the Lyme in the Quackonut
There is little evidence that chiropractors are willing to reform their practices.
No evidence of any ticks carrying this
bacteria have ever been found in
Australia, but that has not stopped a
thriving industry testing for and
treating “chronic” Lyme disease.
