Chiropractors Are Trying to Kill You
I will crack your back and then you will not be deaf anymore.
Last year, Guardian science writer Simon Singh called Chiropractic—the “alternative therapy” that claims spinal manipulation will cure everything that ails you—”bogus.” Unfortunately, he wrote this truthful thing in Great Britain, where it is illegal to hurt the feelings of someone with more money than you.
So the British Chiropractic Association sued him for libel! And he lost a preliminary judgment!
Your chiropractor may be quite good at taking care of your back pain. (And a placebo might be just as good! And your chiropractic treatment may cause more back pain!) But one thing he can not do is cure your child’s asthma. Or colic. Or bed-wetting. Or ear infections. Ok, there are a lot things he can not do. All of which BCA members do indeed claim they can do, with their back-twisting and posture correction and what-not.
Now some bloggers are filing hundreds of “false advertising” complaints against every British chiropractor with a website, which is certainly satisfying, but definitely not as satisfying as it would’ve been for a judge to properly, officially declare the practice quackery. And Mr. Singh will probably lose his appeal, because accusing someone of being willfully dishonest when they might just be stupid and deluded counts as libel in England.
The head of the British Chiropractic Association wrote in to New Scientist magazine with his second opinion:
Our critics also make the mistake of equating chiropractic with spinal manipulation, especially with regard to treating non-spinal conditions such as asthma. This demonstrates a lack of understanding of the fact that chiropractors utilise a range of treatments, including postural advice, reassurance and exercise.
See? They will cure your asthma with reassurance. That sounds way less bogus!
Ernst and others claim that chiropractic lacks evidence, pointing to a paucity of randomised controlled trials. This overlooks the fact that many accepted medical interventions have little or no research evidence to support them.
Other things are untested, so the fact that no one has ever proven any medical benefit to chiropractic therapy means it does work. And so on!
Can Chiropractic Kill You: Maybe! Hardcore neck manipulation can tear the inside walls of a neck artery, leading to a stroke. It is not the most dangerous bullshit cure out there, but it is certainly dumber than, say, almost any other therapy for neck and back pain.
Do Celebrities Endorse It? Yes, of course. California Governor and Kindergarten Cop star Arnold Schwarzenegger his chiropractor friend Dr. Franco Columbu is a former bodybuilding champion!
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All you have to do is watch a few YouTubes of these charlatans in Hawaiian shirts violently twisting the necks of old ladies laying on tables, and you KNOW they’re trying to kill you, softly.
Obviously, all of you that are writing anything against chiropractic have not realized that even within the medical world, there are horrible practices and doctors…
Chiropractic can save your life! There are more deaths within the medical field and it is the pharmaceutical and medical lobbyists that are trying to tell you otherwise (and they will kill you first by not being honest about their products, etc.).
Lastly, just like there are many different specialties within the medical profession, there are many different forms of chiropractic. There are medical quacks and chiropractic quacks but you don’t go around blaming the whole medical profession if you come across a bad doctor, do you?!
My children (and myself) are total chiropractic patients! They have been healthier than their medically treated friends and have a powerful immune system which otherwise would have been compromised by medicine! Chiropractic does cure many health issues that you are putting down! I have seen miracles happen for people that have gone the medical round first with no cure or relief and are convinced that chiropractic saved their lives and they are also no longer in pain!
In the future, if you want to be fair reporters, post the positive aspects not just the negative. You can find the negative and positive in the medical profession – and the same is true for chiropractic care!
Yay! My first offended reader! Where are the rest of you thousands of googling Chiropractic users and “systems medicine” adherents? In hyperbaric chambers?
In response to another comment. See in context »Alex, will you take on acupuncture next? Acupuncture almost killed me.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Read up on Chiropractic philosophy before you spout off about this stuff. Medical doctors save lives every day, but prescription drugs and medical mistakes kill people as well. Lets look at both sides here.
[...] hero science journalist Simon Singh is in Australia, waging war on homeopathy. Homeopathy has been in the news, out there, because a [...]
I had a bullshit chiropractor as a teacher for an anatomy class. All he did was spend time saying how doctors would try to cure ear infections incorrectly and how his nonsensical profession could do it much better!
There are benefits in every domain as there are flaws. I’m not saying that going to the chiropractor will solve all your medical issues but I have friends that got results from it. People should go to their chiropractor for the well-known issues it resolves and not for some eccentric experiments.
Please all you Chiros trying to defend a practice that has no basis in anything other than in your minds, sublexation is a theory never proven to do anything, placebo effect is as high as 60%, you could hit ur victims in the head with a bag o crap and cure them. If you wanted to be a real health care provider should have went to MD school, but I bet you tried that. I have never met a person that stated they wanted to grow up and be a chiro and I have never heard of anyone not being admitted to chiro schools. On top of that, when you look at chiro bios, most are hacks that went to little know colleges and might have graduated, then after boucing around at various jobs decided on chiro school or should i say ‘learn how to bill medicare/caid school’. Chiros stick to your fringe pseudo science and sleep in the bed u made