Chiropractic abuse and how we can protect ourselves from it

Preston Long’s book has featured on this blog before. It is truly an important contribution to the literature on chiropractic, and I recommend that anyone with an interest in the subject should read it. Harriet Hall wrote about it even if you think you’ve heard it all before, there are revelations here that will be new to you, that will elicit surprise, indignation, and laughter.

In a way, an even better ‘recommendation’ comes from someone who previously made numerous vile comments on my blog, Eugen Roth: In my opinion the close relationship that the author has with both Stephen Barrett and Prof Edzard Ernst makes this book just another part of the witch hunt against chiropractic which was initiated more than 50 years ago… In my opinion Prof Ernst and Dr Barrett have continued this witch hunt over many years and have now teamed up with the author to try and give credence to their misguided message. I have no ‘close relationship’ with Long, and his book is not a witch hunt; it is a factual and fascinating of chiropractic abuse, fraud and make-belief.

Chiropractors are in many ways not that different from other health care professionals. Most of them, like Preston Long, go into their profession with all the very best intentions; they study hard what is being taught at Chiropractic College; they pass their exams and set up a practice to earn a decent living. During their career, they subsequently treat thousands of patients, and many of them perceive some benefit. Those who don’t fail to return and are quickly forgotten. Over the years, chiropractors thus become convinced that their interventions are effective.

In several other ways, however, chiropractors differ from conventional health care professionals. The most fundamental differences, I think, relate to the facts that chiropractic is based on the erroneous dogma of its founding fathers, and that chiropractors fail to abide by the rules of evidence-based medicine and practice. Preston Long writes eloquently about many other rules which some chiropractors fail to abide to in addition.

D.D. Palmer, the ‘inventor’ of chiropractic, believed that all human illness was the result of ‘subluxations’ of the spine which impeded the flow of the ‘Innate’ and required correction through spinal adjustments. To his followers, this new approach to healing was the only correct one – one that could cure all health problems. When these assumptions were first formulated, more than a century ago, they might not even have appeared entirely ridiculous; today, in the face of an immense amount of new knowledge, they can easily be disclosed as pure fantasy and chiropractors who believe in Palmer’s gospel have become the laughing stock of all health care professionals.

Some chiropractors are therefore struggling to free themselves from the burden of Palmer’s nonsensical notions. But this struggle rarely is entirely successful. After all, chiropractors have been to Chiropractic College where they memorised so many falsehoods, were kept from numerous important truths, and failed to acquire the essential skills of being (self-) critical. As a result, most find it virtually impossible to completely recover from the ‘brain-wash’ they were submitted to at the beginning of their career. And even if some courageous innovators, one day, managed to expunge all the falsehoods, myths and bogus claims from their profession, the obvious question would still be, how would such a ‘chiropractic minus woo’ differ from physiotherapy?

Most chiropractors have very little inkling what evidence-based practice amounts to; the good intentions that once motivated them have long given way to the need to make money. They are unable to critically assess their own activities, and all the bogus claims they have been exposed to are thus endlessly and profitably perpetuated. The principles of medical ethics have remained alien to most of them. In fact, ‘evidence-based chiropractic’ is an oxymoron: either you abide by evidence – in which case you cannot possibly conceive the idea of adjusting spinal ‘subluxations’ – or you believe in the myth of ‘subluxations’ in which case your practice is not evidence-based. Long is right, I think, when he states: the most efficient way to protect against chiropractic mistreatment is to avoid chiropractors altogether.

Whenever someone dares to criticise their bizarre interventions, chiropractors react with anger, personal attacks, defamation or even libel suits. One argument that is voiced with unfailing regularity in such a context is the claim that the critic lacks the knowledge, insight and experience to be credible. External criticism is thus usually completely ignored.

Preston Long has been a chiropractor himself, and therefore his authority, inside knowledge and expertise cannot be undermined in this fashion. He knows what he is writing about and has been an eye-witness to most of the abuses he reports in his book. His comments are not criticism from the outside; they are thoughtful insights, hand-on experiences and first-hand accounts of fraud and abuse which originate from the very heart of chiropractic. It is this fact that makes this book unique.

Preston Long’s book provides a most valuable perspective on the education, training, thinking, misunderstandings, wrong-doings and unethical behaviours of chiropractors. He also gives valuable instructions on how we can protect ourselves against chiropractic abuse. It would be nice to think that Long’s outstanding and in many ways constructive criticism might contribute to a much-needed and long over-due reformation of chiropractic; but I would not hold my breath.