We live in the most scientific of ages where it is more than reasonable to expect that modern healthcare strategies will be underpinned by credible scientific evidence for their clinical effectiveness. However, we find flourishing, pseudoscientific concepts and practices that are an affront to our detailed knowledge of how our bodies function in health and disease. There are no connections between parts of the iris of one's eyes and other organs (iridology), nor anatomical areas on the soles of our feet with such connections (reflexology), nor energy fields, signalling ill health, radiating from our bodies and subject to correction by "healing touch" therapists.

It was encouraging, therefore, to learn last week that Minister Greg Hunt had reversed a poor decision by his predecessor and accepted the findings of our National Health and Medical Research Council that there is no evidence to support the efficacy of any of the 17 most popular "alternative " therapies. The provision of these ineffective approaches will no longer be subsidised by taxpayers' dollars via the subsidy to private health insurers that cover such services. Unfortunately, this is only tackling the tip of the health fraud iceberg.

There is a major weakness in the regulatory set-up for chiropracters.

Take, for example, the problems the Australian Health Practitioner Regulatory Agency has in protecting consumers from the fraudulent activities of many chiropractors, who were recently added to the AHPRA family along with osteopaths and traditional Chinese medicine practitioners (TCM). With the respectability associated with registration many chiropractors set about becoming providers of treatment for a wide range of conditions far beyond the remit of traditional chiropractic. There is a soft evidence base for chiropractic treatment of musculoskeletal problems with backs and necks but none for the extended role many have pursued.

Chiropractic websites have been advertising claims for chiropractic management for more than 60 non-musculoskeletal conditions. These include autism, asthma, developmental disorders, colic, bed-wetting, ear infections, allergies and even the ability to turn a breech baby, something an obstetrician would only attempt in a hospital setting. To justify these claims they insist that there is running up and down the spinal column an "innate energy" (invisible), the integrity of which is essential for whole of body health. Minor distortions of the spine (invisible by X-ray or MRI), which they call "subluxations", disturb this energy. Chiropractors claim that they can often correct such problems by making small "adjustments" to the spine. The care of babies, children and pregnant women is targeted with this pseudoscience. One feels sorry for the chiropractors that stick to evidence-based care.