Lethbridge Chiropractic – Accountability

Does it disturb you to know that chiropractors claim to treat asthma, autism, ADD/ADHD and almost any other medical problem you may have. Does it concern you they treat babies and children with these problems? How bout if you if knew that one of the principles of chiropractic is the rejection of the germ theory, this causing some chiropractors to lie about vaccination information to their patients.

A quick summary of chiropractic can be found here, and more detailed information can be found here.

If you want a list of the their unscientific treatment claims check out this link:
http://www.icpa4kids.org/research/chiropractic.htm

I am asking that everyone send a letter to your government representative and Alberta Health requesting them to investigate services the government has subsidized for chiropractors in the past.  Plus also request the government to restrict what health advice, treatment chiropractors can give and remove chiropractors from being able to call themselves Doctors.

Remember you are the tax payer and the government needs to respond to your concerns. Only by your actions will the government look at the the scientific data and facts regarding chiropractors

Find your governement MLA here:
http://www.assembly.ab.ca/net/index.aspx?p=mla_home

Alberta Health Misiter:
http://www.health.alberta.ca/about/minister-bio.html

The following is the letter I have already sent to the the above contacts:

As a citizen of Alberta I wish to assure you that your decision to stop
paying for chiropractic "treatments" was welcomed by many and long overdue.
I do not look upon this as a budget decision but rather one that is based
on providing services that are safe and scientific and therefore of benefit.

It was totally irresponsible as one example that the Alberta Government in
the past ten years alone has paid over $40 million dollars to Alberta
chiropractors who have billed for "treating" such things as infantile colic,
bed-wetting, attention deficit disorders and ear infections to name a few
conditions all hiding under the guise of so called "vertebral subluxations".
Did politics prevent this from being investigated? May we suggest that if an
obstetrician had billed Alberta Health for delivering babies in men, someone
would have investigated? If you examine the advertising website of any 50
chiropractors in the Province of Alberta you can see that they are very
clear that vertebral subluxations is exactly what they were claiming to
treat and to be billing for.

In the interests of tax payers the government of Alberta must take the next
step and investigate in a public and transparent manner the hundreds of
millions of dollars paid to chiropractors for non-existent so called
vertebral subluxations over the last 25 years. These payments should be
considered as complete abuse committed by the chiropractic industry since it
is clear that subluxations are an anatomical impossibility. 

Less you think that this is an issue for the College of Chiropractors to
look into, let us specifically address that you start your investigation
with the public claims made by three past presidents of the College, the
body there supposedly to act in the best interest of the public. As an aside
in the midst of this campaign about the H1N1 virus I would direct you to the
website of an Edmonton chiropractor who claims that chiropractic adjustments
can help prevent this influenza infection. What has he been billing Alberta
Health for and what have you been paying for?

http://www.whitemudcrossingchiropractors.com/templates20/article/191
THIS LINK HAS SINCE BEEN REMOVED

It stated in effect that children can die from H1N1 if they do not see a
chiropractor and have their spines adjusted to improve their immune system

"Complications from the H1N1 flu and who ultimately died from these
complications point to the need to make sure that children with such
disorders, and in fact all children, have as little interference to their
nervous systems as possible" Make sure that your child's immune system
remains functioning at its best.

This is therefore our demand that the Minister of Health under section 18(1)
of the Alberta Health Care law reassess claims made by all chiropractors in
Alberta in general and by three chiropractors in particular, all former
Presidents of the Alberta College of Chiropractors, the regulatory body
there supposedly to protect the public interest. In addition we demand an
investigation into the billing practise of this chiropractor claiming that
H1N1 flu can be helped by chiropractic adjustments.

In particular, under section 4(2), C, reassessment is justified in that "the
service provided was, in the circumstances, inappropriate or unnecessary"
and section (e), as chiropractors do refer to themselves as "doctors", "In
the case of a service provided by a physician, the service was not medically
required."

We take note of section (b) that the Minister should consider "accepted
standards of practice in Alberta of the profession of the practitioner
concerned." This is why our attention is focused on the Presidents, the
chief regulators of chiropractic in the province of Alberta. If the
practices of the very regulators there to act first and foremost in the
public interest are "inappropriate or unnecessary" or "not medically
required", then this means there is no effective regulation of chiropractic
in Alberta in regard to protecting Alberta Health from fraudulent billings.

Each of the three presidents operates for the public websites making claims
as to the diagnosis of conditions they claim to treat and the treatment that
should be done. The diagnosis being made is "vertebral subluxations" and the
treatment is said to be an "adjustment". We maintain that an investigation
by the bill payer Alberta health would uncover this to be a complete abuse
of Alberta Health care funds.

Before dealing with the Presidents, let me also demand an investigation into
claims being made in our local community. With no government controls over
the chiropractic practice they have begun to offer more alternative
treatments targeting all diseases and medical aliments. For example I
recently attended a seminar put on by a local chiropractic clinic supporting
and sponsoring the practice of not vaccinating your children. There are
clear damaging effects to community health and financial costs to our
government health care by allowing chiropractors to sponsor not vaccinating
children. The following website is operated by the business that sponsored
this anti-vaccination event and I have several people including myself that
can testify to the anti-vaccination message that was presented.

http://www.believeinmiracles.ca/index.php

In addition I have had asthma all my live and was in and out of the hospital
growing up with many attacks. It was only by modern science and medicine
that I am alive today. I find it personally insulting and potentially
dangerous for chiropractics to claim they can offer treatments for asthma.
Asthma is medically proven to be a respiratory disease that needs treatment
with scientifically proven medicine. The following link is to another
Lethbridge chiropractic business offering medical advice for people that
have asthma.

http://www.lethbridgechiropractor.com/doctor/chiropractor/308S/chiropractic-Lethbridge/asthma.htm

The claim of "Considerable research documents" is in fact a lie and the
journal (Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research) they point to as
reference is not a scientifically recognized journal of science. This
journal is only sponsored by chiropractors and not reviewed by the
scientific community.

You can continue your investigation with these three Websites of three past
presidents of the College of Chiropractors of Alberta, the body there
supposedly to act in the best interests of the public.

www.spine.ca
Look at the claims in the "Why practice members see us" on the left hand side.

http://www.calgarychiropractor.net/
He claims that every baby should have their spines adjusted "from the moment
they aremoments old". Is this what we taxpayers have been paying for?

www.drformoms.com
Another past president of the College claiming to be able to treat infants and
children for everything.

I also ask you to investigate the following websites and the billing practices of
these chiropractors.

www.synergea.ca

This chiropractor claims to be a member of the International Chiropractic
Pediatric Association www.icpa4kids.com a group which claims it can treat just about
every problem and infant or baby may have. 

www.lifestiles.ca

This chiropractor advertises on the official website of the College of
Chiropractors of Alberta.

www.doctormark.com

This chiropractor also claims:

SOME OF THE FALSE COMMENTS MADE ON THESE WEBSITES

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FALSE CLAIM

"Your nervous system controls every cell, tissue, organ and system of
your body. These nerve impulses travel through your spine. So having a spine
free of vertebral subluxation is essential for optimal health.
http://calgary.spine.ca/doctor/chiropractor/20S/chiropractic-Calgary/physiology.htm

Only a chiropractic examination can detect vertebral subluxations. And only
chiropractic adjustments can reduce their effect to your nervous
system, naturally"
http://calgary.spine.ca/doctor/chiropractor/126S/chiropractic-Calgary/adjustments.htm

TRUTH:
Chiropractors believe that the control of our body takes place with
the nerves at the spaces between our spinal vertebras. The truth is that the
control of the nervous system starts with the brain, the twelve cranial
nerves which all start within the skull and the brain stem.

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FALSE CLAIM

"Find out if you have vertebral subluxations before they become more serious
and more difficult to correct.

Why would a child have a spine and nervous system problem? Traumatic births.
Learning to walk. Slips. Falls. The list is endless. Yet, because children
have such an adaptive capacity, these problems are often brushed off as
"growing pains" or just a "phase they're going through."

"As the twig is bent, so grows the tree."

Many research projects show chiropractic care being helpful for colic, ear
infections, erratic sleeping habits, bedwetting, scoliosis, "growing pains"
and many other common childhood health complaints. 

The concern that many parents have is that chiropractic adjustments will be
too forceful. They mistakenly think that their child will receive
adjustments like ones they receive. Not only are adjusting techniques
modified for each person's size and unique spinal problem, an infant's spine
rarely has the long-standing muscle tightness seen in adults. This makes a
child's chiropractic adjustments gentle, comfortable and effective."

THE TRUTH
Vertebral subluxations do not exist. Saying they do is a scam. There is no
evidence whatsoever that colic, ear infections and bed-wetting and all the
other claims can be helped in any way whatsoever by chiropractic. In the
words of the Chiefs of Pediatrics of our Canadian Hospitals, chiropractic
manipulation are "ineffective and useless"

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FALSE CLAIM
Knowing exactly where to adjust, newborns and infants are adjusted with no
more pressure than you'd use to test the ripeness of a tomato. Many parents
have commented that they see almost instant improvements in the well-being
of their child.

Distorted nerve communications can be an underlying cause of many health
problems beyond just headaches and back pain. For example, interferes with
nerve impulses going to or from your stomach: stomach problems.

THE TRUTH:
This is totally false. The spaces between the vertebrae are
filled 85% with motor nerves to the limbs. If there was any interference
here the limbs would be affected long before the stomach, if ever. The vagus
nerve which begins inside the skull has most of the autonomic function of
the gastro-intestinal nerves.

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How does the scam work? It is very simple. People like being told that
things can be cured naturally and without drugs or surgery. They like being
told there is a physical cause that can be easily treated for what may be
wrong. They believe that chiropractors are "doctors" even if none of their
education has ever been approved by any Faculty of Medicine. So if a child
has a lot of ear infections, they take the neck and claim to have adjusted
it when in fact no such thing has happened. If the ear infections get less
often, they claim they have done it. If there are more ear infections, they
claim it is a tough case or the child's nervous system has been poisoned by
anti-biotics. Like the coin toss, heads I win and tails you lose.