{"id":579,"date":"2014-08-27T13:11:30","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T20:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/health\/?p=579"},"modified":"2014-08-27T13:14:25","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T20:14:25","slug":"drowning-sea-misinformation-part-4-chiropractic-professional-organisations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/health\/2014\/08\/27\/drowning-sea-misinformation-part-4-chiropractic-professional-organisations\/","title":{"rendered":"Drowning in a sea of misinformation. Part 4: chiropractic professional organisations"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Edzard Ernst<\/strong><\/div>\n

Originally published Thursday, Sept. 13, 2013<\/p>\n

\n

\"card-073-Edzard-Ernst\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One would have thought that, after losing their libel case against Simon Singh<\/a>, chiropractors across the world might have got their act together and stopped claiming that their \u2018bogus\u2019 treatments are effective for conditions that lack both supporting evidence and scientific rationale. However, our investigation<\/a> which was carried out in 2010, well after the libel action and the embarrassing defeat for chiropractors, sadly suggests otherwise.<\/p>\n

It was aimed at determining the frequency of claims of chiropractors and their associations to treat a range of pre-defined conditions: asthma, headache\/migraine, infant colic, colic, ear infection\/earache\/otitis media, neck pain, whiplash as examples of indications not supported by sound evidence, and lower back pain as an example of a condition supported by some evidence.<\/p>\n

For this purpose, we conducted a review of 200 websites of individual chiropractors and 9 websites of chiropractic associations from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States between 1 October 2008 and 26 November 2008. Our outcome measure was either direct or indirect claims regarding the eight above-named conditions.<\/p>\n

We found evidence that 95% chiropractor websites made unsubstantiated claims regarding at least one of these conditions. Four of the 9 (44%) associations made justified claims about lower back pain. All 9 associations made unsubstantiated claims about headache\/migraine. Unsubstantiated claims were also made about asthma, ear infection\/earache\/otitis media, neck pain.<\/p>\n

We concluded that the majority of chiropractors and their associations in the English-speaking world seem to make therapeutic claims that are not supported by sound evidence, whilst only 28% of chiropractor websites promote lower back pain, which is supported by some evidence. We suggest the ubiquity of the unsubstantiated claims constitutes an ethical and public health issue.<\/p>\n

Criticism<\/a> regarding unsubstantiated claims have been raised even from within the profession of chiropractors (albeit very, very rarely); two chiropractors suggested that they are \u201cevidence of a lack of professionalism and of quackery\u201d that have evolved within a \u201ctradition of dogma, fallacious reasoning, and unconventional attitudes about research and science\u201d. I quite agree; instead of self-critical attitudes, chiropractors seem to develop a pathological state of denial.<\/p>\n

The codes of ethics of chiropractors vary, of course, from nation to nation, but they tend to agree that information used must be factual and verifiable and should not be misleading or inaccurate. Unsubstantiated claims such as those disclosed by our investigation thus violate the rules of these codes. More importantly perhaps, they also misinform unsuspecting consumers and put public health at risk. This has now been going on for such a long time that it truly is embarrassing \u2013 not just for chiropractors (who seem to be immune to embarrassment) but to regulators and even to society at large who tolerates such abuse at the hands of the chiropractic profession.<\/p>\n

Considering more recent<\/a> events<\/a> in the realm of chiropractic<\/a>, it seems highly unlikely that the situation is going to improve any time soon. Misinformation in the name of maximising income , it often seems to me, is what chiropractic is really about.<\/p>\n

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Edzard Ernst\u00a0MD, PhD, FMedSci, FSB, FRCP, FRCPEd<\/strong><\/p>\n

Emeritus Professor, Exeter University<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"EErnst\"<\/a>Dr. Ernst qualified as a physician in Germany in 1978 where he also completed his MD and PhD theses. He received hands-on\u00a0training in acupuncture, autogenic training, herbalism, homoeopathy, massage therapy and spinal manipulation.<\/p>\n

Later, he became\u00a0Professor in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PMR) at Hannover Medical School and Head of the PMR Department at the University of Vienna. In 1993, he moved to the UK and became\u00a0Chair in Complementary Medicine at the University of Exeter. He is founder\/Editor-in-Chief of two medical journals (Perfusion<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies<\/a><\/em>).<\/em><\/p>\n

He has published\u00a048 books and\u00a0more than\u00a01000 articles in the peer-reviewed medical literature. His work\u00a0has been awarded with 14 scientific prizes. In 1999, he took British nationality.<\/p>\n

His research focussed on the critical evaluation of all aspects of alternative medicine. Unlike most of his colleagues, he does not aim to promote a particular therapy. His goal is to provide objective evidence and reliable information. It is fair to say that this ambition did not endear him to many quasi-religious believers in alternative medicine.<\/p>\n

Healthy Skepticism is republishing selections from Dr. Ernst’s blog with permission. Please visit his website at\u00a0http:\/\/edzardernst.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…we conducted a review of 200 websites of individual chiropractors and 9 websites of chiropractic associations from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States between 1 October 2008 and 26 November 2008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,39,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chiropractic","category-edzard-ernst","category-skepticism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}