Flexibility and Chiropractic Care

Well who do I trust more to diagnose any musculoskeletal conditions, a chiropractor or a physiotherapist (or a doctor in the relevant feild)? I choose the latter, I know I can trust the science behind these doctors. I'm sorry but in my eyes there just aren't any redeeming factors in chiropractics that can't be obtained from better more reliable sources.

No offence, but I can cure migraines with chewing gum if I have someone willing enough to buy the story that it works.
And if not just the placebo effect, it could simply be human contact. That's the tricky thing about pain, it's all in the mind.

This is a huge issue I have with the practice as well. This group of chiropractors are either deluded into actually believing they can cure everything, or they are charlatans deluding others. Each case the patient is most likely not getting the actually treatment that they need. It's ignorant, dangerous, and corrupt.

I feel like I should apologize since you are a person in this field, I really don't mean any harm, but I just strongly disagree with you profession

 

You're better than that Dave.
You don't prove something doesn't work. You prove that it does.

 

The earlier assertion was that (pro)chiropractic research cannot be trusted because it is biased. But somehow more mainstream research isn't.

 

As someone who is training to be a researcher, it would be career suicide to publish a research paper with faulty or rigged science, at least here in civilized Europe. The way I know hospitals and science work is that if chiropractics were demonstrated to be effective, the hospitals would start to hire chiropractors and invest in the practice, sadly that is not the case.

But do you honestly believe that there is such a conspiracy against chiropractics? And if so, why the distrust in mainstream medicine?

 

Plenty of corruption in both fields. Doesn't mean neither of them has value.

 

That's the issue, pro-chiropractic research is already biased (hence the pro-).
Mainstream medicine research has no dog in the fight since they can benefit from proving it correct or incorrect, and therefore does not lean to any one side.

Science doesn't work by deciding which way they want the evidence to point and then perform tests to only verify their biases. Science works by taking claims and then testing them in an unbiased way and seeing where the dice land.

 

I fail to see the corruption in mainstream medicine. Could you clarify?

 

The fact is that Chiropractors claim that illness is caused by subluxations. With modern medicine we can actually look inside the body (X-rays, MRI) and see if Chiropractors are telling the truth (hint: they aren't).

If you go to three different Chiropractors you will get three different diagnoses, and the likelihood is that none will be even remotely accurate. With the growth of evidence based medicine Chiropracty was falling into disrepute, scholarly journal articles were universally against them as was the medical profession and science. In response the Chiropractic industry has set up their own parallel system. They have their own (unnacredited) colleges handing out worthless degrees to people who then go on to publish in pseudo-scientific journals of Chiropracty, the articles are then used as proof of the effectiveness of Chiropractic practice.

This campaign to create a false veneer of respectability has been remarkably successful. For a alternative medical practice that has about as much evidence as Reiki or ear-candling, they have gained a remarkable following.

 

Read Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre. There's plenty of corruption in mainstream medicine. Withholding trial data, running badly constructed trials, industry paying researchers and doctors etc etc.
Mainstream medicine is FAR from corruption free.

However that doesn't then mean that "Alternative Medicine X" therefore works.
As bad as mainstream medicine can be at least the concept of doing fair placebo controlled trials and having a basis in how people actually work is there.
Unlike most alt-med.

You mentioned money Dave. I wonder what the Chiropractic industry is worth?
Hay whaddayaknow...Chiropractic revenue in the US is someting like 11-13 BILLION a year.
Mainstream medicine sure is doing a good job of shutting that chiropractic cash cow down.
Or not.

 

I'm not saying it is inherently corrupt. There are corrupt and irresponsible practitioners. Just like there are corrupt and irresponsible chiropractors. Do you really believe there are not corrupt or irresponsible doctors? Or medical associations?

 

I think the US system is more corrupt than the UK one.
Because doctors get paid for providing treatment (rather than a flat salary no matter how many operations they do or patients they see).

 

I would hate for anyone to have one more corrupt! It is ridiculous!

 

Yeh but you can find corrupt and irresponsible primary school teachers. There are bad apples everywhere in the world bruv time to look past that and see the big picture IMO.

 

Of course, I'll also bet that the majority of these stories come out of America. But the thing is, these people get caught out when the papers are peer reviewed, and science comes to save the day from the evils of politics once again!
And to me that's what changes everything, even with such scandals, mainstream medicine still can never be as corrupt as Alt Medicine X simply because it has science backing it up.

 

The people don't get caught because something like witholding trial data is endemic. Pretty much every company does it. All companies are doing it if they don't like the results they get. Europe, America. All over.

The process of the scientific method, controlled trials and peer review is, in theory, head and shoulders above anything the alt meds can offer (most don't even understand such things) but mainstream medicine is not as rosey as you're painting (and I'm a massive defender of proper medicine and science).

 

Yeh but when comparing alt. medicine to mainstream medicine, mainstream does appear very rosey. I'm not saying mainstream medicine is exempt from corruption that's naive.

 

That's exactly what you said.

 

Seriously what's with the nitpicking? It doesn't accomplish anything, and it's really annoying bruv

I wanted Dave to point out some corruption issues with Mainstream Medicine so that I could see whether he was standing on any solid ground, or if he is just the stereotypical guys that distrust anything put out by the mainstream medicine. Had he been the latter than this discussion would have been over since he would be "too far gone" to communicate with.

 

Not nitpicking. Just saying that "I fail to see the corruption in mainstream medicine." is innaccurate (although it might be accurate that you can't see it) just like saying "western medicine is corrupt and keeping chiropractors down" is innaccurate.

Isn't the whole point if an online debate reading what someone has written and then commenting on it?
If it annoys you then I dunno what to say bruv.

 

Lad- The message I am getting from you is "anything but the mainstream is unscientific and worthless." and "the mainstream views are wholly backed by science and unbiased"
I am not sure if this is what you intended to say or not. I am not trying to take an all or nothing stance on either system of medicine as I think they both have their place.
I would not have survived childhood without mainstream medicine. I have also been helped by chiropractic care.