charlatan
It has recently been reported that a Canadian naturopath claims he can treat autism with fecal transplants at a clinic in Mexico. The College of Naturopathic Physicians of B.C. has thus barred him stating that it has taken “extraordinary action” against Jason Klop in response to a complaint from a whistle-blowing former employee, who alleges that he manufactured these products in a “household lab” in B.C. without standard procedures or quality control.
While the complaint is under investigation, Klop cannot manufacture, advertise or sell fecal microbiota transplants (FMT). He’ll also be subject to random on-site audits to make sure he’s not violating his conditions.
This is the first public sign of concrete action by the college since CBC News reported on Klop’s business in January 2020 — nearly 20 months ago. Klop has been charging about $15,000 US for autistic children as young as two years old to have FMT treatment at a clinic near Tijuana. The process isn’t approved as a treatment of autism and carries serious risks of infection.
An illustration shows how fecal microbiota transplants are produced. (Vancouver Island Health Authority)
In a promotional video posted in January, Klop says he believes that “precision manipulation of the gut microbiome will solve every single chronic disease.” He also issued an affidavit boasting that he has a new lab that “produces the best and safest FMT materials in the world” and described the former employee who complained as “manifestly unreliable.” Klop argued that “lives are at stake” if he were to stop what he’s doing and described his therapy as a “life-saving measure.”
_____________________
Is there any evidence at all for FMT as a treatment of autism? A recent systematic review drew this conclusion: evidence from human studies suggesting beneficial effects of probiotic, prebiotic, and combination thereof, as well as fecal transplants in autism spectrum disorder, is limited and inconclusive.
I was alerted to this announcement by the Faculty of Homeopathy:
Faculty of Homeopathy Accredited Education
The role of Dentistry in Integrative Medicine and Homeopathy
Dentistry appears to be the Cinderella of healthcare and the importance of good oral health is hugely underestimated. The mouth is the portal into the rest of our bodies. There is increasing evidence proving that health of the oral cavity has strong links with the health of the rest of the body especially increasing risk of heart disease, low birth weight babies and type 2 diabetes. The aim of this webinar is to highlight the vital importance of dentistry and oral health in integrative medicine and why healthcare professionals need to work closely with dentists. It will also cover how, as homeopaths, we can appreciate symptoms in the mouth as indications of general health or disease and manage dental conditions.
THE TICKETS FOR THIS WEBINAR ARE LIMITED THEREFORE, PLEASE REGISTER NOW TO ENSURE ACCESS.
Some splendid platitudes there:
- the Cinderella of healthcare
- The mouth is the portal into the rest of our bodies
- health of the oral cavity has strong links with the health of the rest of the body…
But what about the importance of dentistry in integrative medicine? The importance of dentistry in medicine is fairly clear to me. However, what is the importance of dentistry in integrative medicine?
Even more puzzling seems the ‘role of dentistry in homeopathy’? What on earth do they mean by that? Perhaps they meant the ‘role of homeopathy in dentistry’?
And what is the role of homeopathy in dentistry? The British Homeopathic Dental Association should know, shouldn’t they? On their website, they explain that they are a group of dentists and dental care professionals that have an interest in using homeopathy alongside our dentistry.
On the basis of what evidence, you ask? They kindly provide an answer to that question:
In dentistry there is limited research though studies have shown improved bone healing around implants with Symphytum and reduced discomfort and improved healing time with ulcers and beneficial in oral lichen planus. These studies have small numbers and are not generally acepted as stong evidence.
Are they trying to tell us that there is no good evidence? Looks like it, doesn’t it? In this case, the above Webinar seems rather superfluous.
For those of you who want to save the money for the tickets, here is a full and evidence-based summary of all the conditions where homeopathy might be helpful in dentistry:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
THE END
The General Chiropractic Council (GCC) regulates chiropractors in the UK, Isle of Man, and Gibraltar to ensure the safety of patients undergoing chiropractic treatment. The GCC sets the standards of chiropractic practice and professional conduct that all chiropractors must meet.
By providing a lengthy ruling in the case of the late John Lawler and his chiropractor, Arlene Scholten, the GCC has recently established new standards for chiropractors working in the UK, Isle of Man, and Gibraltar (see also today’s article in The Daily Mail). If I interpret the GCC’s ruling correctly, a UK chiropractor is henceforth allowed to do all of the following things without fearing to get reprimanded, as long as he or she produces evidence that the deeds were done not with malicious intentions but in a state of confusion and panic:
- Treat a patient with treatments that are contraindicated.
- Fail to obtain informed consent.
- Pose as a real doctor without informing the patient that the practitioner is just a chiropractor who has never been near a medical school.
- Cause the death of a patient by treatment to the neck.
- Administer first aid in a way that makes matters worse.
- Tell lies to the ambulance men who consequently failed to employ a method of transport that would save the patient’s life.
- Keep inaccurate patient records that conceal what treatments were administered.
In previous years, the job of a chiropractor had turned out to be demanding, difficult, and stressful. This was due not least to the GCC’s professional standards which UK chiropractors were obliged to observe. The code of the GCC stated prominently that “our overall purpose is to protect the public.”
All this is now a thing of the past.
The new ruling changed everything. Now, UK chiropractors can relax and can happily pursue their true devotion, namely to keep their bank manager happy, while not worrying too much about the welfare and health of their patients.
In the name of all UK chiropractors, I herewith express my thanks to the GCC for unashamedly protecting first and foremost the interests of their members, while tacitly discarding medical ethics and evidently not protecting the public.
MAKE CHIROPRACTIC GREAT AGAIN!
Bromelain, papain and chymotrypsin are proteolytic enzymes. They can be found in fruits such as pineapple or papaya, but also in the human body, namely in the pancreas. Besides their enzymatic functions, they have long been said to have a wide range of positive health effects. For instance, it is claimed that they reduce side effects and even improve the outcome of cancer therapies. This systematic review examined the existing evidence on the role that these enzymes which are available as food supplements might play in cancer treatment.
A total of 15 studies with 3,008 patients could be included in this systematic review. Patients treated with enzymes were diagnosed with various entities of gastrointestinal, gynecologic, head and neck, and lung cancer as well as hematological malignancies. The therapy concepts included mainly oral intake of enzymes in addition to conventional therapies. Investigated outcomes were:
- side-effects of anticancer therapy,
- quality of life,
- anticancer effects,
- survival rates.
Due to conflicting results and moderate quality of the included studies, the evidence is insufficient to attribute positive effects to enzymes in terms of better tolerability of the various antineoplastic therapies or even improvement in treatment efficacy. In most cases, enzyme therapy was well tolerated; side-effects were mainly gastrointestinal complaints such as diarrhea or meteorism.
The authors concluded that there is no clear therapeutic benefit of enzymes neither as supportive therapy nor as part of antineoplastic therapy.
I fully agree with this conclusion. In fact, in my new book that is just being published, I summarised the evidence for enzyme therapy (and many more alternative cancer therapies) in very similar terms: the evidence to suggest that enzyme therapy might be an effective treatment for any type of cancer is less than convincing.
I find it highly irresponsible to claim otherwise. Cancer patients are vulnerable and can easily be tempted to opt for one of the many quack treatments that are said to be both effective and free of nasty adverse effects. If they do try such options, they usually pay dearly, and not just in monetary terms.
Pre-hypertension, or stage 1 hypertension as it is also called, is usually defined as a systolic pressure reading between 120 mmHg and 139 mmHg, or a diastolic reading between 80 mmHg and 89 mmHg. It remains a significant public health challenge and appropriate intervention is required to stop its progression to hypertension and cardiovascular diseases.
This double-blind, randomized, two parallel arms, placebo-controlled study tested the effects of individualized homeopathic medicines (IH) against placebo in intervening with the progression of pre-hypertension to hypertension.
Ninety-two patients with pre-hypertension were randomized to receive either IH (n = 46) or identical-looking placebo (n = 46). Both IH or placebo were applied in the mutual context of lifestyle modification (LSM) advice including dietary approaches to stop hypertension (DASH) and brisk exercises.
The primary endpoints were systolic and diastolic blood pressures (SBP and DBP); secondary endpoints were Measure Yourself Medical Outcome Profile version 2.0 (MYMOP-2) scores. All endpoints were measured at baseline, and every month, up to 3 months.
After 3 months of intervention, the number of patients having progression from pre-hypertension to hypertension between groups was similar without any significant differences in between the groups. Reduction in BP and MYMOP-2 scores were also not significantly different. Lycopodium clavatum, Thuja occidentalis and Natrum muriaticum were the most frequently prescribed medicines. No serious adverse events were reported from either group.
The authors concluded that there was a small, but non-significant direction of effect favoring homeopathy, which ultimately rendered the trial as inconclusive.
We have come across this terminology before; homeopaths seem to like it. It prevents them from calling a negative trial by its proper name: A NEGATIVE TRIAL. In their view
- a positive trial is a study where homeopathy yields better results than placebo,
- a negative trial is a study where placebo yields better results than homeopathy,
- an inconclusive trial is a study where homeopathy yields results that are not significantly different from placebo.
Is this silly?
Yes, it is completely bonkers!
Is it dishonest?
Yes, in my view, it is.
Why is it done nonetheless?
Perhaps a glance at the affiliations of the authors provides an answer:
- 1Dept. of Organon of Medicine and Homoeopathic Philosophy, D. N. De Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, West Bengal, affiliated to The West Bengal University of Health Sciences, Govt. of West Bengal, India. Electronic address: [email protected].
- 2Dept. of Organon of Medicine and Homoeopathic Philosophy, D. N. De Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, West Bengal, affiliated to The West Bengal University of Health Sciences, Govt. of West Bengal, India.
- 3Principal and Administrator D. N. De Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, West Bengal, affiliated to The West Bengal University of Health Sciences, Govt. of West Bengal, India.
- 4Dept. of Practice of Medicine, D. N. De Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, West Bengal, affiliated to The West Bengal University of Health Sciences, Govt. of West Bengal, India.
- 5Dept. of Practice of Medicine, Mahesh Bhattacharyya Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital, Howrah, Govt. of West Bengal, affiliated to The West Bengal University of Health Sciences, Govt. of West Bengal, India.
- 6Dept. of Organon of Medicine and Homoeopathic Philosophy, National Institute of Homoeopathy, Block GE, Sector III, Salt Lake, Kolkata 700106, West Bengal, India; affiliated to The West Bengal University of Health Sciences, Govt. of West Bengal, India.
- 7Dept. of Organon of Medicine and Homoeopathic Philosophy, State National Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital, Lucknow, Govt. of Uttar Pradesh, affiliated to Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar University, Agra, Govt. of Uttar Pradesh), India.
- 8Dept. of Repertory, D. N. De Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, West Bengal, affiliated to The West Bengal University of Health Sciences, Govt. of West Bengal, India.
Despite these multiple conflicts of interest, the article carries this note:
“Declaration of Competing Interest: None declared.”
By guest blogger Ken McLeod
RICHARD MICHAEL NILSSON is the owner of Colloidal Minerals Australia Pty Ltd, ACN 003 484 955, of Wyongah New South Wales (NSW), Australia. On August 13 he was convicted in the Wyong Court, after pleading guilty to offences including intimidation with intent to cause fear of physical or mental harm.
Nilsson is a prolific antivaxxer, deluging unlucky politicians, journalists, health officials, etc with emails containing misinformation about vaccines and warning of the dire consequences to come to anyone involved in vaccination programs. He has been known to harass and threaten. Usually recipients have better things to do than engage with a crank, but he has been known to go too far.
As the Sydney Daily Telegraph reported on 14 August 2021: “Anti-vaccine activist Richard Nilsson pleads guilty to sending death threats.”
“A Central Coast anti-vaccine campaigner who sent death threats to The Sunday Telegraph journalist Jane Hansen has pleaded guilty to the charge of using intimidation to unlawfully influence a person.
“Richard Nilsson, 66, from Wyongah, sent an email to Ms Hansen’s work email address on the evening of February 27.
“The subject of the email was “WHEN IS A MURDER WARRANTED? YOURS, YES?”
The contents of the email read: ‘I am proposing that your murder might well be a celebration of not life but death! And what a celebrated and glorious one at that!
‘I know ten thousand that would do it, but of course it only needs one and you will never know until it is too late!
‘I expect you might meet your maker, maybe in the near future … the sooner the better, yes?’
“Ms Hansen has reported widely on vaccination since 2013 when The Sunday Telegraph launched the No Jab No Play campaign, and more recently has reported on the vaccine rollout for Covid-19.
“On February 27, the evening the email was sent, Sky News re-ran a documentary made by Ms Hansen called Big Shots, which looked at anti-vaccine activity in relation to the pandemic and the vaccine rollout.
“Mr Nilsson followed up his email with another with the subject line: “WHEN IS SLUT NOT A SLUT AND IS A SELECTIVE SLUT STILL A SLUT?” before launching into a barrage of abuse.
“Mr Nilsson, who runs a business selling colloidal silver, faced Wyong Court on August 11 and pleaded guilty to a charge of use intimidation/violence to unlawfully influence a person.
“He received an 18-month Community Corrections Order to be of good behaviour.
“Ms Hansen said threats to journalists who write on the subject of vaccination were not unusual but Mr Nilsson’s emails were unsettling in their violence.
‘All journalists get abused on occasion, especially on the currently highly emotive topic of vaccination, and mostly it is best ignored but this email was next level and no one should have to put up with such vile abuse,’ she said.
“Mr Nilsson is well known by politicians, who have also received numerous emails from him suggesting all manner of conspiracies, including that Covid vaccination is a mass depopulation exercise.”
Nilsson appeared before His Honour Ian Guy in case number 2021/00159728, R V Richard Michael Nilsson. He was convicted of stalking or intimidation with intent to cause fear of physical or mental harm, an offence under section 13 of the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007 (NSW). This attracts a maximum penalty of 5 years imprisonment and/or $5,500. He could also have been convicted of using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence, an offence under section 474.17 of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Commonwealth of Australia). That carries a maximum penalty of 3 years imprisonment.
He was sentenced to a Community Corrections Order requiring him to be of good behaviour.
A rational person would have thought themselves lucky that they had avoided years of a high-fibre low-calorie diet of porridge and baked beans, but we are not dealing with a rational person here.
Hardly was the ink dry on the Court file, than on the 15th, two days after he was found guilty, Nilsson pounded his foam-flecked keyboard and sent another rant in an email to 130 people and organisations, including politicians, Skeptics groups, a Radiation Oncologist, government departments, doctors, political parties, people in the horse-racing industry, scientists, journalists, lobby groups including climate and conservation organisations, mental health groups, the National Security Hotline, and a coal mining company.
It reads: “Subject: FW: The Hidden Victims of the Covid Vaccine and why I included you all in this email…
“When will it be that enough lives have been ruined and enough have been murdered? And when will the maiming and the killing end?
“My hope is that some of you here own up and confess (I know who among you are in this group and I suspect in time you will all pay a heavy price for your crimes and transgressions), while others it is incumbent upon you to inform all those you purport to represent that the maiming and killing that has transpired and of course is inevitably and scheduled to transpire will continue until such time we say: f_ ck you!
“I know, and some of you know too, who the traitors are. Scott Morrison is just one and Greg Hunt is another and of course Jane Halton, Brendan Murphy and Paul Kelly are other worthless humans and are included and we know they are just tools – plasticised and fake as they are.
“I have an incomplete list of those who need to answer for their crimes and it does not include all I have included in this email.
“Add a Mr Skerrit. His evilness is seen in his face and in his utterings and communications and his connection with Jane Halton and the WHO and the so-called, Australian Health (sickness proliferation) Dep’t and Event 201 should not be lost on anyone with brain cells that still operate and are able to coordinate.
“Wake the f_ _k up!”
All emphases and redactions above are as in Nilsson’s email. Scott Morrison is the Prime Minister, Greg Hunt the Commonwealth Minister for Health, Brendan Murphy is a former Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Australia and now Secretary of the Department of Health. Paul Kelly is the current Chief Medical Officer, the “Mr Skerrit” he refers to is Adjunct Professor John Skerritt, Deputy Secretary, Health Products Regulation Group, Therapeutics Goods Administration. “Jane Halton” is a former Secretary of the Commonwealth Dept of Health, now Council Member of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
The “Event 201” that Nilsson refers to was a tabletop exercise conducted in October 2019 by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (CHS), the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in New York City. According to the CHS, “®he exercise illustrated areas where public/private partnerships will be necessary during the response to a severe pandemic in order to diminish large-scale economic and societal consequences”.
Event 201 simulated the effects of a fictional coronavirus originating in bats but passing to humans via pigs. Claims that Event 201 was a rehearsal for the COVID-19 pandemic have been debunked by fact-checking outlets such as USA Today and FullFact, but facts have never matter to antivax conspiracy theorists and other assorted cranks. All emergency response authorities and health bureaucracies conduct exercises to identify threats and to develop and improve response plans. There was nothing unusual in “Event 201” except in the fevered imaginations of nutters and fruitloops.
Does Nilsson, with no qualifications whatsoever, really think that he knows more about emergency response and immunology than those distinguished experts, and all the scientists researching Covid19 and vaccines? How does 20 minutes reading email conspiracy theories trump PhDs, professorships and Nobel Prizes? How conceited does someone have to be to imagine that? Where is the boundary between conceit and dementia? So does accusing honourable people of ‘crimes and transgressions,’ ‘maiming and killing,’ being ‘traitors,’ are evil tools, ‘who need to answer for their crimes’ constitute the good behaviour that the Court imposed? And coming within hours of the Court hearing?
Watch this space.
Guest post by Norbert Aust and Viktor Weisshäupl
Imagine you recently published an excellent and rigorous trial providing solid evidence that a certain therapy is able to help patients suffering from some inevitably fatal condition. You proved that your therapy is able to significantly prolong the patients’ lifetime, much longer than with the current state-of-the-art therapeutic approach. But the patients not only live considerably longer, but they also do so with a much better quality of life (QoL) and subjective well-being. In short: this therapy marks some progress that would otherwise take years or decades of scientific effort.
And then someone comes forward and points out your data apparently were manipulated. Essential parameters of this trial were modified sometime after data collection was completed, with the patients’ outcome and first analyses available. Thus the results were biased in a certain direction and the critics show that the results as published in your study show characteristics that such manipulations would evoke. After all, this holds an implication of scientific misconduct that could, if verified, ruin your academic reputation more or less completely.
What would you do?
Ignore the preposterous concerns because you know your methods and performance were rigorous and solid? After all, anytime some real academic criticism arises you are ready to prove your findings are well-founded results of accepted scientific methods. Or would you publish data or documents that your critics were too ignorant to find or to understand, and thus to stop such rumours once and for all? Maybe you could even clarify some of the issues raised by those critics, maybe add some follow-up information or data to ensure no more misunderstandings occur. Or would you try to find some clues for a libel lawsuit?
Well, we thought some of the above would happen after we contacted the authors of the recent study on adjunct homeopathy in non-small cell lung cancer. On that date, we forwarded our detailed analysis to the lead author and all the co-authors.
Of course, we even considered the possibility, not very likely though, that we would receive some explanation for the numerous exclusion criteria while other serious conditions that coincide with advanced age did not preclude enrollment. Or an updated CONSORT diagram accounting for the patients excluded. Or some explanation just why the numerous amendments to the protocol were necessary but not important enough to mention them in the published paper.
But nothing of this happened as yet (July 2021). Instead on June 14 and 16, 2021, not two weeks after our messages to the authors, the registration data at ClinicalTrials were updated once again and a new version of the protocol was uploaded [3]. And this update looks pretty much like it is meant to cover up and blur the former data that we based our analysis on. Of course, these data and the former version of the protocol are available still – just one layer further down, and you have to scroll to the bottom of the page to find the small link “history of changes”. Maybe not many visitors will do that.
In contrast to the versions before, now the uploaded data are in line with the study as published, namely, they include a full list of the exclusion criteria and the reduced observation time for QoL, which was the primary outcome. Note: throughout the trial until the end of data assessment those parameters were set with pregnancy as the only exclusion criterion and two years follow up time, only to be amended in the protocol uploaded two months after data collection was complete and analysis presumably was well underway.
In addition, there is a new version of the study protocol, this one dated Feb. 6, 2014. Of course, this protocol is fairly new, in spite of the date it carries. Why would the older version allegedly from January 2011 be uploaded to the register in September 2019, if this more actual version already had existed and was available?
Contrary to the prior version all the clues are removed that would indicate that this document was finished at a much later point in time than given in its date: References to some future software versions that were released years after the protocol was allegedly compiled are dropped. And this strange literature reference “25” that corresponds to the reference list in the final study as published but is pointless in the protocol without any reference list, is removed too. And of course, again contrary to the prior version, the exclusion criteria are identical with the final study as is the shortened follow-up time for QoL.
New to the protocol is a section “Bringing in the patient’s voice”, where the authors disclose how they want to “systematically research the ethical, legal, socio-political, and science theoretical dimensions of homeopathy as in the case of lung cancer (non-small-cell lung carcinoma) exemplified” in some “integral social scientific study”, where some “focus groups” of 4 to 10 participants together with their relatives, friends and caregivers included should be used to study “interactions between individuals, collectively shared and uncontested assumptions, and the emergence of collective meaning”.
But from all of this more or less meaningless but very sciency sounding socio-speak, not a single word found its way into the study. Nothing. So it is pointless to try to figure out what the content of this part of the investigation is all about.
Why then was this chapter added? This “integral social scientific study” was to start after the “third or fourth homeopathic treatment” (But why should patients not be included in this “research” from the very first beginning?). Is it perhaps to give some rationale why the follow-up time for QoL was to end after the third homeopathic treatment?
So what we see, when we look up the study at ClinicalTrials now, is a perfectly matching set of data and a protocol that corresponds to the study as published and looks as if it was published at a time where the trial was underway and the patients were still blinded. If you do not look very closely everything now appears to be perfect.
And here we would like to forward some critique to the register: The purpose of the study register is to prevent not only publication bias but misleading manipulation from happening as well. They do quite a good job in preserving former versions of data and documents and keeping them available to the public. Many national study registers do not offer this service. But you must be of a suspicious mind and of some persistence to actively search and find and check the history of modifications. Thus, a cover-up like the one we are witnessing here might well prove successful. We, therefore, propose to improve the presentation of the registration: If vital amendments occurred that may affect the outcomes – such as protocol changes, extensions of exclusion criteria, modifications of follow-up time – this should be indicated upfront in the study’s record instead of some small hint to “history of changes” at the very bottom of the page.
In conclusion, there appears to be no proof that the results of the study were produced using rigorous scientific methods. And the issues we raised in our report to the authors remain unresolved.
It has been reported that an Australian naturopath would refuse entry to her business to anyone who has received a COVID-19 vaccine in the past two weeks. In her original Facebook post, Ms. Holland said that vaccinated people would have to wait a minimum of two weeks after vaccination before attending her clinic due to “the shedding of spike proteins” caused by “these experimental treatments”.
Christine Pope, who is on the Australian Traditional Medicine Society (ATMS) board of directors, said she believed the views shared by the Warrnambool naturopath were part of the alternative medicine sector’s “fringe” and didn’t represent the industry. “We’re always very careful to tell our practitioners about posting appropriately and within their scope of practice,” Ms. Pope said. “These sort of comments to me look like they’re outside their scope of practice. We do a lot of training about making sure that you’re posting appropriately within your scope of practice and about things about which you are qualified in. As an association supporting natural medicine practitioners, it’s not really our job to promote or comment on the vaccination program – we’re not public health experts … and this is really outside my scope of practice. But from a public health perspective (vaccination) is the best option we’ve got.”
Sharon Holland, who runs a clinic in Warrnambool, cited on Facebook a number of discredited medical professionals who have become figureheads of the anti-vax and COVID conspiracy movements, including Judy Mikovits, Robert Malone, Peter McCullogh, and J Bart Classen. “Often de-bunked and fact-checked (by whom) can mean silenced,” Ms. Holland wrote. “We still have free speech available to some extent. This is a very emotive and divisive subject so my post was bound to ‘ruffle feathers’.”
The ATMS says its accredited practitioners need to “stay within their scope of practice” and avoid posting about vaccines they haven’t studied. Ms. Pope urged people to lodge a complaint about bogus health claims through the ATMS website or the healthcare complaint commissioner in the appropriate state.
___________________________
This course of events begs several questions. In my view, the most important are:
- Is Sharon Holland an exception, or are many/most naturopaths of her opinion?
- Instructing practitioners about “posting appropriately and within their scope of practice” sounds fine but might miss the point entirely. What really matters are the messages ATMS members orally convey to their patients. Is there any evidence on this issue?
- Surely, the anti-vax sentiments of naturopaths must originate from their education. Is there any evidence as to what they are taught about the subject?
- Is the ATMS going to take action against Ms. Holland and other members who endanger the public with their anti-vax stance?
Former chiropractor Malcolm Hooper, 61, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy provider Oxymed Pty Ltd have been fined following the death of a customer in 2016. They were each convicted of three work safety-related charges, all of failing to ensure a workplace is safe and without risks to health. Hooper was fined $176,750, while the company was fined $550,000. Oxymed was trading as HyperMed at its South Yarra premises in April 2016 when a long-term client with multiple sclerosis and a history of life-threatening seizures came in for treatment. He was later found unconscious in a single-person hyperbaric chamber, taken to hospital, and placed on life support, but died five days later.
The County Court heard that both the company and Hooper had an inadequate system in place for assessing the risks oxygen therapy could pose to clients, and an inadequate system too for developing plans to eliminate or reduce those risks. In her judgment, County Court judge Amanda Fox said HyperMed wasn’t a hospital nor a medical practice and had been described as an “alternative health facility”. Hooper had already been deregistered in 2013 by the national board for chiropractors for misleading and deceptive advertising about the benefits of hyperbaric treatment.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy involves administering pure oxygen in a pressurised environment, with the heightened air pressure allowing a patients’ lungs to gather much more oxygen than would be possible under normal conditions. The therapy is not based on strong data. A systematic review failed to find good evidence for hyperbaric oxygen therapy as a treatment of multiple sclerosis:
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, inflammatory, and degenerative neurological illness with no cure. It has been suggested that Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBO(2)T) may slow or reverse the progress of the disease. This article summarizes the clinical evidence for the use of HBO(2)T in the treatment of MS. We conducted a literature review focused on the interaction of hyperbaric oxygenation and MS. In particular, we appraised the clinical data regarding treatment and performed a meta-analysis of the randomized evidence using the methodology of the Cochrane Collaboration. We found 12 randomized studies in the area, all of which were performed between 1983 and 1987. A meta-analysis of this evidence suggests there is no clinically significant benefit from the administration of HBO(2)T. The great majority of randomized trials investigated a course of 20 treatments at pressures between 1.75ATA and 2.5ATA daily for 60-120 min over 4 weeks against a placebo regimen. None have tested the efficacy of HBO(2)T against alternative current best practice. No plausible benefit of HBO(2)T on the clinical course of MS was identified in this review. It remains possible that HBO(2)T is effective in a subgroup of individuals not clearly identified in the trials to date, but any benefit is unlikely to be of great clinical significance. There is some case for further human trials in selected subgroups and for prolonged courses of HBO(2)T at modest pressures, but the case is not strong. At this time, the routine treatment of MS with HBO(2)T is not recommended.
The case reminds me of that of John Lawler. Mr. Lawlwer’s chiropractor also used a therapy that was not indicated, broke his neck (to put it crudely), and subsequently proved herself more than inept in saving his life. It suggests to me that some chiros may not be trained adequately to deal with emergencies. If that is true, they should perhaps focus less on practice-building courses and more on first aid instructions.
Subluxation is … a displacement of two or more bones whose articular surfaces have lost, wholly or in part, their natural connection. (D. D. Palmer, 1910)
The definition of ‘subluxation’ as used by chiropractors differs from that in conventional medicine where it describes a partial dislocation of the bony surfaces of a joint readily visible via an X-ray. Crucially, a subluxation, as understood in conventional medicine, is not the cause of disease. Spinal subluxations, according to medical terminology, are possible only if anatomical structures are seriously disrupted.
Subluxation, as chiropractors understand the term, has been central to chiropractic from its very beginning. Despite its central role in chiropractic, its definition is far from clear and has changed significantly over time.
DD Palmer (the guy who invented chiropractic) was extremely vague about most of his ideas. Yet, he remained steadfast about his claims that 95% of all diseases were due to subluxations of the spine, that subluxations hindered the flow of the ‘innate intelligence’ which controlled the vital functions of the body. Innate intelligence or ‘inate’, he believed, operated through the nerves, and subluxated vertebra caused pinched nerves, which in turn blocked the flow of the innate and thus led to abnormal function of our organs. For Palmer and his followers, subluxation is the sole or at least the main cause of all diseases (or dis-eases, as Palmer preferred).
Almost exactly 4 years ago, I published this post:
Is chiropractic subluxation a notion of the past? SADLY NOT!
In it, I provided evidence that – contrary to what we are often told – chiropractors remain fond of the subluxation nonsense they leant in school. This can be shown by the frequency by which chiropractors advertise on Twitter the concept of chiropractic subluxation.
Today, I had another look. The question I asked myself was: has the promotion of the obsolete subluxation concept by chiropractors subsided?
The findings did not surprise me.
Even a quick glance reveals that there is still a plethora of advertising going on that uses the subluxation myth. Many chiros use imaginative artwork to get their misleading message across. Below is a small selection.
Yes, I know, this little display is not very scientific. In fact, it is a mere impression and does not intend to be anything else. So, let’s look at some more scientific data on this subject. Here are the last 2 paragraphs from the chapter on subluxation in my recent book on chiropractic:
A 2018 survey determined how many chiropractic institutions worldwide still use the term in their curricula.[1] Forty-six chiropractic programmes (18 from US and 28 non-US) participated. The term subluxation was found in all but two US course catalogues. Remarkably, between 2011 and 2017, the use of subluxation in US courses even increased. Similarly, a survey of 7455 US students of chiropractic showed that 61% of them agreed or strongly agreed that the emphasis of chiropractic intervention is to eliminate vertebral subluxations/vertebral subluxation complexes.[2]
Even though chiropractic subluxation is at the heart of chiropractic, its definition remains nebulous and its very existence seems doubtful. But doubt is not what chiropractors want. Without subluxation, spinal manipulation seems questionable – and this will be the theme of the next chapter.
[1] https://chiromt.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12998-018-0191-1
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25646145
In a nutshell: chiros cannot give up the concept of subluxation because, if they did, they would be physios except with a much narrower focus.
