The Chiropractic Board of Australia has had enough:
“We will not tolerate registered chiropractors giving misleading or unbalanced advice to patients, or providing advice or care that is not in the patient’s best interests,” chairman Phillip Donato said.
Dr Donato said chiropractors should only provide evidence-based treatment and anyone with concerns should report them. [Sydney Morning Herald August 9 2013]
This episode has a few stars. You’ll need to bear with me. I must thank an anonymous commenter for pointing out to me that I missed something in post #6.
Alfie Dimalanta is a board member of the Chiropractors’ Association of Australia‘s Victoria branch, and a member of the Australian Spinal Research Foundation. He practices his business at Point Cook Chiropractic, in Victoria. From his website bio:
I have an interesting post from Dimalanta’s open Facebook profile, but, as it’s a little more complex, I’ll start with his professional Facebook page.
Do your homework (sigh), with the queen of anti-vaccinationism, Barbara Loe Fisher of the NVIC:
Vaccines don’t really cause autism, unless they do. Nothing screams “education” like a meme based on a lie:
This one deserves a gilt frame. This is so prestigious it must go thither to the billiard room. I give you…Child Health Safety, and their classic hit, Vaccines didn’t save us.
Anyway, back to Dimalanta’s open Facebook profile for a more recent example. Remember, he is a board member of the CAA VIC:
50 REASONS NOT TO VACCINATE YOUR KIDS? FROM WORLD TRUTH TV?
It may as well be over 9000. That’s a really bad anti-vaccine post from a really bad conspiracy website. But, hang on. THREE PEOPLE LIKED IT? Who would do such a thing?
oh crap
Andrew Victor Smith is a chiropractic assistant at Nervana Chiropractic. He is a chiro student at Murdoch University. He has been a bit of a semi-regular on anti-vaccine Facebook pages, such as the Australian Vaccination Network.
The next one made my eyes bulge. Billy Chow is a national board member of the Chiropractors’ Association of Australia, and practices his business at Vitality and Wellbeing Centre in Adelaide. Billy Chow liked that post from that conspiracy website indicating that there are almost over 9000 reasons not to vaccinate your kid. “Head of Public Education” for the CAA. This guy:
Holy crap you guys. Holy crap. You have some work to do.
Holy crap indeed.
Does not-a-doctor Alfie *really* have a BSc in immunology? If so, Monash has a serious credibility problem. Appalling.
Maybe ”chiro” immunology is different to real-world immunology.
A ‘friend of a friend’ on facebook told me that money spent on dangerous and ineffective immunisation programs would be better spent on promoting breastfeeding rates as this provides better immunity in any case!
So how do you do the breastfeeding boosters?
Wow, just effing wow.
I was doing OK until I saw the one post of theirs you shared that claimed that vaccination causes demyelinating disease.
Next week, they’ll probably blame vaccination for impotence, geriatric cardiovascular disease and poor stock market performance.
Here’s what I don’t get. Chiros is a long university course that covers topics that have names similar to some of the clinical sciences. (Admittedly the entry requirements to the courses are much lower than for physios, but anyway), How is it, then, that they can come up with such different interpretations of how the body works?
For example, if they study immunology, what sort of immunology is it that gets you to “”strengthening the immune system” through manipulation?
I’ve looked at many chiro sites – even the apparently rational ones have stuff about subluxation – even though they’re adamant that it’s not taught any more.
So what, exactly, so they teach?
Precisely, Sue. After scrolling through several profiles and pages of board members of the various CAA bodies, they all propose subluxation, and most are strongly pushing the manipulation of babies. Like dogma.
He should turn that same criticism and standards of evidence based medicine on his own profession.
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