Something brilliant landed in my inbox a couple of weeks ago. It was the report of the President of the Chiropractors’ Association of Australia, Laurie Tassell, featured in the latest edition of the CAA magazine, The Australian Chiropractor. I’m only going to include the pertinent excerpt. Prepare to bounce. You may also applaud:
Notes: The “NDF” is the CAA’s National Development Forum. I covered two of the recent speakers, here. Also, *trawled*.
Of course I congratulate him on his tirade, but, only a little bit. If it wasn’t for outside influences holding chiropractors to account; to their own codes of conduct; and to their own guidelines for advertising, health claims, and a plethora of other breaches, then, nothing would have happened at all. I can only really speak for myself – the reactions from chiropractors of the non-evidence based bent were pretty universal – but, all I really got whenever I asked questions was arrogance and hubris. That’s what drives us on. It worked well.
So, knock me down with a feather when I see that CAA Member, very prominent chiropractor, and member of the anti-vaccine Australian Vaccination Network, Jennifer Barham-Floreani, is joining organiser Billy DeMoss for a podcast for the upcoming anti-vaccine, chiropractic evangelical meeting, CalJam:
Actually, don’t bother knocking me down too hard, because we already knew JBF was performing at CalJam. She told us, back in October. Honoured, she is. Completely…
Mercola pride. Wakefield pride. WHAT? TENPENNY PRIDE?
DEMOSS PRIDE? Oh, it’s all too much. In fact, don’t knock me down at all.
We shouldn’t be surprised that JBF is intent on remaining proud of her crank affiliations, even after the Chiropractic Board of Australia’s promised crackdown on anti-vaccination crankery. As soon as the Board made their intentions clear, in August, JBF was snubbing her nose at them:
But high-profile chiropractors say they will continue providing information about both sides of the vaccination argument.
Chiropractor and author Jennifer Barham-Floreani says it will not stop her colleagues from giving patients advice.
“Chiropractors will certainly be working towards making sure that the information that they convey to parents is the latest, up-to-date information that presents both sides of the vaccination debate,” she said.
What did Mr Tassell say?
…posting photos with well-known speakers openly critical of vaccination [is] not acceptable…
This is so far beyond acceptable. I’ll lay down 20 bucks, right now, that nothing happens.
What say you, Billy?
Why would anyone associate with the likes of DeMoss, Mercola and Wakefield?
She must be making her president blush.
Sadly, Stephen, I don’t think anything could make them blush.
Wow. How bold they are…they feel pretty invulnerable. That’s a bit scary..
Anyone would feel invulnerable if they can safely assume no one will take action against them. The evidence so far is that they are, therefore, invulnerable.
Sooo… Billy DeMoss rants on FB, not too dissimilar to what one might hear from your friendly local demented coke-fiend… but it’s everyone else who’s apparently drug-addled, through vaccinations?
Yeah. Right.
Where is the CBA?
Billy does not make a convincing argument that he’s *NOT* on dope.
Wow. Look I’m not surprised really. Simon F referred to pharmacy as “drug pushers” back in Universtiy (Jennifer was in my year). My father was a pharmacist and quite a devoted professional. I mentioned that to him (simon) and of course he bridled. He didn’t have any real perspective then and I doubt he has it now. I had my discussions with my father and other family within the health professions and like any reasonable people they understood the complexity of health care. We certainly disagreed on many points but i worked in hospitals for a few years. My collegues haven’t seen severe trauma or the complexity of public health care. Chiropractors have recently embraced exercise and nutrition (which various groups have been espousing for years) but still there is always a desperate neediness to believe we possess the ‘secret’. But that’s not unique among fundamentalism in general.
My comment is in regards to those (including myself) who either used to or still consider themselves ‘moderate’ ie they hate the evangelism or gross scary unprofessionalism. However that wont change anything. If you don’t speak up about the error of basing a profession in dogma you endorse the dogma. So Laurie Tassell can be as offended as he likes. It wont change a thing because he accepts vitalism as a valid professional position. Board member Ebral, same, etc, etc, etc. Untestable, ineffable, discredited since 1791. No basis for any progession whatsoever. Brian Kelly stated that we’d be everywhere or nowhere by 2020. Now if that doesn’t sound like an apocalyptic fundamentalist dogma. We need to face reality warts and all.
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I would add.
We don’t associate with hard core antivaxers.
We ARE hard core antivaxers.
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