CAA chiropractor Barham-Floreani presenting and posing with rabid antivaxers #CAAGotYourBack

Jennifer Barham-Floreani (nudge, nudge) is Australia’s most successful chiropractic entrepreneur, with her Well Adjusted Babies business featuring all over the world. Barham-Floreani’s misinformation is everywhere; you would have seen this list, in meme form, on the bulk of chiropractic Facebook pages at some point. Why the Chiropractic Board of Australia (nudge, nudge) allows this travesty to continue I do not know. It may as well be a list of breaches of the Guidelines for advertising regulated health services and the Code of Conduct for Chiropractors (nudge, nudge):

10 reasons parents take their children to see a chiropractor:

  1. To encourage good neural plasticity (brain and nerve development).
  2. To support “first-class” nerve communication throughout the body to promoting health and wellbeing.
  3. To help strengthen their child’s immunity – encouraging fewer colds, ear-aches and general illness.
  4. To help resolve breastfeeding issues and colic.
  5. To reduce the detrimental impact our modern world has on our children’s health.
  6. Encourages children to thrive by supporting digestive strength.
  7. To diminish nerve interference which may impact their child’s capacity to learn and concentrate.
  8. To promote body balance – helping to resolve poor posture, asthma, allergies and bed-wetting..
  9. To help kids stay fun and light hearted.
  10. To help kids stay in tip-top shape.

Barham-Floreani’s book, Well Adjusted Babies, is the mainstay of the business. As covered before, in this post, the book contains an execrable anti-vaccine chapter which, one hopes, will be reported to the Chiropractic Board of Australia (nudge, nudge). I’ve seen no evidence that the CBA has done anything about the book, and those who  promote it, to this day:

Also seen on Catalyst, in the Floreani business, was Jennifer Barham-Floreani’s book Well Adjusted Babies, which contains a 40-page anti-vaccine chapter so rife with misinformation it would almost make Meryl Dorey blush (almost). Notable citations in the chapter are ex-Dr Rebecca Carley, Not-a-doctor Viera Scheibner, the NVIC, Jim Carrey, “British vaccine expert Andrew Wakefield” (I’m serious), and homeopath Isaac Golden. Golden is cited, of course, as an authority on the effectiveness of homeoprophylaxis. We now know Golden’s reputation was officially trashed in the recent Federal Court case in which the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission succeeded against Homeopathy Plus!, the court finding that Homeopathy Plus! “engaged in misleading conduct and made false or misleading representations regarding the effectiveness of the whooping cough vaccine and homeopathic remedies as an alternative”. I would argue strongly that Barham-Floreani is doing precisely the same thing.

To quote the Barham-Floreani gibberish which no longer even borders on reckless endangerment; it is a stark example of it, fit for inclusion in any dictionary :

Homeopathic vaccinations are an effective and safe alternative to conventional innoculations and warrant your investigation. [p380]

One can only hope the Chiropractic Board of Australia has read the Barham-Floreani chapter on immunisation. I’ll even send them a copy. I am imagining they will need it.

And what sort of people do promote the book, apart from its almost ubiquitous presence in Australian chiropractic libraries? Why, just recently, the Chiropractors’ Association of Australia Queensland was promoting its own copy of the anti-vaccine book at the recent Brisbane Pregnancy Babies & Children’s Expo. You read that right; the CAA QLD promoted an anti-vaccine book at a babies expo:

CAA QLD 1 baby expo well adjusted book

When alerted to the presence of non-evidence-based chiropractic stalls – run by demonstrable anti-vaccine chiropractic businesses –  at its expos, in multiple capital cities – targeting mums and brand new babies – the Pregnancy Babies & Children’s Expo organisers couldn’t care less. Remember that one, folks. The expo people value exhibitor belief systems over evidence-based public health and safety, it would seem.

So, you can see the sort of officially sanctioned reach Barham-Floreani’s anti-vaccine book and non-evidence-based, chiropractic entrepreneurial business has attained. The CAA is unapologetic about this.

Less than two months ago, on June 24 2015, Barham-Floreani was the star attraction at an official CAA Victoria, “An evening with Dr Jennifer Barham-Floreani”, dinner. The dinner was titled, “Where Can Chiropractic Take You?” We’ll certainly discover that, shortly:

JBF 59 CAA VIC dinner speaker June 24 2015

Only five days after that dinner Mamamia published an exposé on Miranda Kerr’s promotion of the anti-vaccine book. Who can forget this now-disappeared-from-everywhere image posted in the same week? Yes, Miranda Kerr will distance herself from Barham-Floreani upon being exposed; but, the CAA won’t:

JBF 54 June 23 Kerr post

Of course, Barham-Floreani has featured in this blog on several occasions. It’s easier to just list the posts so you can judge the size of the collection for yourselves:

2013 

Anti-vaccine chiropractors 2

The Bachelor and the Bollocks

CAA chiropractors still associating with hard-core anti-vaccinationists

2014

CAA’s Jennifer Barham-Floreani talking at anti-vaccine chiropractic conference

Australian chiropractor Laurence Tham to present for US anti-vaccine chiropractic group

Anti-vaccine chiropractor Tim Shakespeare to co-present with anti-vaccine legend at anti-vaccine chiropractic seminar

Chirofest Seattle – starring Martin Harvey, Jen Barham-Floreani, and Andrew Wakefield

The precedent-setting chiropractor, Tim Shakespeare – with a DeMoss chaser

2015

Chiropractor Simon Floreani issued an official wrist-slap for anti-vaccinationism

Australian chiropractors promote anti-vaccine, conspiracy theory, chiro event

Chiropractor Barham-Floreani again on the bill with notable anti-vaccinationists

The final blog post on that list refers to today’s topic. But, first, I want to revisit the November 2013 statement made by still-president of the Chiropractors’ Association of Australia, Laurie Tassell, in The Australian Chiropractor President’s Report. It is explicit in its damnation of the sort of behaviour exhibited on a regular basis by Barham-Floreani, as seen in many of the blog posts in that list:

…posting photos with well known speakers openly critical of vaccination [is] not acceptable.

CAA 12 Tassell TAC November 2013

Indeed, CAA CEO Matthew Fisher is quoted, only two days ago, in Medical Observer, saying that a CAA member has been expelled and more have resigned:

Speaking to MO, chief executive Matthew Fisher rejected criticism that the CAA attracts members with fringe views on medical evidence and vaccination.

He said at least one chiropractor had been expelled because of his criticism of childhood vaccination and several others had resigned because their views conflicted with the CAA, which supports vaccination.

As an aside it is very interesting that Fisher now states that the CAA “supports vaccination”. This is the first time I have ever seen this claim. The 2013 CAA statement says nothing of the sort: basically, the CAA washes its hands of vaccination, and is non-committal. Compare the pair:

CAA 11 Fisher vaccines versus CAA statment 2013

Hopefully Fisher’s new comments are binding on all CAA National and State associations. However, how Fisher can claim the CAA does not attract members with fringe views on vaccination is beyond me, given that all CAA boards around the nation still harbour anti-vaccinationists in the boardrooms, whilst the CAA’s research associate organisation, the Australian Spinal Research Foundation, is anti-vaccine to its core.

But, back to Barham-Floreani. In my most recent post concerning her overseas, anti-vaccine jaunts, I covered her looming appearance at the WAVE conference which is organised by the anti-vaccine chiropractic college, Life Chiropractic College West, in San Francisco. The time has come and the conference is running, as we speak. From my earlier post, this is a selection of the anti-vaccine speakers at WAVE:

JBF 50 WAVE speakers

Another notable anti-vaccine speaker has since been added to the WAVE list. Jack Wolfson is an anti-vaccine DO cardiologist who featured in TIME Magazine, in January 2015, as the “Latest Driver of the Anti-vaccine Clown Car.” He also featured in this blog for a vile, callous, cruel post written by both he and his chiropractor wife in which they attacked a mother who had lost a child to chicken pox. They attacked a grieving mother. This is the sort of person who is accepted as a presenter at WAVE:

JBF 58 WAVE speaker Wolfson added

Not content with appearing on the same bill with this callous anti-vaccination campaigner, Barham-Floreani is also content to pose with him for images uploaded to her business Facebook page. Husband Simon Floreani, himself a former CAA Victoria president – and current/former Australian Vaccination Network member, along with Barham-Floreani – also likes this:

JBF 57 page Wolfson

Barham-Floreani also posted this public image of herself and “extraordinary lady”, Barbara Loe Fisher, to her Facebook profile:

JBF 60 BLF public profile WAVE

That is Barbara Loe Fisher: the grand dame of the US anti-vaccination movement and president of the National Vaccine Information Center; an organisation which has done decades of harm to public health, whilst vilifying and inciting violence against public health and infectious disease experts throughout that time.

Barham-Floreani states that the leader of US anti-vaccinationism is an extraordinary lady.

I want to hear more from the Chiropractic Board of Australia. And I want to hear more from the Chiropractors’ Association of Australia. And we are overdue for a heaping, helping of transparency.

I’m out.

About reasonable hank

I'm reasonable, mostly.
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8 Responses to CAA chiropractor Barham-Floreani presenting and posing with rabid antivaxers #CAAGotYourBack

  1. Sue says:

    Further pseudoscience about mastitis on her website:

    “Book a chiropractic adjustment; the nervous system and immune system are intricately connected. Adjustments are safe and they work to effectively enhance natural immunity.”

  2. @advodiaboli says:

    Heh. “Where can chiropractic take you?”
    More information please. Covertly or overtly?

  3. Dolly says:

    Wolfson is legitimately the most detestable human being alive. I think even more detestable than Meryl Dorey, if that were possible.

  4. cphickie says:

    Wolfson is pure slime. That the Arizona Osteopathic Board failed to find any wrongdoing regarding his unprofessional, unscientific and uncivil comments as a DO regarding measles and vaccination is most unfortunate.

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