Australian registered chiropractor Jennifer Barham-Floreani is a frequent flyer on this blog for her unrepentant anti-vaccination activism which includes her anti-vaccination baby book, Well Adjusted Babies. Barham-Floreani appears regularly at overseas anti-vaccination chiropractic events, often publishing photographs of herself with anti-vaccination superstars such as Andrew Wakefield:
For many years JBF, along with her husband and business partner, Simon Floreani – both of whom are/were professional members of the callous, disreputable, anti-vaccination organisation, the Australian Vaccination-skeptics Network – have snubbed their noses at the Chiropractic Board of Australia, despite repeated public warnings from the CBA. Simon Floreani has had previous findings made against him by the CBA, for the possession of anti-vaccination material in their business’s waiting room.
One can only guess that the Floreanis must be under investigation again, in what they claim to be a campaign of oppression from evidence-based community members who are holding Australian chiropractors, and the CBA, to their own codes of conduct and national advertising guidelines. There has to be some sort of explanation for a recent escalation in rhetoric from JBF.
On August 16 2016, on Instagram, Barham-Floreani condoned threats, made by her colleagues, to “take out” her critics:
Thank you for all the kind words and thoughts everyone this last week. Even the compelling offers to take out some of my tiresome political bullies.
58 people liked that.
Of course we now expect violent threats and incitement of violence from anti-vaccination activists, and we have seen how this rhetoric and incitement has had real world, violent outcomes. What is new, here, is that it is coming from an Australian registered health practitioner who may or may not already be under investigation from the regulator.
The August 16 post must have been brewing for some weeks. On August 4 2016, JBF posted on her Facebook profile about the perceived oppression she feels when requested to account for her public, professional behaviour. She also mistakes being held to professional standards with some invented version of an attack on “Allied Health”, which is patently ridiculous. Many members of Friends of Science in Medicine are from real allied health fields:
The only way to move through the oppressive tactics that big pharma and FOSM have towards our profession (and Allied Health in general) is to create even higher demand for our services. We do this by staying focused on delivering the highest possible quality care. As the saying goes, one can never underestimate the power of ‘word of mouth’.
Hopefully, AHPRA and the Chiropractic Board of Australia will take an appropriately dim view of Barham-Floreani’s continued unprofessional behaviour.
Either these subluxationist chiropractors want to be Australian registered health practitioners, being held to the standards expected of the same, or they don’t. The choice is clear. And the CBA should start making these choices for these rogue practitioners.
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