If you have been through the following sequence this article may answer some questions.
The sequence includes, a history of unnecessary medical tests, incorrect diagnosis, failed medical treatment, expense, suffering, the risk of harm from medical treatment. Later, following chiropractic care for a subluxation related disorder you had a successful outcome.
Once you realise that this sequence is common to millions of people the obvious question becomes: Why does Australia’s government not provide and fund chiropractic care within public health?
I have no proof that political parties receive some form of political donation in exchange for that. My experiences convinced me that prominent key people in society protect medical vested interests and that protection betrays patient and public interests.
Please critique my writing, investigate containment and iatrogenesis. If you find valid faults, let me know.
Long ago brilliant minds conceived a very successful worldwide restraint of trade in what became a trillion dollar industry. They converted one illness market into two marketplaces which we now know as public and private health.
Legislation gave a virtual monopoly to those practicing under Medicine’s broad umbrella. Legal definitions of medicine gave medical practitioners sole trading rights precluding competing profession. All inclusive medical Acts permitted medically instigated prosecutions of any one other than a registered medical practitioner who dared to set up practice. Chiropractors charged with practicing medicine license were imprisoned.
In various countries a set of government imposed trade barriers keep chiropractors out of the public health marketplace. Confining chiropractic within the private health marketplace is called containment. The upside for Medicine is that denying a competing profession access to trade with some 50% of customers for over 50 years has been, and still is a very successful restraint of trade.
Dividing the illness industry into two marketplaces permits 50% of customers to be confined to treatment under Medicine’s broad umbrella. For those patients who have subluxation related disorders chiropractic should have been the first choice. Containment means that when a public patient, who has a subluxation related disorder, seeks to directly access a chiropractor she/he cannot do so. These arrangements impose inappropriate medical treatment for subluxation related disorder which unnecessarily exposes patients to the risk of medical harm.
My discussions with generations of MPs about containment gave me first hand experience with political false assurances.
Almost fifty years ago we were assured that integration into public health would happen when chiropractors were registered throughout Australia, we got that. Then it was, ‘chiropractic lacks research’, we created a research foundation. Another justification was that we did not have a university level of education, we got that. My point is that decades of implied hurdles leading to integration into public health all turned out to be false. False assurances exemplifying political deceit leave one with the understanding that in this regard MPs cannot be trusted.
9/11 exemplifies media saturation of the public mind. Medical information intended to deceive about chiropractic expressed by our most trusted echoed by our media, eventually so saturated the public mind that people echoed disinformation as if it is fact.
Disinformation's real life reality check happens when millions of chiropractic patients see if those people who denigrated chiropractic were truthful or lying. Hopefully our patients find that our facilities, consultation, examination, report of findings, patient education and outcomes invalidate that disinformation. Such a real life experience helps patients recognise that GPs and medical associations who echo that disinformation betray patient interest and so, are not to be trusted in that regard.
The decades of negative medical news about chiropractic have been successful in making chiropractic a political option of last choice. Both government and media portray medical treatment, such as drugs and/or surgery as the first choice for effective, safe, cost and effective treatment in public health. There are two separate results of that.
Government sponsored marketing arrangements deny public patients who have subluxation related disorders direct access to and funding for appropriate chiropractic care. That needlessly exposes those patients to iatrogenic risk. Iatrogenesis refers to harm arising from medical treatment as distinct from the patient’s disorder. Its apparent incredible largely unreported extent justifies looking at risk first.
The Australian John Archer’s 1995 book, Bad Medicine quotes some of the medical data about iatrogenic harm and extrapolates that Australia may have about 50,000 iatrogenic deaths and 750,000 permanent injuries per year.
Please note: The more data about iatrogenesis one compiles the higher the guesstimates. Death certificates rarely give iatrogenesis as a cause of death. Iatrogenesis may not be formally reported it is also ver under reported.
A groundbreaking study conducted by US researchers, including three MDs and a PhD, who claimed to have examined all of the available medical data about iatrogenesis declared: “The most stunning statistic, however, is that the total number of deaths caused by conventional medicine is an astounding 783,936 per year. It is now evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the US.” When compared to medical iatrogenesis, rates of harm arising from chiropractic pale into insignificance.
According to those ballpark estimates the entire spectrum of iatrogenic harm, accumulating over decades, may far exceed all of the deaths which have occurred among our serving defence force personnel in all of the wars in which Australia has been a combatant. The people entrusted with sounding a public warning about an epidemic are those who create, sponsor and publicise the services and products creating iatrogenesis. Have you ever seen a mainstream media publication of the entire spectrum of iatrogenic harm or a warning of an apparent iatrogenic epidemic?
Please take the time to ask your MP for a full report of the entire spectrum of Australia’s iatrogenic epidemic.
Now, let us share a history lesson about government sponsored marketing arrangements.
Long ago people in power restructured one illness industry into a massive public health marketplace and a small private health marketplace.
Australia’s governments use a set of trade barriers similar to those in the USA. Restraints bar our trade within the public health marketplace while containing it within the private health market place. This restraint of trade precludes chiropractors from competing with the medical profession in the major marketplace. No competition = money and power.
About thirty years ago, the US court case, Wilk v AMA, exposed a medical conspiracy to use a set of restraints to first contain and eventually eliminate the profession of chiropractic. Elimination of a competing profession = money and power.
The information restraint: Have you heard the derogatory references to chiropractors such as ‘quacks’, ‘charlatans’, ‘unscientific cultists’, ‘lay practitioners’ and ‘practitioners of exclusive dogma’? The US medical conspiracy was a major source of lies, deceit and myths about chiropractic. In Australia, disinformation continues to be an effective way to restrain trade.
The AMA "ethic" restraint: Once forbade professional association between chiropractors and medical practitioners, so no medical referrals. This restraint still has a powerful lingering negative effect.
The gatekeeper restraint: Gives members of a competing profession that has a history of anticompetitive conduct the right to decide if potential patients can trade with its competitors. Chiropractors report there are relatively few spontaneous referrals from medical gatekeepers.
The access restraints: Deny those public patients who have subluxation-related disorders appropriate access to chiropractic care within taxpayer-funded health care facilities, such as hospitals, prisons, and public health care programs.
The legislative restraints: Negatively influence a great deal of legislation, directly or indirectly, relevant to chiropractic, in ways that deny Australia’s chiropractic community fair and just treatment under the law.
The economic restraint: Is reflected in the bias within Medicare, which effectively denies the general population of chiropractic patients their direct access to an appropriate amount of chiropractic care. The government in WA has denied chiropractors public hospital privileges on the justification of no Medicare reimbursement.
Conspiracies thrive in the darkness of secrecy and die in the light of exposure. Please email a copy of this to the folk on your email list. Containment could not have become established nor remain entrenched without the allegiance of people in power. Please send a copy of this article to your MP and ask for his/her justification of containment.
In my lifetime churches earned their own demise by losing parishioner trust and confidence. Medical practitioners and their associations invite a similar loss of trust by the millions of victims of the foregoing wrongdoing.
As usual, I welcome feed back about the foregoing.
Michael R