The Chiropractic profession needs to get its act together and establish a consensus view of chiropractic and promote spinal joint care.

P1010065_0002MEDICAL experts have called on Canberra to shut down a university chiropractic clinic aimed at children amid claims the theories behind the practice are "no better than witchcraft" and using it on children is akin to child abuse.

More than half a dozen experts, many of them professors with international reputations, have written to voice concerns about the clinic at Melbourne’s RMIT University, warning that chiropractic treatments for children’s conditions are useless, at best, and "may well cause serious harm".

Authorities such as cervical cancer vaccine inventor Ian Frazer, evidence-based medicines expert Chris del Mar and prominent clinician John Dwyer are among those who have backed the concerns.

Their interventions were made in support of a document sent to federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon by a Queensland resident, Loretta Marron, a long-standing campaigner for rational and evidence-based healthcare and regulation

n a 20-page submission, Ms Marron claimed the RMIT clinic was "teaching inappropriate, potentially dangerous techniques" and asked Ms Roxon to ensure the clinic was shut.

Professor Frazer wrote to Ms Roxon saying that therapies lacking evidence of effectiveness "should not be promoted or permitted to be delivered to those who are not able to judge for themselves whether they wish to receive them" but refrained from mentioning the RMIT clinic.

Other experts were more critical, with Professor Dwyer asking Ms Roxon to step in to "protect vulnerable babies and mothers from dangerous unscientific practices".

Ms Marron’s submission said at least one chiropractor working at the RMIT clinic claimed on their private-practice website to be able to treat a range of conditions, including "allergies, asthma, ‘growing pains’, headaches, ADD and ADHD", despite there being "no evidence that chiropractic works any better than placebo for these health conditions".

The submission also quoted David Colquhoun, a professor of pharmacology at University College London, that the "principles of chiropractics are no better than witchcraft" and the "idea that just about any disease originates from some problem in the spine is pure rubbish".

Ms Marron told The Australian she felt "ashamed that our universities, once deemed to be pillars of excellence and enlightenment, are letting the bean-counters who run them sell off their reputations for considerable profit by actively embracing subjects no better than witchcraft and voodoo".

Charlie Xue, head of RMIT’s School of Health Sciences, said the university "vigorously rejects allegations that its chiropractic training activities aim to maximise revenue".

Richard Lanigan
Richard Lanigan

Richard Lanigan DC.BSc (Chiro) MSc( Health Promotion) was born in North London 1957 of Irish Parents and was educated in Ireland. Originally trained as a PE teacher, he moved to Denmark 1979, where a serious knee injury got him interested in rehabilitation and training methods. Richard founded Denmarks premier fitness centre "Sweat Shop" in 1982 and travelled all over the world to find how best to prepare athletes for competition. In 1984 he became fitness and rehab consultant to the Danish national badminton teams, handball teams and many football club sides. This approach to optimal performance is normal in 2010, however back in the early 80s it was very revolutionary, when stretching was limited to putting on your socks and knee injuries were immobilised for months in plaster.
Richard developed rehabilitation and fitness programmes for many of Denmark’s top athletes including Kirsten Larsten and Ib Frederickson, all England singles badminton champions in late 80s. "Team Denmark" hired him and his facilities to help prepare many of Denmarks athletes for the LA and Seoul Olympics. In 1990 he worked with Anya Anderson, Olympic gold medallist and voted worlds best female handball player at the Atlanta Olympics.
Richard advised Copenhagen’s main teaching (Rigs) Hospital on starting their rehab facility in 1984. In the same year he started working with Denmarks leading chiropractor; Ole Wessung DC, who demonstrated the effectiveness of Chiropractic in improving athletic performance, so impressed was Richard that in 1990 he moved back to England to study chiropractic at Anglo European College of Chiropractic and was student president for two years between 1993-1995.

Richard was awarded a fellowship by the College of Chiropractors in 2008, however in January 2009 Richard chose to stop using the title chiropractor in the UK because the British regulatory body for chiropractic (The GCC) had not maintained international standards of chiropractic education in the UK and including prescribing medicines in the chiropractic scope of practice, a fig leaf for incompetent UK chiropractors to hide behind. Richard has another clinic in Dublin and is a member of the Chiropractic Association of Ireland and the European Chiropractic Union.
Richard has four children Eloise aged 3, Molly and Isabelle aged five and the eldest Frederik aged twenty one is pursuing a career as a professional tennis player and has represented Norway in the Davis Cup in 2006 & 2007. None of Richards children have ever taken any medicine, www.vaccination.co.uk they eat healthy food, take lots of exercise and have their spines checked every month, www.familychiropractic.co.uk
Richard has had much experience working in the Cuban health service where Doctors are keen to incorporate drug free interventions (acupuncture and chiropractic) and prevention in their health care programmes www.henryreevebrigade.org

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