Blind chiropractor who fiddled whilst patient lay dying suspended for 12 months

Posted in Chiropractic, Scam by Paul Gallagher

Dr Forte’s title of Doctor does not imply that he has any academic medical qualification. He does not. It is a courtesy title only and, ethically, is only utilised in the context of his chiropractic practice.

From Inquest finding into death of James Halloran, S.A. April 1st 2010

Mario Forte progressively lost his sight over many years.

Although holding a diploma in sports massage and working part time for himself, his loss of vision demanded a professional downgrade. By the mid 1980’s he would see only shades of light and dark. By the late 1990’s he would be totally blind. As a masseuse he would be subject to reviews, retraining, infrequent accreditation and occasional inspection. There would be… standards. Problems were foreseen (no pun intended).

Could there possibly be a related discipline that allowed contact with patients whilst you pretend to be doing something but actually do nothing? Where you just make stuff up and claim it is of the highest standard? Of course – Chiropractic! In 1978 he began training with a qualified chiropractor for a period of three years.

In the same year he began his own practice at home, whilst still working part time with his trainer. In 1979 he was accepted as a member of the United Chiropractors’ Association of Australasia Limited. When the Chiropractors Act 1981 popped up he became registered under it and has remained so ever since.

In December 2006 Mr. James Halloran visited Forte at his practice at the rear of Forte’s elderly father’s address. At some point Mr. Halloran collapsed and became “convulsive, unconscious [and] unresponsive” on the floor. Australian Doctor report that Forte rang a colleague (4 minutes) discussing options. He then rang a local doctor’s practice, whereupon he was advised to call 000. He ignored this advice.

Three minutes later he tried to call another general practice without success. Then he called 000. Time wasted: 9 Minutes. He fetched his elderly father and Forte claims they did their best to administer “late and inadequately executed” CPR.

Forte had guessed Mr. Halloran was suffering an epileptic fit. As he is totally blind and chose to work alone, a couple of problems with this spring to mind. Although he had no idea of Mr. Halloran’s medical history, for my money, if you’ve got to pick something along the spectrum from “practical joke” to “massive stroke or other cardiovascular event”, then epileptic fit is as good as any.

However, the S.A. Health Practitioners Tribunal, past whom no detail no matter how small shall pass without scrutiny noted that Forte was:

… effectively unable to monitor the patient’s vital signs because he was blind

Yay verily. They continue their astonishing insight:

In other words he did nothing effective towards assisting his patient during this time… He could not check pupil dilation and the other things that would depend upon vision, such as skin pallor or foaming at the mouth. The fact that he could not do so and had that limitation should have occurred to him.

Combining up to the minute health practice knowledge and 2 years hindsight of a 37 page Coronial Inquest Report they offer with blistering understatement:

[Even] if Mr Halloran was to die, Dr Forte’s negligence and incompetence remains just as grave, not in respect of the outcome but in respect of the fact that he did nothing.

This last statement is made due to the fact that Forte was cleared of contributing to Mr. Halloran’s death despite the Deputy State Coroner noting:

Dr Forte at times in his evidence had a reluctance to give a responsive answer to the question asked of him and was unduly intractable and argumentative. […]

In the event, I have not needed to resort to the evidence of the admission to make any finding about whether Dr Forte applied force to the cervical spine, but I do say that [“an impressive professional individual and indeed an impressive witness” – an attending paramedic’s] evidence raises a nagging doubt in my mind as to whether Dr Forte was being completely frank with the Court.

In short Forte had admitted manipulating the spine to paramedics yet testified that no such conversation took place and denied manipulation. As it eventuated the cause of death could not be isolated to having originated from his manipulation. There was pathology evidence pointing to a vertebral artery embolus that had originated elsewhere. This could have caused a respiratory arrest followed by a cardiac arrest. But this cannot be determined. The rare event of vagal inhibition leading to cardiac arrest was raised and dismissed.

In any event death resulted from lack of oxygen to the brain as a probable and direct consequence of Forte’s apathy. From the Inquest finding:

One thing that Dr Gilbert was certain about was that the global brain injury suffered by Mr Halloran was entirely consistent with his cardiac arrest and the consequent lack of oxygen delivery to the brain during that hypoxic period. Dr Gilbert suggested that a brain could survive without oxygen and not be damaged for a period of the order of 2 to 3 minutes. […]

If he was obtaining effective CPR, the 9 minutes that had been suggested might not be regarded as a full 9 minutes of hypoxia. The damage to the brain might not be as extensive as it would be if there had been a period of 9 minutes without CPR. Nine minutes of deprivation of oxygen would, however, involve a lethal insult to the brain and would cause a global severe anoxic injury incompatible with life. […]

All that said, it will be remembered that whatever the position was, Mr Halloran did suffer a severe global anoxic brain injury which signifies very strongly that there was a significant period of time following his cardiac arrest during which he was receiving no oxygen regardless of the competence of any CPR.

It must be noted that the emergency dispatch operator had offered to give CPR instructions to Forte’s parents who were present. Forte agrees with this. CPR was not commenced until 19 minutes after Forte called the other chiropractor to discuss options. At a minimum Forte spent 13 minutes alone with the deceased before physically going to fetch his parents.

However long beforehand Forte had taken guessing an epileptic fit is simply not known. His information is, for whatever reason, flawed. There were two emergency calls, the second including the offer of CPR instructions, yet he at first insisted there had been only one. The paramendic observed “very, very blue” extremities suggesting no effective CPR had taken place. Forte holds a lapsed St. John’s First Aid certificate.

This tragic event highlights much of what is wrong with the pseudoscience of chiropractic masquerading as a health provision service. There is no question of Forte’s ability to manage and triumph over his blindness. Yet one must seriously query exactly what support or interventions were instigated on behalf of the Chiropractic Association and the more responsible Chiropractic Board of Australia to address Mario Forte’s obvious needs and the consequential risk to each and every of his patients. This in turn raises serious questions about accreditation and basic standards.

Let me spell it out. How the hell can a practising chiropractor not hold a current First Aid certificate? There is simply no excuse.

Ill people are fooled by the abuse of the title “Dr.” and the absurdly ambitious claims made by this careless, arrogant and woefully trained sham discipline. Had proper CPR been administered and anoxic brain injury averted Mr. Halloran may likely be alive today. A method for coping adequately with such events should have been available and well drilled. Despite Forte’s shortfalls as an honest witness he has certainly been failed by his profession.

As for the cause of Mr. Halloran’s cardiac arrest we can only glean a possible hint from 3.6 of the Inquest report:

Mr Halloran had not consulted Dr Forte prior to the occasion in question. It is not known whether, at any time prior to Mr Halloran’s arrival at Dr Forte’s clinic, Mr Halloran had any appreciation of the fact that Dr Forte was blind, but it would have been obvious once he arrived.

Obvious indeed.

8Dec2011

Chiropractic: “The science that makes people well and happy”

Posted in Alternative "medicine" scams, Chiropractic, Health, Scam, Science by Paul Gallagher

A most annoying non-sequitur logical fallacy, is the allusion to large or seemingly large numbers of adherents as proof something is genuine.

Whenever a pseudoscientist tries to hypnotise me with big numbers I’m reminded of Tony Ferguson and his scam weight loss programme sold in pharmacies. Following a scathing Choice review which included extra demerits for pushing it onto children, Ferguson declared, “600,000 People Can’t be Wrong but Choice Magazine can’t get it right with weight loss investigation!” And yes, if you remember the first part as his sales pitch itself you’re correct. 600,000 people can’t be wrong.

Well, 600,000 people were quite wrong if they were to all argue Ferguson’s magic shakes worked. That’s probably the first problem with this trick. Those figures come from signups and undoubtedly, in this case, the vast majority of that 600,000 had given no feedback and probably tried a number of fads before and since. To cut to the chase it’s a jump from sample size to claims of efficacy without bothering to do or document any science in between. We have no idea how many persisted, lost weight, kept it off or indeed ended up worse off.

Presently fundamentalist chiropractors are defending their hanky panky with the claim that 215,000 people across Australia visit a chiropractor every week. We don’t know how many are first time visitors, how many were unsatisfied, how many show no improvement, how many were injured, disabled or worse and so on. All it tells us is that 215,000 people per week visit these touchy feely agents of cosmic cockypop as part of their foray into alternatives to medicine. It also causes me quite some concern.

In removing insurance cover for the practice of neck manipulation (as reported by the National Council Against Health Fraud – Consumer Health Digest #10-34), popular US health insurer Kaiser Permanente revised their policy of coverage for chirpractic manipulation to read:

Chiropractic manipulation of the cervical spine is associated with vertebral artery dissection and stroke. The incidence is estimated at 1.3-5 events per 100,000 manipulations. Given the paucity of data related to beneficial effects of chiropractic manipulation of the cervical spine and the real potential for catastrophic adverse events, it was decided to exclude chiropractic manipulation of the cervical spine from coverage.

Now I shan’t apply the same logical fallacy and insist that at least 2.6 Aussies per week, or 10 per month, are at risk of “vertebral artery dissection and stroke”, because I have no idea how many are being, well, abused in this way. I also don’t know how accurate that figure is. I am quite sure however were I to put this to Chiropractors Association of Australia president Lawrence Tassell, he would quite rightly reveal the flaws in my reasoning.

He may even repeat the erroneous view of his immediate predecessor, Simon Floreani that the risk is 1 in 5.85 million (see Lateline video below). Quite a difference, and a figure described as “totally inaccurate” by Professor Roy Beran who published Serious complications with neck manipulation and informed consent in the MJA (2001) including deaths, stroke and other injuries from chiropractic neck manipulation.

His paper was:

…initially knocked back because it was so common knowledge and so frequent that the journal didn’t want to publish it

So all being fair the CAA are welcome to keep promoting their 215,000 patients per week visiting chiropractors, so long as we all accept the very same sales pitch should include Ten Vertebral Artery Dissections and Stroke per month.

Yet a concern of current critics increasingly involves the practice of paediatric chiropractic. Fundamentalists are taking it up in droves and at most appear to offer a light touch in a “clinical setting” to babies, gradually increasing the scope of manipulation with age. Of course the waving of hands over a small baby is an absolute scam. A goldmine given that we know trials have shown no visible effect. Chiropractors have invented “irritable baby syndrome” to revive what used to be called colic which ultimately emerged as an irritable baby, and no actual disorder at all.

Now their unproven rituals and adjustments of invisible subluxations are blessed with claims of “curing” or treating psychological conditions, improving immunity, croup, allergies, wheezing, pertussis, influenza, poor posture, stomachache, hearing loss, headaches, asthma, bedwetting, bronchitis, learning disorders, arthritis…. Soon I won’t even blink if ESP or Cosmic Consciousness makes it onto the list.

That’s only part of it. The level of mumbo jumbo that defies even basic science is close to frightening. Moderate infant complications are ramped to frightening levels as “deficits” are grossly misrepresented, paediatricians mocked and normal motor skill expression deemed a “neurological delay”. The claim that spinal adjustments improve total awareness because “all senses pass through the spinal column” is news to my ears… and eyes, and smell, and taste and vestibular balance.

Studies show that in blind trials, if parents believe the baby is being treated, they report improvement whether treatment took place or not. If told no treatment took place when in fact it did, parents report no improvement in their baby.

It may be expensive woo now but sooner or later, the USA trend of manipulating children’s necks will pick up pace in Australia. John Reggars (in the Today Tonight video), past president of the Chiropractors Registration Board of Victoria and present vice president of the Chiropractic and Osteopathic College of Australasia insists there is no evidence.

A read of Jeremy Youngblood’s death certificate gives insight into what those who stroke and die from vertebral tears brought on by cervical manipulation go through. It is doubly tragic given the view of Kaiser Permanente that there is a “paucity of data related to beneficial effects” in the first place.

In a case report review of serious adverse effects following cervical manipulation published by Edward Ernst in the eMJA in 2002 there is only one death amongst the multiple adverse outcomes. In this case it is a three month old baby and the practitioner is the sole physiotherapist listed. A physiotherapist practising Vojta Therapy which is in fact paediatric physiotherapy. The adverse event was:

Bleeding into adventitia of both vertebral arteries causing ischaemia of caudal brainstem with subarachnoid haemorrhage [and] death

The crucial point here is that regardless of profession, spinal manipulation of all types has been shown to carry significant risks. In 2001 Stevinson and Ernst published Risks Associated With Spinal Manipulation in the American Journal of Medicine, and note in the abstract:

Data from prospective studies suggest that minor, transient adverse events occur in approximately half of all patients receiving spinal manipulation. The most common serious adverse events are vertebrobasilar accidents, disk herniation, and cauda equina syndrome. Estimates of the incidence of serious complications range from 1 per 2 million manipulations to 1 per 400,000. Given the popularity of spinal manipulation, its safety requires rigorous investigation.

In fact according to this RCT published in the Lancet there is no difference between manipulation or placebo when it comes to recovery from low back pain. Physiotherapists confident in spinal manipulation carried out the trial. As Chris Maher says in the Lateline video below recovery rates were almost “exactly the same”. So basically, there’s good evidence to suggest a 50% chance of sustaining an injury to any part of the spine undergoing a procedure not shown to be any more effective than placebo, when the low back is involved. Serious complications and death apply to manipulation of the neck. There is no evidence supporting application of the latter.

As reported by John Dwyer, Emeritus professor Uni NSW, the literature contains 700 cases of adverse reactions in children following chiropractic adjustments. Given the danger of all spinal manipulation, the copious numbers of adverse effects from vertebral manipulation and the inherent danger of paediatric manipulation, chiropractic faces an uphill battle in the eyes of evidence based treatment.

Added to this however, is the rapid rise of the fundamentalists, who I prefer to call the Mystic Chiropractors. Their disillusioned appreciation of conventional medicine and aversion to supporting it is nicely summed up by Lawrence Tassell on the topic of vaccination. From Adelaide Now:

He also dismisses suggestions chiropractors are anti-immunisation.

“We don’t recommend for or against vaccination; we simply say it’s a choice factor,” he says.

Which is of course, the anti-vaccination cover. Who would choose to risk their child’s life when availed of all the evidence? Yet when fed misinformation and outmoded fear mongering vaccination may seem like a “choice factor”. Chiropractors are misleadingly allowed to use the title “doctor”. They still make up the bulk of the “professional” members of the Australian Vaccination Network. In 2009 Floreani and Tassell’s CAA had a grand aim:

To achieve a fundamental paradigm shift in healthcare direction where chiropractic is recognised as the most effective and cost efficient health regime of first choice that is readily accessible to all people

Reggars claims the “all-encompassing alternative system of healthcare is both misguided and irrational”. He’s exposed the money angle informing us:

Chiropractic trade publications and so-called educational seminar promotion material often abound with advertisements of how practitioners can effectively sell the vertebral subluxation complex to an ignorant public. Phrases such as ‘double your income’, ‘attract new patients’ and ‘keep your patients longer in care’, are common enticements for chiropractors to attend technique and practice management seminars.

Selling such concepts as lifetime chiropractic care, the use of contracts of care, the misuse of diagnostic equipment such as thermography and surface electromyography and the X-raying of every new patient, all contribute to our poor reputation, public distrust and official complaints.

This video by the Council on Chiropractic Practice refers to, “the Dark Side of the profession… keeping the imprisoned impulse captive… and [its] innate potential chained”. What’s it mean? Those who reject the made up notion of “subluxation” are the dark side and as the video states the “right to treat it” is under attack. Sound familiar? It seems the theme of having a right to apply demonstrably dangerous beliefs and practices at the expense of genuine medical intervention is “a right”.

What’s insane about chiropractic is that it’s assumed everyone needs treatment. Their impulse is “imprisoned” along with its “innate potential”. The only result of pursuing this potential offered by the “science that makes everyone well and happy” is certain loss of money and a definite risk of injury, disability or death. Palmer’s 19th century superstitious and completely subjective “God given energy flows” are today’s “very principles this profession was founded on”.

In The Age yesterday it was reported in Doctors take aim at chiropractors:

CHIROPRACTORS are peddling shonky treatments that could be dangerous for people, including babies and children, a group of high-profile doctors says.

In an extraordinary attack, 34 professors, doctors and scientists issued a statement yesterday calling for more policing of chiropractors’ false claims and said the federal government should not fund chiropractic courses at Australian universities because it gave their ”pseudoscience” credibility.

The group, which includes the president of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Steve Hambleton, and head of public health at Monash University Professor John McNeil, said although some chiropractic treatments had an evidence base, claims it could cure 95 per cent of ailments was nonsense. […]

In a letter to Central Queensland University protesting against its recent inclusion of a chiropractic course, the doctors said they were also concerned about chiropractors being the largest ”professional” group in the anti-vaccination network.

One of the signatories, Professor of Neurophysiology at Flinders University Marcello Costa, said universities running such courses were encouraging the spread of quackery, misusing public money and delaying effective treatments for people who falsely believed chiropractors could cure their illnesses.

Exactly why these cosmic cuddlers assume they have a right to bring about a shift in the direction of healthcare that is overflowing with pseudoscience and risk, so they can profit, is well beyond my ethics tolerance threshold. Added to the defensive battle posture they have taken up against the “attack”, that is in reality a request for proper evidence on the magic of subluxation, a distinct malignancy is in the air.

Chiropractors aren’t treating you. You’re treating them to a free ride at risk to yourselves and your loved ones.

Today Tonight December 7th 2011

Lateline July 9th 2009

4Oct2011

Pediatric Chiropractic integrity faces new challenges

Posted in Alternative "medicine" scams, Big Placebo, Chiropractic, Health by Paul Gallagher

Yesterday the BBC reported that the University of Wales is to cease validating “other degrees”.

Accrediting degrees from private colleges has no doubt been lucrative for the Uni of Wales. But it’s also proven to be a slur on expected standards. Early last November the BBC reported on the Uni. of Wales suspending accreditation of degrees from a controversial Malaysian business college. Overseas accreditation was always a risky venture and this debacle led to Leighton Andrews, Minister for Education in Wales to claim that Wales itself had been brought into disrepute. The university he said, had let down Higher Education. The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education ultimately requested that the Uni. of Wales review the entire caper.

The decision places doubt upon McTimoney Chiropractic College, having its degrees approved. This is nothing less than tremendous news for thinking Australians and anyone concerned about a discipline that runs “seminars” designed to lure paying customers into entrusting their child’s health to unproven guesswork. Such as, How to create the ‘It’s normal for children to be adjusted’ mindset with your clinic and your community, or How to have the majority of your patients as children. These are just a couple of the gigs run by RMIT graduate Glenn Maginness of the Mt. Eliza Family Chiropractic Clinic.

All this comes together if we consider that McTimoney College offer degrees in the McTimoney Chiropractic Method, named after the late John McTimoney. These guys are famous for ordering all members to remove their entire websites at the beginning of the Singh libel case because they were veritable cornucopias of bogus claims. McTimoney always knew they were in the business of scamming when it came to claims about children and feared justified complaints. They also hold claims to fame for having atrocious academic standards in “make believe degrees” as espoused by David Colquhoun.

One of the “special” degrees from McTimoney College happens to be in Pediatric Chiropractic. Indeed, to my knowledge the only degree worldwide in Pediatric Chiropractic comes from McTimoney, and is validated by The University of Wales. From this hub radiates the dangerous and unproven practices and claims from the RMIT pediatric clinic – subject to a highly supported request to close it down reported in the BMJ – the greed of people like Glenn Maginness, potentially lethal antivaccination misinformation from Warren Sipser and Nimrod Weiner and the overarching mystical philosophy of Simon Floreani’s Chiropractors’ Association of Australia.

One hopes this abuse of Higher Education will be challenged, given the lack of evidence for chiropractic in general and the total absence of evidence for pediatric hanky panky. You may have heard of the KiroKids franchise chain in Victoria. In which case you’ll be delighted to know that the “course leader” for the Masters Degree at McTimoney is none other than the brains behind the unconscionable KiroKids scam. Not-a-real-doctor Neil J Davies himself. He boasts:

The MSc degree course now offered to the chiropractic profession by McTimoney College of Chiropractic was designed and written by the Course Leader, Dr Neil J Davies in conjunction with a group of leading paediatricians and other medical specialists and chiropractic advisors.

The course was in development for a period of 4 years and in August 2003 it was duly validated by the University of Wales. The course has been so well accepted by the chiropractic profession that enrolment applications have been received from 14 different countries including the United Kingdom.

Davies waffles about Intelligent Neurological Chiropractic. He has not one research paper published. He does have a text book however, and has won the auspicious Fishslapper of the week prize. Given that UK criticism of chiropractic has been scathing of the “new breed” of outright cons if you will, it may be that validation of McTimoney chiropractic degree ceases. This will put a welcome abrupt halt to the growth of one of the most unfortunate exploitations of vulnerable parents ever witnessed. But it goes further than just scamming a gullible public. They not only cause harm to children’s musculo-skeletal integrity and inflict stroke and death through cervical manipulation. By peddling misinformation and indirectly sustaining falsehoods about conventional medicine their status as a one stop shop for quackery is firm.

Consider this from the abstract of Pediatric vaccination and vaccine-preventable disease acquisition: associations with care by complementary and alternative medicine providers:

Children who saw chiropractors were significantly less likely to receive each of three of the recommended vaccinations. Children aged 1-17 years were significantly more likely to be diagnosed with a vaccine-preventable disease if they received naturopathic care. Use of provider-based complementary/alternative medicine by other family members was not independently associated with early childhood vaccination status or disease acquisition.

Pediatric use of complementary/alternative medicine in Washington State was significantly associated with reduced adherence to recommended pediatric vaccination schedules and with acquisition of vaccine-preventable disease. Interventions enlisting the participation of complementary/alternative medicine providers in immunization awareness and promotional activities could improve adherence rates and assist in efforts to improve public health.

Still, we must remember whilst the claims of chiropractic are primarily nonsense, John Reggars, past president of the Chiropractors Registration Board of Victoria and present vice president of the Chiropractic and Osteopathic College of Australasia, is a voice of sanity. Reggars has been scathing toward tactics (presently backed and encouraged by the CAA), used to increase income for chiropractors and. His article Chiropractic at a crossroads or are we just going around in circles, [Archived copy] published in Chiropractic and Manual Therapies, May 2011, is a compelling read.

Reggars claims the “all-encompassing alternative system of healthcare is both misguided and irrational”. And;

“Chiropractic trade publications and so-called educational seminar promotion material often abound with advertisements of how practitioners can effectively sell the vertebral subluxation complex to an ignorant public,” Mr Reggars said.

“Phrases such as ‘double your income’, ‘attract new patients’ and ‘keep your patients longer in care’, are common enticements for chiropractors to attend technique and practice management seminars.” Mr Reggars, who stressed his support for the “mainstream majority” in the profession, also condemned the use of care contracts, where patients signed up to a fixed number of treatment sessions.

“Selling such concepts as lifetime chiropractic care, the use of contracts of care, the misuse of diagnostic equipment such as thermography and surface electromyography and the X-raying of every new patient, all contribute to our poor reputation, public distrust and official complaints.”

“For the true believer, the naive practitioner or undergraduate chiropractic student who accepts in good faith the propaganda and pseudoscience peddled by the VSC teachers, mentors and professional organisations, the result is the same, a sense of belonging and an unshakable and unwavering faith in their ideology.”

Integrity like that of Reggars reminds us that the option of subjecting students to proper education will always come up in this debate. Many will argue that a change at the institutional level will result in professionalism at the clinical level. Yet chiropractic has always had difficulty selling its song as much more than a jingle. It hasn’t just recently gone awry with brats the like of Floreani, Weiner and Davies, all of whom should be vigorously prosecuted for false claims and fraud under the appropriate health act and advertising codes. There have always been crooks and there probably always will be.

It’s not a discipline. It’s a belief system and it peddles subjective faith on so many levels. Many like Reggars have done an admirable job and we can remain thankful for the attempts of the Chiropractic Boards to address complaints. Yet today chiropractors are expected to provide for the new age worried well. In the eyes of so many real disciplines they are not health practitioners. They practice rituals. The superstitious “result” is achieved by so-called “patients” who think themselves into a state of wellnesss – whatever that is.

The very last demographic we need pushed into this anything-goes nonsense are impressionable children. Let’s hope the decision by the University of Wales has far reaching consequences.

1Oct2011

Floreani, Golden and the myth of homeopathic immunisation

Posted in Alternative "medicine" scams, Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Chiropractic, Denialism, Health, Scam, Science by Paul Gallagher

For a mob that officially professes “no position” on vaccination the Chiroprctors’ Association of Australia disseminate ample false, misleading and quite dangerous antivaccination hanky panky.

Take CAA NSW branch vice president, Nimrod Weiner. The Weiner from Newtown Community Chiropractic whose Nimroddery was pegged as a “rant on vaccines” by The Australian. Although he feverishly ran for cover after outraging real doctors, not-a-real-doctor Weiner’s “rant” bibliography can be found here. A hodge podge of dusty conspiracy twaddle and outright lies, much from the Australian Vaccination Network it alone refutes Weiner’s claim:

I’m good at knowing how to read a research aritcle, and knowing whether it’s viable or not. I’m also good at collecting a lot of research. This vaccine topic I update every single week. So what we’re looking at is new as of yesterday morning.

He didn’t write that, but announced this to attendees of his seminar Vaccinations: An informed choice, in what can quite justifiably be called a lie. There’s more on the entire debacle along with a Radio National segment here. At times we’ve met other crackpots from the CAA. Jason Parkes and Rob Hutchings, both of whom approach their profession like a religious fundamentalist approaches taking up arms. Warren Sipser who believes vaccines cause harm yet chiropractic “repairs DNA”. Genevieve Keating is another pleasant sounding predator who specialises in convincing parents chiropractic builds super human kids. They lean toward the weird beliefs of founder Daniel David Palmer and his views on “God given energy flows”.

Sipser was the subject of an article in The Australian headed The Chiro Kids which brought home just how ludicrous (and scurrilous) the new brand of Mystical Chiropractors really are. Thanks to Dr. Rachael Dunlop we can read the CAA’s Media Release warning CAA members of that article. It’s disturbing stuff given these quacks are subsidised by our government (Medicare foots the bill for five sessions per year) and health insurers. Written by CAA national president Simon Floreani, it is a straight out attempt at damage control, obfuscation and dodging questions.

Floreani himself has run antivaccination clinics and is a member of the Australian Vaccination Network. He describes Dorey’s little fraudulent scheme as a valuable resource for patients. Simon is married to Jennifer Floreani, famous for writing an article supposedly describing (Update – as noted below the bogus article has been removed but can be found here pp. 348-349) her newborn’s battle with pertussis, picked up from an older sibling. Given the outcome and treatment the article is almost certainly fraudulent, but if perchance the diagnosis is correct then at best it is reckless neglect and at worst simple child abuse.
She writes (bold hers):

This experience did indeed test our resolve and we were forced to draw on our support network of healthcare providers. We performed chiropractic checks on our baby daily and utilised a whooping cough homeopathic. I dosed myself with an array of vitamins to boost his immunity via breast milk and kept him hydrated with constant breastfeeding.

Whooping cough is often slow to develop and may respond well to conservative management, including chiropractic, osteopathy, homeopathy, herbs, acupuncture or acupressure. Within two days, the severity of our baby’s symptoms cleared and within a two week period, each of our boys had a complete resolution of their symptoms.

Fortunately for the Floreani’s this little tale is just that – a tale and a comical one too. Every type of “conservative management” is absolutely non efficacious. Babies with pertussis gag, choke and may have profound difficulty breathing making this nonsense of super fortified breast milk as a realistic option seem laughable. More so, there’s no evidence an increase of maternal vitamin intake when breastfeeding will do anything but produce expensive maternal urine. Even more farcical is the notion of “boosting immunity” with vitamins. Either way, if their baby did have pertussis there’d be no magic recovery after two days but admission to intensive care many days later as the insanity of their hokery pokery gradually sank in. Yet, that’s not really the point.

The dangerous, deluded and unconscionable message pushed on parents here is that using your breasts, vitamins and witch doctor spells, you can clear up a potentially fatal disease within two days. It’s outrageous and a bald faced lie that I cannot even begin to comprehend the motivation for. What’s infuriating is that chiropractors exploit the confirmation bias in parents and the Floreani’s are prime examples.

Parents who believe these nonsense manipulations cure everything report that yes treatment keeps children healthy. They also report inaccurately that lapses in treatment lead to poor health. Knowing this, chiropractors are famous for setting treatment frequencies, with some even insisting on treatment contracts. That the locus lies with parental bias has been shown splendidly in trials on colic.

As we know, chiropractors claim they can “successfully treat” colic or – in their lingo – Irritable Baby Syndrome. Trials show that if parents believed their baby received chiropractic care, whether they did or did not, they reported improvement. If they believed that no chiropractic care was applied – even when it was – they reported a worsening of colic. You can catch up with Simon Floreani admitting no proper trials exist here on Lateline back in July 2009.

He’s caught out claiming injuries from neck manipulation are one in 5.85 million cases when in fact they are gauged at 1.3-5 per 100,000 manipulations, by insurer Kaiser Permanente, who refuse to cover the practice. In short Floreani is claiming instance of vertebral injury is 60 – 300 times less than it is.

On August 21st this year, a video entitled “Homeopathy evidence and research” filmed by Simon Floreani and featuring homeopath and fraud Isaac Golden, appeared on YouTube. The video below looks initially at the rise of the Mystical Chiropractors and then picks through Golden’s claims of Cuban “homeopathic immunisation” and his own so-called PhD on “homeopathic immunisation”.

When used to defend against a complaint to the TGA about homeoprophylaxis, Golden’s PhD actually helped uphold the CRP decision of misleading claims by fellow crook, Fran Sheffield. This is because even Golden admits in his thesis text that his sample was flawed in size and there was no chance of contracting infection. In short he showed nothing.

Enjoy…

23Aug2011

Newtown Community Chiropractic: referencing rubbish

Posted in Alternative "medicine" scams, Chiropractic, Denialism, Health by Paul Gallagher

I’m good at knowing how to read a research article, and knowing whether it’s viable or not. I’m also good at collecting a lot of research. This vaccine topic I update every single week. So what we’re looking at is new as of yesterday morning.

Nimrod Weiner. Antivaccination Presentation recorded by AMA

Nimrod Weiner, anti-vaccination lobbyist and chiropractor from Newtown Community Chiropractic went into overdrive deleting and editing his online rubbish last week.

This followed a report in The Australian expressing valid concerns that a so-called health professional would be actively spreading demonstrable untruths about the safety of vaccination. In the opening of his talk on the audio recorded by AMA members, Weiner talks of his unique skill and superior position due to his reading of research. I’ll get to that. Yet, he also talks of the presentation “being about the best possible result” for participants. He’s going to challenge long held paradigms and “help you get through that”. To “look at the science…”.

The Nimroddery that Weiner presented is indeed due to his unique reading habits. Thanks to intrepid observers* of recent developments his ancient, cobwebbed “bibliography” of long debunked hysteria is below. Unwittingly accepting the advice I often give to all antivaccination advocates and general enemies of health science – If it’s peer review, it’s not for you – Weiner has cobbled together some beauties. Exactly how anyone who makes money from government subsidies, Medicare and insurance underwriters can knowingly go forth and spread this tripe is simply outrageous.

What I’ve done for your reading ease dear easygoing reader, is highlight in yellow all the references we may quaintly label as pure garbage. Some of these such as Every second child and How to raise a healthy child in spite of your doctor are well known crackpot bibles. Not only antivaccination but anti-medicine and/or medical practice. That magnet for all things ridiculous, and creator of its own law, Whale.to lists Every Second Child. In part we read;

His experience showed that after being immunized, some of the animals died suddenly within 24 hours. These deaths had been attributed to anaphylaxis…. I suggested that vitamin C deficiency was the cause. Like primates they required it in their diet. […]

The importance of this discovery can hardly be stressed. In Australia and all over the world, infants were being immunised. Those whose vitamin C status was low were at risk. here, at last, was experimental evidence that supported my claims that stepping up immunisation campaigns among Aboriginal infants increased the death rate.

You may know of the book. Cited often as proving vaccination seeks to purposely kill, it resurfaced recently here and there in defence of Viera Scheibner following a 60 Minutes episode espousing her wisdom, Getting the point. Of course we should remember Scopie’s law when we speak of whale.to. From Rational Wiki;

In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing Whale.to as a credible source loses you the argument immediately …and gets you laughed out of the room.

Whale.to is a website run by Herefordshire pig farmer John Scudamore. It is a notorious dumping ground for all things pseudoscientific… as well as a few other things. Like the complete text of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, documentations of Illuminati mind control plots, and articles about the Catholic world conspiracy. It contains every (and we do mean every) half-baked pseudoscientific theory ever concocted.

Shockingly, it was used as a source by the plaintiffs in the Autism omnibus trial, and it has seen increasing use as a “source” by anti-vaccinationists and propagators of the vaccine-autism connection.

Again Scopie’s Law is shown to be valid. Weiner indeed loses on many levels and should really have been laughed out of the room. I’ve popped a red square over the number signifying an Australian Vaccination Network publication offered as a reference. The circle around number 11 is a special award for Wilson’s Vaccination and Behavioural Disorders: a review of the controversy, just for emerging from Lismore and being in disgraceful company.

You can find this nonsense along with other “related books” that Weiner has on his exceptionally biased bibliography. All on the one page of conspiracy and hysterically themed books on the internet. I think we can guess at Weiner’s researching skills and professional objectivity just from this one observation. As for updated information?

Every Second Child was published in 1981
How to raise your child… in 1983.
A shot in the dark, by Barbara Loe Fisher and Harris Coulter – 1991
Vaccination, social violence and criminality: The Medical Assault on the American Brain, by harris Coulter – 1990
Vaccination: 100 years of orthodox research shows that vaccines represent a medical assault on the immune system, by Viera Scheibner – 1993

There’s also In the wake of vaccines, by Barbara Loe Fisher and cited on whale.to by Nimrod Weiner – 2004. Yet the real herp derp kicks in with the citing of Informed Choice magazine, Wellbeing magazine, International Wellbeing and of course citations from Chiropractic Leadership Alliance.

Most of this misinformation is over a decade old, with some up to thirty. The AVN now push Living Wisdom. Before that it was Informed Voice and before that Informed Choice (the latter change in August 2006). Weiner only quotes from Informed Choice – defunct seven years ago.

Just how long has Weiner been sabotaging community health one may wonder? Without even updating his woo? Yet he begins his attack on vaccination efficacy and safety by telling his audience how well read he is. He sits on two boards – so it’s his business to read huge amounts of information.

“I sit on the spinal research foundation board. What that means is, everyday I’m reading a lot of research articles”. Weiner argues that he’s been “studying vaccination for hundreds of hours”. Whilst this makes him a lazy hobbyist, it’s worse to find he’s not studying at all. It’s like a psychologist boasting of research only to be found out reading New Idea.

Wellbeing magazine is another depository for anything irrational, non toxic and “natural”. Ditto International Wellbeing. He only cites antivaccination material. One stunner is the thrice listed AVN’s 1998 offence entitled, Vaccination Roulette; Experiences, Risks and Alternatives.

All up we have;

26 yellow highlights of discredited and dangerous misinformation, including…
11 direct AVN references from non proven or reviewed magazine articles aiming to provoke fear, ignorance and hysteria
“Wellbeing” magazine articles
2 Viera Scheibner references discredited across the globe
6 notably unscientific book references of conspiracy theory proportion
whale.to
Mercola
Super Baby: Boost your Babyʼ s Potential from Conception to Year 1, 1998
And more…

Certainly Weiner does list a handful of actual journal articles but these have not been selected as balance to the insulting rubbish from the AVN, or to defend vaccination. Calmly exploiting the reality that vaccine science is not perfect, and that unlike chiropractic, medical professionals do report, research and strive to overcome adverse reactions. Australian government publications are there to back up his misinformation that they try to hide vaccine reactions.

His advice, in this era of pertussis epidemics and rising measles cases resulting in death and disability? Slide 82 from Weiner’s presentation, suggests;

Delay starting the vaccinations for as long as you can. A minimum of 12 months is favourable while a minimum of two or more years may be more beneficial… Ask for mercury free vaccines (they will still contain other toxic chemicals: formaldehyde, aluminium, antibiotics)