Futch is also executive director of the National Association for Chiropractic Medicine, a small group of medically oriented chiropractors and chiropractic students who have renounced chiropractic's unscientific dogma. Many also believe that every spine should be examined and adjusted monthly or weekly throughout life. No evidence exists that either of these approaches benefits patients. Managed care can limit overutilization by excluding chiropractors who practice unscientifically and setting limits on the rest. Rather than raising their standards, chiropractors are filing lawsuits and asking legislators to break down managed-care barriers.
Acupuncture involves stimulation of the skin at designated points.
Some practitioners reject the pseudoscientific trappings and postulate that pain relief occurs through mechanisms such as the production of endorphins. I do not believe that acupuncture is cost-effective for any purpose or influences the course of any organic disease. Homeopathy is based on the notion that symptoms can be cured by taking infinitesimal amounts of substances that, in larger amounts, can produce similar symptoms in healthy people. Homeopaths also claim that the more dilute the remedy, the more powerful it is. Naturopathy is based on the belief that diseases are the body's effort to purify itself and that cures result from enhancing the body's ability to heal itself.