Sentence:  The traditional medical establishment, led by the conservative American Medical Association (AMA), has long engaged the chiropractic community in what has been reported (by many disgruntled Chiropractors) as a "heavily funded," "<WSD>deathlock</WSD>-type of struggle" focused on "government lobbies, legal actions and media manipulations" to attempt to discredit and disavow chiropractic legitimacy. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A struggle to destroy a force or principle to which one is opposed, or between two mutually incompatible principles.