Talk:Chiropractic/Archive 3

message: There is no place in an encyclopedic reference for opinions, whether they are from the authors on this page or from, "some doctors", and "mainsteam medicine" or "Dr Barrett"  or "quackery webpages".  If you want to air those views, it should be under their heading, not under what they are for or against.  This site should list the history or chiropractic, a description and educational standards, no opinions.  thats why this page is disputed.  Take out all the opinions, list the facts, and leave it alone.  Drop the bias you are trying to hide by referencing it.
:And who decides what the facts are? The abovr proposal violates NPOV policy.Geni 17:47, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent Alterations 

message: The 'Chiropractic medicine' article seems to mostly ignore the many criticisms about chiropactic medicine as science.
For example, the state of Florida in the United States had a debate about allowing a school of chiropractic medicine on its campus:  "Hundreds -- including about 70 medical professors -- have reportedly signed petitions against the school, and eight part-time medical professors have threatened to quit if it opens."  - The Chronical of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com/free/v51/i21/21a01001.htm (sorry for the sloppy data, this was one of the first links I grabbed off of google)).
The skeptic's dictionary has a quite detailed and biased article (http://www.skepdic.com/chiro.html) on why chiropractic medicine may not meet the standards normally required for medicine:  specifically, the lack of empirical studies.
A longer, more detailed explanation of complaints can be found at:  http://www.chirobase.org/01General/controversy.html
The Florida incident seems to indicate that some mainstream medical professionals and doctors are skeptical of modern chiropractic medicine.  The skepdic's article and chirobase site lays out the details of the criticisms.  Yet the tone of this article seems to mostly ignore criticisms of chiropractic medicine.
To use other examples from wikipedia:  The cell phone page mentions the health controversy, the evolution page mentions the conflict with creationism and links to the appropriate article, and the medicine article mentions criticisms.
Why should the chiropractic article be immune?
Unless someone can tell me why criticisms of chiropractic medicine should be ignored, I don't see why I shouldn't add the NPOV tag to this article. (unsigned contribution by 209.173.47.1)
: Go ahead. This article is clearly not NPOV. But that's not the main problem with it. The main problem is that it is NOINFO (if such a tag existed). By comparison, the cell phone page explains what a cell phone is, and the evolution page explains what evolution is. Likewise, this article needs to explain what chiropractic treatment is. Currently, it doesn't. It just gives a confused and highly biased overview of Controversy about chiropractic medicine. While that may be a nice article to have, I (as an interested reader) would much rather find here some information about Chiropractic medicine (For example, 1. what it is, and how it is supposed to work, 2. its history and organisation). Then we can have an edit war about how Wikipedia should present the cases pro & contra its effectiveness, its relationship to alternative medicine, how health insurance agencies view it, etc. Arbor 07:38, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I completely agree.  The History section is the only useful/well-written/NPOV piece in the article.  Other than that, defensive overtones buried in minutia permeate the rest.  Edwardian 05:29, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't completely agree on that, but the article does need an explanation of how chiropractice is actually practiced, how it supposedly works, how much of that is attributable to placebo effect, etc. (see for example Acupuncture). The long litigation section should be abbreviated and/or moved elsewhere, and maybe the whole thing should be put in a more internatinal perspective, though it seems that the whole issue is on the US. --Pablo D. Flores 15:37, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Moved the litigation thing to Wilk v. American Medical Association, and just reverted a change in the first paragraph. Stating that "some" in the medical community "feel" that subluxations are not the cause of all diseases turns the whole NPOV issue into a joke. Note that the paragraph as it reads now does not say that the medical community rejects chiropractice as a whole, only that the claim about subluxations is not backed by scientific evidence. --Pablo D. Flores 14:35, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV flag?

message: ===Quotes section===
*Delete.  Is there any reason a listing of quotes should appear in this article? Edwardian 06:22, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Call for votes (informal)

message: *Delete.  Is there any reason a listing of quotes should appear in this article? Edwardian 06:22, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Quotes section

message: As part of the Cleanup Taskforce, I've been asked to take a look at this article. While I can definitely help with copyediting and reorganization, my knowledge of chiropractic is quite limited. I am a medical student, and so come from a science- and evidence-based background. In reading through the article and the talk page, I see a few issues.
*The NPOV tag. If I understand correctly, this is because the article does not address the lack of evidence of efficacy for chiropractic practices. Is this correct?
*The lack of information. What do chiropractors do; what conditions do they treat? How many believe that subluxations cause diabetes or aneurysms and that their treatments can cure them? How many accept standard medical explanations for illnesses such as these, but believe that joint problems contribute to pain and headaches more than the medical community recognizes? If there are any chiropractors reading this, I would appreciate any perspective on your practices. We had a couple chiropractors speak to us in medical school. According to them, they believe in standard medical models of disease, but see themselves as useful adjuncts in health care. They believe they are better at treating things like back pain, but if they find someone with a large aortic aneurysm, they'll call an ambulance, quick. I don't know if this is typical of chiropractors in general, due to the self-selecting bias of chiropractors who'd speak at a medical school.
*Some reorganization. Not really sure how to tackle this one yet.
*The list of quotes. This clearly doesn't belong; given the consensus above I am going to move them to Wikiquotes.
Anything else I'm missing? Any comments? — Knowledge Seeker দ 22:05, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I would like to see the "Requirements for chiropractors" section fact-checked and referenced.  I find many websites referencing the numbers comparing the education of chiropractors to that of MDs, but I cannot find where it originated.  Prior to moving information around, I would like to see a revised outline (see below) to guide us. -- Edwardian 04:26, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: *I would suggest the requirements secton be scrapped altogether, or at least summarised and generalised. That looks to me like only American "requirements" (and I sceptical as to whether every institution is mandated by law to have those requirements). Unless we are willing to put in 200+ countries' requirements, which is a bad idea anyway, I don't see how that technicality helps anyhow. Just say something like "There are general general requirements in the areas of foo because of bar" or something like that. --Dmcdevit 04:34, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *I'm glad someone else suggested it first.  I don't think listing the specific requirements for any particular nation is necessary for this particular article.  I wouldn't be against keeping something like:  "In the United States, The Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE) has set minimum guidelines for chiropractic colleges."  That particular link could be developed if someone want to address particular US requirements.  I would be interested in knowing which countries chiropractic is most practiced or popular. Edwardian 05:00, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: *Yes, it is... and does.  There is no chiropracty. Edwardian 05:00, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: *Let's find somewhere to put in "Note: chiropractic may be used as an adjective or as a noun synonymous with chiropractic medicine." End of lead? Also, if it is a noun, why isn't this article just titled "Chiropractic"? It's les common or just unwieldy or what? This is kind of an interesting convention... --Dmcdevit 05:05, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: * My dictionary (Concise Oxford) lists chiropractic as a noun and only that. I believe that that would be a better title, also because it avoids a potential (and ongoing) edit war about chiropratic medicine versus chiropractic treatment versus chiropractic care etc. I also agree to scrap the requirements section. Arbor 08:30, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: *Chiropractic is the more accurate term.  I would vote to merge and redirect chiropractic medicine to chiropractic. Edwardian 15:21, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: *Agree to merge into chiropractic. (That's a disambiguation page that doesn't actually disambiguate between existing articles anyway.) Arbor 18:32, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: I agree with the move as well. The page at Chiropractic has a significant history, although as Arbor said, it's not really disambiguating. What little is there could go here. I placed a comment there advising of the proposal. If there are no objections, I suggest deleting that page (or merging anything useful here?) and then moving this (Chiropractic medicine) to Chiropractic. According to my dictionary, chiropractic is a noun, not an adective; however, as I don't know what the adjective form would be I use it as an adjective as well. Anyway, anyone have any information on current chiropractic philosophies or beliefs about physiology and disorders? or on current practices? — Knowledge Seeker দ 19:36, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: *Hmm, adjective form, that's a good one. How about chiropraticic, or chiropractickey, or chiropractically? --Dmcdevit 03:21, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup taskforce 

message: (Continuing above conversation after the page move to chiropractic:)
*Thank you, Edwardian, I have done so. What are our priorities now? I'd like to see the NPOV tag removed—what do we need to do to make the article neutral? — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:07, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: What's next (as of May 2 2005)?

message: As per the discussion above, I moved this page from Chiropractic medicine to Chiropractic (after moving Chiropractic to Chiropractic (disambiguation). Our discussion can continue above; I only made this a separate section to aid later readers in finding mention of the page move. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:03, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page move 

message: From simply skimming articles written by him it's very easy to misunderstand his conclusion.  Keep in mind that his focus is on quackery and medical fields that are disproportionately prone to quackery.  He has explicitly acknowledged that chiropractic and several other fields of alternative medicine he writes about have legitimate uses.  His issue is that the practitioners tend to make very grandiose fradulent claims, often don't know what they're doing and that this is common place for fields such as chiropractic.
He even reprinted an article (written by a chiropractic) that he agreed with.  This is the conclusion at the end of article:  A good chiropractor can do a lot to help you when you have mechanical-type back pain and other musculoskeletal problems. But until the chiropractic profession cleans up its act, and its colleges uniformly graduate properly limited chiropractors who specialize in neuromusculoskeletal problems, you'll have to exercise caution and informed judgment when seeking chiropractic care.
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/chiroeval.html
He has specific guidelines for identifying good chirpractors from the bad: http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/chirochoose.html
He has a directory of what he considers legitimate chiropractors: http://www.chirobase.org/13RD/directory.html
Here are guidelines to get into the above directory: http://www.chirobase.org/13RD/chiroguidelines.html
I think it's pretty clear he recognizes it as having legitimate uses, he just thinks it's crawling with quackery and bad practices that go unchecked due to poor regulation and low standards for certification.
Also see these websites with more articles he's written or reprinted:
http://www.chirobase.org/ 
http://www.quackwatch.org/#products (scroll down to chiropractic)
-Nathan J. Yoder 10:55, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dr. Stephen Barrett is not anti-chiropractic 

message: The sentence:
 A small percent of chiropractors have rejected the metaphysical beliefs of mainstream chiropractors.
Seems to me in accurate. I would suspect more than a small percent are not superstitious. I'm no expert but my impression of chiropractors is that they are trained in technique and science (though it may be bad science) and are not mystics. I would consider reevaluating this claim.JesseHogan 00:48, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: On what are you basing your desire for a change in this statement? Please find an actual source, rather than speculating. --brian0918™ 01:53, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: I'm not basing what I said on a source but the article should. I submited this for the consideration of the experts editing this page. It doesn't seem accurate from my experience but since I am not an expert I have not altered the article. JesseHogan 02:18, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: brian, when a portion of an article is challenged, it's up to the person who originally put it in there to provides sources for their claim (the burden of proof is on the "information inserter").  I'm not terribly fond of chiropractic myself, but this claim seems a bit dubious, not to mention POV (see NPOV).  For the most part, the bad parts of chiropractic would qualify as pseudo-science, not mysticism, so I think it's necessary for whoever inserted that POV claim to substantiate it.  Nathan J. Yoder 21:58, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Small percentage of chiropractors

message: Regarding "However, at least some of this criticism may stem from anti-chiropractic prejudice encouraged by the American Medical Association during the 1970's and early 1980's.":  I think the phrase "anti-chiropractic prejudice" is a prejudicial statement and should be changed, but a link to Wilk v. American Medical Association is probably warranted.  Thoughts? Edwardian 05:47, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Section entitled "Criticism of chiropractic claims"

message: This article is primarily about chiropractic, and not the medical risks of spinal manipulation, therefore, the majority of this section would be better suited in the latter.  I believe the main reason it is cited here is to indicate criticism of chiropractic, but it doesn't state that explicitly.  I may have a go at it. Edwardian 06:41, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: David, Michael, could you perhaps try to get this page into better shape? Currently, there really  is next to nothing about what the treatment actually is. Instead, it's all about dispute about whether it works, and information about how it is learned (well, very parochial information that probably only applies to a single country, but information nontheless), and a brief bit about history (which has potential), and soundbites about its effectiveness). We don't need those things. We don't need a page that would be better called Dispute about effectiveness of chiropractic treatment. (Well, maybe there is room for such an article at a later date, when the article about what chiropractic treatment it is done.) I would simply like to read information about what chiropractic treatment is. I guess I want to now about the mechanics of manipulation, or about spinal anatomy ... I simply don't know enough to even formulate the question. Maybe I also want how it is supposed to work. (That is not to say that the debate about if this treatment delivers what it promises is interesting. I am not saying that should be ignored.). I encourage you to have a go at it. Arbor 11:09, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Section entitled "Medical risks of spinal manipulation"