AMA Shuns Chiropractic Association -- Again


Medical Association Has 'No Desire' to Meet, Cooperate With 
Chiropractors


By Howard Wolinsky
WebMD Medical News
March 31, 2000 (Chicago) -- The American Medical Association 
agreed a year ago to hold what would have been an historic meeting 
Nov. 17 with its one-time enemies from the American Chiropractic 
Association (ACA), whose members the AMA leadership once tarred 
as being in an "unscientific cult."
The Arlington, Va.-based ACA is now revealing that the AMA at the 
last minute cancelled the meeting because of "pressing business" 
and now is refusing to meet with the association of chiropractors.
The new outbreak of hostilities comes nearly a decade after the 
AMA, under lower court orders let stand by the U.S. Supreme Court, 
revoked its policies in 1991 that made it unethical for medical 
doctors to refer patients to chiropractors. 
In a Feb. 28 letter to the ACA, AMA Chairman D. Ted Lewers, MD, 
said, "It is our understanding that the ACA desires to meet with the 
leadership of the AMA in order to 'focus on those issues we have in 
common.' However, the AMA has a different view and no desire for 
such a meeting."
The leaders of the ACA, whose 18,000 members provide drug-free 
therapies to their patients, had been trying to arrange a meeting 
with the AMA for more than two years.
George McAndrews, the Chicago attorney who led a successful 15-
year legal fight in federal court here to prove the AMA had conspired 
to eradicate the chiropractic profession, says, "The battle continues. 
It's like Northern Ireland." McAndrews represented Chicago 
chiropractor Chester Wilk, DC, in the antitrust lawsuit filed against 
the AMA.
Former U.S. District Court Judge Susan Getzendanner ruled in 1987 
that the AMA, until 1980, had led a conspiracy attempting to destroy 
chiropractic, such as by trying to prevent chiropractors from 
receiving Medicare payments. She imposed a permanent injunction 
against the AMA to prevent the group from starting a boycott.
"The Wilk case made it OK for medical doctors to cooperate with 
chiropractic physicians,'' says Garrett F. Cuneo, executive vice 
president of the ACA. "The barriers began to slip. But we thought 
that by having the AMA and ACA meet, we could form exploratory 
committees on education, research, and professional development 
that could speed cooperation. This would help our patients because 
research has shown chiropractic care can help with low back pain, 
headaches, asthma, and other conditions.''
In August 1997, Ed Maurer, DC, then-chairman of the ACA, proposed a 
joint meeting of executive committees of the organizations to Nancy 
Dickey, MD, then chairwoman of the AMA. Maurer said at the time 
that the two groups had "been in an adversarial position for too long 
and that we had more things in common than differences to discuss." 
Cuneo says the AMA did not respond to this letter.
Thomas Reardon, MD, then AMA chairman, in June 1998 agreed to a 
meeting, responding to a follow-up letter. The two groups scheduled 
the Nov. 17 meeting eight months in advance, but the AMA called it 
off.
Cuneo says the AMA resisted additional efforts to convene the 
groups on some level. "I think they've taken me off their Christmas 
card list," he says.
Lewers charges that the ACA had made irresponsible comments 
about the AMA in the media and in court documents, including the 
allegations that the AMA had conspired with the Health Care 
Financing Administration (HCFA), the federal agency handling 
Medicare, to exclude chiropractors.
"Spurious charges of this kind provide no basis for beginning a 
dialogue,'' Lewers said.
McAndrews says Lewers is referring to a 1998 lawsuit he filed on 
behalf of the chiropractors against HCFA to try to end Medicare 
policies that allegedly discriminate against chiropractors. He says 
his case discusses actions taken by the AMA in the 1960s and 1970s 
designed to make chiropractic "wither and die on the vine.''