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Cooperative Chiropractic
1651 Powder Springs Road, Marietta, GA 30064
770.422.5052 / fax 770.943.1695 /
braile@bellsouth.net
"Now You Know"
By Robert Braile, D.C.
Doctor of Chiropractic
Informative and health related news and articles for our
patients.
Please forward this email to someone you care
about.
Newsletter, November 1998
More Athletes Seek Chiropractic Care for better performance.
In the October 16, 1998 issue of the USA Today, was an article
that featured Emmitt Smith, a football star from the Dallas Cowboys. Emmitt
Smith is one of the best players in the game and in his ninth season as a
professional. The article discusses his healthy lifestyle which includes regular
chiropractic care. "I started doing this about four or five years
ago," Smith said. "I believe that what I’m doing is what
helps me go on. I think Warren Moon, (Seattle’s 41 year old quarter back)
does the same thing. So I’ve become a big believer in servicing my body
and making sure it is lined up properly and functioning the way it is supposed
to on Sunday."
Smith joins an ever-growing list of professional athletes who
regularly receive chiropractic adjustments. In June during the NBA basketball
finals star players Scotty Pippin, and John Stockton were among those who
received chiropractic care during breaks in the sixth and final game of the
championship series. Even world heavyweight champion boxer Evander Holyfeild has
been under care for years and regularly receives adjustments during training as
well as immediately prior to his fights. These athletes and many more recognize
the importance of a subluxation free body for maximum performance and
health.
Fraud in Drug Research
Corporate Crime in the Pharmaceutical Industry is a book by
Dr John Braithwaite where he describes many examples of corporate crime in the
pharmaceutical industry. Dr Braithwaite's revealing study is based on extensive
international research and includes interviews with 131 senior executives of
pharmaceutical companies in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia,
Mexico and Guatemala. "Data fabrication is so widespread", says
Dr Braithwaite, "that it is called 'making' in the Japanese
pharmaceutical industry, 'graphiting' or 'dry labelling' in the United
States." He further states: "Pharmaceutical companies face
great temptations to mislead health authorities about the safety of their
products. It is a make or break industry - many companies get virtually all
their profits from just two or three therapeutic winners. Most of the data that
the Australian Drug Evaluation Committee relies upon in deciding questions of
safety and efficacy is data from other countries, particularly the US. Inquiries
into scientific fraud in the US have shown there is a substantial problem of
fraud in safety testing of drugs in the US, just as has been documented in
Japan."
In his book Dr. Braithwaite reports that between 1977 and 1980
the United States Food and Drug Administration discovered 62 doctors who had
submitted manipulated or downright falsified clinical data. A separate study
conducted by the FDA has revealed that one in five doctors investigated, who
carry out field research of new drugs, had invented the data they sent to the
drug companies, and pocketed the fees.
Utilization of Chiropractic Care Continues to Rise.
If you’re beginning to think that more and more people
are going to a chiropractor, you’re right. Each time a new study is done
the numbers of people going to chiropractors continues to rise. This rise is
also closely correlated with the rise in usage of other non-medical forms of
health care.
In 1990, a study by Eisenberg illustrated a usage of
chiropractic in the United States of 10%. This number grew to 16% by the year
1994 in a study by Austin. In a recent Stanford study, the numbers have
continued to grow up to 17% of all Americans seeing chiropractors. This is not
surprising when we see that this same Stanford study showed that 81% of those
receiving chiropractic care considered it to be totally effective.
Oddly enough only 55% of those in the study who received
chiropractic care said their care was covered by insurance. This meant a very
large portion of the care was paid for out of pocket by the patients themselves.
These numbers reflect a consumer base that wants chiropractic and is willing to
pay for it.
Tragic Story of Child Killed at Birth Raises Questions
(Reader beware, the following story is both tragic and
disturbing.) In the Thursday October 10, 1998 issue of the Jerusalem Post
appeared a story with the following headline: "Police probe baby’s
decapitation at birth." This chilling story is about a child who was
decapitated during birth while the doctors were using the help of a suction
devise now more widely used in the birth process. The death occurred when the
child’s wide shoulders became stuck and the delivery team pulled hard on
the infant’s head and caused the head to separate from the body. The
Hospital director, Dr. Oscar Embon said the staff was "very
experienced". He went on to comment, "The delivery was going as it
should and the team saw no reason to perform a Caesarean section before the
tragedy occurred."
This chilling story is an extreme example of a situation
chiropractors have been warning about for a long time called Traumatic Birth
Syndrome, (TBS). Many chiropractors advise parents that children should be check
at birth for vertebral subluxations caused from a "normal birth"
process. Chiropractors report that they regularly care for children with birth
subluxations that would have had a large impact on the child’s health and
quality of life. Although the tragedy as reported above is rare, according to
many chiropractors, trauma from birth causing neurological problems from
subluxations is not so rare at all. Many authorities now recommend children
receive a chiropractic spinal check up as soon as possible after birth to lessen
the effects from Traumatic Birth Syndrome and Subluxation.
Chiropractic Care Conquers Colic
The above title appeared in the December 1998 issue of Country
Living's Healthy Living, beginning on page 53. The article details the concerns
of a mom whose new baby was suffering from colic. The article featured the
mother’s account of the situation starting from her initial phone call to
the pediatrician. "When I phoned my doctor to ask if he thought it was
safe (to see a chiropractor), he was ambivalent: Chiropractic would neither harm
nor help. He told me that if it was colic, it would run its course in three
months."
After this advice, her next stop was to take the child to the
chiropractor. She recalled that the first visit was an extended one with a lot
of time spent caring for the child and the parents. Following the first
adjustment, the child seemed to be more reactive and colicky, but she followed
the instructions given her by the chiropractor and the baby calmed right down.
"We had five more sessions with the chiropractor. Each lasted 20 minutes
and Lucy (the infant!) really seemed to enjoy them. It completely changed what
was fast becoming a nightmare. I'd like to recommend to everyone with a colicky
infant see a chiropractor. It certainly worked for us."
Over 106,000 Drug Related Deaths per Year
The USA Today, Wednesday, April 15, 1998, page 1 finds a report
on a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association
addressing the subject of unintended side-effects of properly prescribed,
properly administered medications. The authors estimate deaths from such events
to exceed 106,000 deaths per year. To offer some perspective on this
number--57,000 US soldiers died in the Vietnam War! Keep in mind, this number
represents a completely different data set than Lucian Leape's estimate of
180,000 hospital based iatrogenic deaths per year. Those deaths are associated
with errors, not side effects of properly prescribed and administered
medications.
Healthy Web Site Review
From time to time we will try to review web sites that have
information on health, chiropractic and wellness. This month we will look at two
different sites with similar names. First, the International Chiropractors
Association (ICA) found at www.chiropractic.org,
contains information for doctors as well as patients. Most important on this
site for the public is the "Find a Chiropractor in your area" section.
This section allows the viewer to search for an ICA chiropractor anywhere where
one can be found. This is especially helpful when searching for a chiropractor
in a distant town where a friend, relative or family member lives.
The second site we advise you look into is the International
Chiropractic Pediatric Association, (ICPA – not associated with the
one above.) This site located at www.4icpa.org, has a good area of
cataloged research on childhood health problems and the positive effects
received from chiropractic care. Under their research section subjects such as
ADD, Asthma, Diabetes, Ear Infections, Scoliosis, and many other child health
issues are included. Anyone wishing to find some of the research related to
chiropractic and certain childhood health problems should check out that
site.
"Wait Doctor I’m Still Alive, Don’t Kill
Me!"
More than 10,000 people of the Netherlands are saying this by
carrying what they call "Declaration of Life" cards or anti-euthanasia
"passports". It seems the public is becoming scared of over
enthusiastic doctors who are increasingly practicing "non-voluntary"
euthanasia thus ending seriously ill patient’s lives without their
approval. This fear is based on good reason, according to the most recent survey
of Dutch physicians conducted by their government, 23 percent of the doctors
said they had ended a patient’s life without his or her explicit
request.
More than 60% of orthodox medical treatment not scientific.
In a June 6, 1998 article printed in the British Medical
Journal Dr. Iain Chalmers admitted this interesting item as part of an article
where he was criticizing what he considered a "double standard" in
reviewing procedures of orthodox medicine to what the article called
"alternative medicine". Dr. Chalmers was writing about a subject that
we chiropractors have known about for some time. Occasionally an article appears
that tries to criticize chiropractic by falsely saying it is not scientific. In
reality chiropractic has as much, or in some instances more science behind the
things we say than does the medical approach to health care treatment by drugs
or surgery.
Please forward this email to someone you care
about.