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Renae
SFN Regular
543 Posts |
 Posted - 10/21/2004 : 17:53:40
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I'm venting here because you guys will understand.
At work this week, we had a "health and wellness" seminar. At least, it was marketed to us that way. So I signed up, being a health and fitness buff.
Turns out the speaker was a chiropractor who spent the first half hour explaining how research shows that medical errors kill more people than anything else, that only 15% of medical treatments work, and that illness is caused by "subluxations."
I left in the middle of his presentation, quietly and unobtrusively, but causing a close co-worker to tell me it was "inappropriate" for me to leave. Said co-worker is still pissy with me.
I felt like I was in an Amway seminar; I knew I was being fed bullsh*t and I didn't want to sit through it.
I love my job and my bosses and I didn't mean to offend anybody or to discourage them from putting on real "health and wellness" seminars.
So was I a twit to leave? What would you all have done?
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Edited by - Renae on 10/21/2004 17:55:47
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 10/21/2004 : 19:18:49 [Permalink]
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Do not get me started on chiropractors!
I'd have been walking out of there, laughing nastly all the way, as soon as I found out the bastard was one.
Of all of the myriad quacks out there, they are the worst, mainly because they are so widely accepted and there are so many of them.
The only differences between chiropractor and a good massuse is that the chiropractor most likely has an x-ray machine and is a hell of a lot more expensive. And the massuse is not so likely to damage your spinal column.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 10/21/2004 : 20:00:02 [Permalink]
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| I'm with Ricky & Filthy on this one. The worst quacks are the ones that are widely accepted. |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 10/21/2004 : 22:43:51 [Permalink]
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Yep. I agree.
Chiroquackters take the pseudoscience prize for gaining widespread acceptance.
I'd have asked him for sources on his statistics myself. Probably in the middle of his presentation, or maybe at the end, but definitely before the crowd left, so they could hear the answer.
Only 15% of medical treatments work? I'd have called him/her on that one at a minimum. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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dominic_dice
Skeptic Friend
United Kingdom
53 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2004 : 11:19:48 [Permalink]
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| 15% is a stupid claim to make, even if you are a fraud. I am surprised he got away with it really. |
"Are you THE dominic_dice"
"No, a dominic_dice. I come in six packs now" |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2004 : 13:07:46 [Permalink]
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I'd have laughed really, really loud.
Then marched off. |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2004 : 15:14:00 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by astropin
I'm with Ricky & Filthy on this one. The worst quacks are the ones that are widely accepted.
Dom my friend, they almost always get away with it because no one in their audiences will call them on it. And indeed, for all the bulk of those audiences know, the guy's right. How many laymen actually follow medical science; or any science at all, for that matter?
A sad state of affairs.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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dominic_dice
Skeptic Friend
United Kingdom
53 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2004 : 10:58:38 [Permalink]
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| I don't think you would have to follow science. It's just common sense really. I am sure if any laymen thought about it for more then ten seconds they would figure out that it wasn't realistic. |
"Are you THE dominic_dice"
"No, a dominic_dice. I come in six packs now" |
| Edited by - dominic_dice on 11/02/2004 11:01:31 |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2004 : 11:20:23 [Permalink]
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Mmm, I'm not sure about that, Dominic. Those guys can be really, really convincing, especially when they coat their deal with sugary, long words and heartbreaking testimonies. There's a lot of the passionate need for a cure involved on it.
I've a friend, she has a disease pretty much as my own. It's hydroarthrosis (or something like it), mainly accumulation of liquid on the joints. Mainly, she has very swollen joints (which leads to a lot of pain and stiffness) and fever, symptoms I was ready to associate with reumatism (or whatever you spell that), since I've arthritis and all.
She's been fooled by a so-called homeopathy doctor for years, which caused her problem to evolve on and on. Even when we spoke to her, trying to point out it wasn't working and that she needed a regular treatment that didn't involve dubious medicines, she simply didn't listen, not even after she confessed having back problems so severe she'd sometimes get temporarely paralyzed.
Apparently her doctor was far more convincing than my real doctor was. After all, he was the family doctor for years... |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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satans_mom
Skeptic Friend
USA
148 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2004 : 21:28:38 [Permalink]
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| I'da bombed the place. |
Yo mama's so fat, she's on both sides of the family.
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satans_mom
Skeptic Friend
USA
148 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2004 : 21:32:48 [Permalink]
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Yes, I know I've provided no realcontribution, yet I gladly assume this role of participating in awkward and nonconventional means. And when it is time for me to step up, I do.
And just to prove it to you, if it were me at that health convention (err what was it) I would have done exactly the same thing I did last time I went to one of those-- past out due to the heat, woken up 5 minutes later sprawled out in a rather uncomfortable position on a very hard tile floor with a sprained arm that resulted from a body-to-chair collision on the way down, and a chin split wiiide open, thus receiving 7 stitches and lock-jaw for a week. I also chipped some teeth, probably because my teeth were too weak to withstand the strong impact due to my calcium-lacking diet. |
Yo mama's so fat, she's on both sides of the family.
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Wendy
SFN Regular
USA
614 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2004 : 09:09:11 [Permalink]
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I'm sure most of you have seen this article, or one like it:
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/chirostroke.html
quote:
Originally posted by Renae:
I love my job and my bosses and I didn't mean to offend anybody or to discourage them from putting on real "health and wellness" seminars.
I think under the circumstances you did exactly the right thing. You showed respect to your bosses and co-workers by not making a scene, but declined to subject yourself to listening to the speaker's drivel. Bravo!
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Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a rainy afternoon.
-- Susan Ertz
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eklein
New Member
Canada
4 Posts |
Posted - 11/15/2004 : 09:03:22 [Permalink]
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Hi all,
I ran into this site, just through my general searching, and i have to comment regarding some of the posts. I am a chiropractor practicing in the province of NB in Canada. My program of chiropractic, at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College in Toronto was heavily evidenced-based. The fellow you saw was an obvious quack. There is not a single statistic that I provide to either the public, or my patients that isn't in an indexed-peer reviewed journal. Actually I am currently writing a paper on spinal tumours discovered in a primary contact chiropractic or physical therapy practice. Many chiropractors practice legitimate physical medicine and there are those snake-oil salesmen that hold us back.
Regarding his statistic of 15% of medicine works, he was definetely abusing an old statistic published in the British Journal of Medicine about 12 years ago that found that approximately 10-15% of medicine was based upon solid science. Some chiropractors like to abuse this one....however it is true that not all medicine is solidly based on science.
Legitimate scientific chiropractors are much more than a masseuse. We are able to diagnose conditions of the neck, back, pelvis and other areas of musculoskeletal dysfunction. We are very good at treating these areas of pain. treating other things such as heard disease and cancer is ridiculous. We are also able to identify conditions that present as a mechanical problem but may not...I have discovered spinal tumours and vascular emergencies through my training and experience.
For the record, legitimate chiropractors believe in the germ theory, and that subluxations are a word that give us the shivers.
If anyone has any questions, please feel free to email me and I can direct to to sources of legitimate chiropractic literature and possibly even help you to find a decent chiropractor. For the record, the yellow pages is a poor source.
Dr. Erik Klein
Hampton Chiropractic
Hampton, NB
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 11/15/2004 : 10:15:51 [Permalink]
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Thanks for your contribution beklein.
I have a positive experience of chiropractics. After sleeping in a friend's sofa for three nights, I had a strained back and neck. A chiropractor identified something displaced in my spine and straightened me out. After the treatment, I felt like a few inches taller, and the pain in the back and neck was gone.
But I think that's the limit of chiropractics. Identifying and fixing (non-intrudsively) mechanical problems, and that's it.
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 11/15/2004 : 17:06:21 [Permalink]
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Oh dear, I'm not going to make friends here. There is no evidence chiropractors do more than placebos. If you take a spine and look at it you can't even show where a nerve can be compressed unless you have disc material there. The bones themselves do not occlude the nerve passage.
The whole field evolved around 'the total health is affected by the spine'. It was never a treatment for back pain.
If one derives benefit, placebo or not, if it doesn't cost too much, if there is not a better treatment that is being deferred, if the risk of vertebral artery disruption and permanent quadriplegia doesn't bother you, then get all the chiropractic treatments you want.
So, beklein, tell me, can you tell the difference in a number of randomly assigned patients who has been recently adjusted and who hasn't? Can you provide any references to some well controlled studies that show the benefit of chiropractic treatments over placebo? I know there are lots of testimonials like Dr Mabuse's so I'm looking for more than that.
And, I'm really sorry. I don't mean to attack your profession. It is a touchy subject to challenge someone's whole field. So if we don't agree on this one, don't hold it against me on other threads.  |
| Edited by - beskeptigal on 11/15/2004 17:07:37 |
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