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Treatment techniques

After reviewing the article again, I still think the Chiropractic#Treatment techniques is the weakest section. Readers may want to know more about what techniques chiropractors employ. The section is a bit boring.

• Cooperstein R, Gleberzon BJ (2004). Technique Systems in Chiropractic. Churchill Livingstone. ISBN 0-443-07413-5. (This source is already cited, but is hard for most editors to obtain.)
• Gleberzon BJ (2001). "Chiropractic 'Name Techniques': a review of the literature" (PDF). J Can Chiropr Assoc. 45 (2): 86–99.
• Hooper PD (2005). "Introduction to specific treatment methods". In Haldeman S, Dagenais S, Budgell B et al. (eds.) (ed.). Principles and Practice of Chiropractic (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill. pp. 745–910. ISBN 0-07-137534-1. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link) (This is Section IV of the leading textbook on chiropractic. Hooper is the editor, and there are 10 chapters in the section, each with different authors, which should be cited separately as needed.)
• Mootz RD, Shekelle PG (1997). "Content of practice". In Cherkin DC, Mootz RD (eds.) (ed.). Chiropractic in the United States: Training, Practice, and Research. Rockville, MD: Agency for Health Care Policy and Research. pp. 67–91. OCLC 39856366. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); |editor= has generic name (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help) AHCPR Pub No. 98-N002. (This source is already cited by Chiropractic #Scope of practice.)
• Also, we have been using the NBCE job analysis survey to decide which techniques to mention, but I'd prefer a more-reliable source if we can find one.

After reviewing the archives and the article I determined what I think is left to improve. QuackGuru (talk) 07:45, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Wide gap

This edit added a wide gap between the text and the table. QuackGuru (talk) 00:27, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what browser you use, but IE is the most widely used browser, and in it a small gap was made, and the result is as described in the edit summary, which is an improvement. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:18, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

The table in the Chiropractic#Straights and mixers section does not seem to have the wide gap. The tables in the article should be consistent. QuackGuru (talk) 06:54, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Eubulides has just made it narrower and it works fine for me. As long as the letters don't touch the table (which they did before), it works. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:03, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I changed the left margin from 10px to 0.4em. If that doesn't work, please feel free to change the margins to match the other table, for consistency. Eubulides (talk) 18:24, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

awww.. QuackGuru, me hurt. You didn't like my little effort to separate the table from the text? I could have done a lot more to make the table prettier and more consistent across browsers, but I thought I would wait to see if you would revert this one little change.. and you did! :)

I'm curious, QuackGuru. What browser are you using?

--stmrlbs|talk 21:07, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it does not matter what browser is being used. What matters is that both tables in the article have the same margins. I still have a problem with the tables. The margins on both tables are not the same. For consistency I would like both tables to be the same margin. QuackGuru (talk) 04:44, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

What browser you use can make a difference. What version of what browser you have can make a difference. When I view your table with Firefox, it has a big black border around it. When I view it with IE, it has very pale gray border - I almost don't see the border on my laptop.

However, as far as the margin, they are defined differently for the different boxes.

--stmrlbs|talk 06:27, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

It may look different with different browsers but the margins continue to be different with each box. I only want each box to have the same margin. In others words, I want the spacing to be the same for the reader. When the boxes are defined differently for the each box then the margin will also be different. I suggest we make it the same margin for each box. QuackGuru (talk) 06:56, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I changed the other table to use the same margin. Do things look more consistent now? Eubulides (talk) 09:27, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Me thinks it is fine now. QuackGuru (talk) 18:36, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

QuackGuru, you don't think the gap by the quote box is too big (on top)? I would think that would look huge to QuackGuru, based on what he said about the 10px gap.

--stmrlbs|talk 20:30, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Maybe we could work out a compromise. What other margins are good and what is the standard on Wikipedia. QuackGuru (talk) 20:32, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

QuackGuru, if you want the boxes/tables to be consistently presented, then you should have not only consistent gaps, but also consistent borders, and they should be consistently aligned (against the right margin for those right aligned articles). It doesn't matter to me. The only reason I added the gap to your table is that I couldn't read the text that was smack dab against it. QuackGuru's "Two chiropractic belief system constructs" table, before with no gap after my change, with gap If the group agrees to it -wants all the boxes/tables to look consistent, I will be glad to do. Let me know.

--stmrlbs|talk 22:58, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Isn't the problem fixed now? I changed the margins to be the same for both wikitables. Eubulides (talk) 23:10, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it is good enough, considering what it looked like before.

--stmrlbs|talk 00:11, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

What it looked like before was an abnormal wide gap. Now the gap is much less. QuackGuru (talk) 00:17, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

For everyone else, QuackGuru's "Two chiropractic belief system constructs" table before my change- no gap, text smacked right into the table so that it was hard to read, and after my change- with the "abnormal wide gap" that QuackGuru keeps talking about. Please notice the gap by the quote box and image at the top of the chiropractic article. This gap must look humongous to you, Quackguru.. but you've never said a word about that gap. Nor have you ever said what browser you are using.

If I was the suspicious sort (like thinking everyone was a sockpuppet or something like that), I would think that you just didn't like that change because I made it.

QuackGuru, if you are happy with the way the table is now that Eubulides put in the gap, that is fine with me.  :)

--stmrlbs|talk 01:51, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

You changed one table to a wider gap while leaving the second table with a different smaller gap. Both tables should have the same amount of spacing. Having different spacing for each table was abnormal. QuackGuru (talk) 03:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Think about it for a minute, QuackGuru. You set up the table initially with NO GAP. Look at the the 2 tables. Is NO GAP EQUAL TO SMALL GAP? NO. Not in this universe. I'm surprised you didn't revert your change for that reason. "lack of gap consistency". I will have to remember that reason for future reverts.

(if you want to see inconsist tables, you should display the chiropractic page in firefox)

--stmrlbs|talk 04:38, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I did not see a "no gap" in the first place. Now both have an equal small gap, not a wider gap with one table. Consistency is better. QuackGuru (talk) 04:50, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

what browser do you use, QuackGuru? Do you know? --stmrlbs|talk 05:34, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Can't you two just drop this already? You're both satisfied with the result. The rest is just debate and violation of WP:TALK. If you both really wish to have a pissing contest, take it to your talk pages. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:51, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Web presentation of a visual medium is somewhat important, imo. Half the work in designing any webpage is in trying to make it look presentable in the browsers most people use. I'm curious as to why this table looks different to QuackGuru than to everyone else. That is why I would like to know what browser he is using - and that is why I've asked.. 3 times now. For some reason, he doesn't want to tell me.

--stmrlbs|talk 05:59, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

When I look at the original gap, it sure looks small to me. I looked at the table with IE, Firefox and Chrome, and it looks about the same (small) to me. Which browser are you using, QG?

stmrlbs, I see what you mean about how the table looks in Firefox, but if that's the way the group wants it, fine by me. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 03:39, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Grammar issue

The source states "There are significant differences between straight chiropractic, conservative mixing chiropractic, and liberal mixing chiropractic." Healey JW (1990). "It's where you put the period". Dyn Chiropr. 8 (21). This is more than between two groups. This is among straight chiropractic, conservative mixing chiropractic, and liberal mixing chiropractic. This is a grammar issue. So is "between" correct or is "among". QuackGuru (talk) 20:21, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I made the change without looking at the source because the grammar was simply bad. The source backs up my edit by also using the same word. Between can apply to differences between more than two. There is no reason to deviate from the source by using "among", which is poor grammar. The source uses proper grammar, and so should we. -- Brangifer (talk) 13:51, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I thought when something is more than between two it would be "among" which means more than two. For example, this content dispute is between two editors. If a third editor commented, it would be among three editors. QuackGuru (talk) 15:27, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Bigger issue. This source is really old and may not speak for the state of things currently. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 22:13, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

The source happens to use "between", and I think it's correct. "Among" just sounded wrong to me, and when the source also prefers "between", that clinched it for me.

As to the issue of the current state of things, it still applies. Some subluxation based chiropractors have softened their stance, so for them the differences wouldn't be quite as "significant", while others have strengthened their stance, so the diferences are even more significant. There are plenty of writings and websites that show these differences are alive and well. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:24, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I know that and you know that. I'm just saying that perhaps we should find a source which isn't 20 years old stating this. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 01:49, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

You think chiropractic sources are reliable according to your editing pattern. QuackGuru (talk) 19:13, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

"find a source which isn't 20 years old". I agree. We have a more-recent source (Keating 2005) which says (p. 94) "The diversity of beliefs among chiropractors defies comprehensive description." Chiropractic is already citing that source in Philosophy, to support the claim "a wide diversity of ideas currently exists among chiropractors". With this in mind, it is repetitive and redundant for the article to also claim "Significant differences exist among the practice styles, claims and beliefs of various chiropractors." a couple of paragraphs later. I suggest that we remove the latter claim, which (as Levine2112 mentions) is poorly-sourced. Eubulides (talk) 23:12, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I made this change to remove the duplication. QuackGuru (talk) 19:53, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Vaguely, not based on science"

WP:Words to avoid warns of words with multiple meanings.

For most of its existence, chiropractic has battled with mainstream medicine, sustained by ideas such as subluxation that are not based on solid science.

It is not clear whether it means a) not supported by empirical evidence, b) not accepted by scientists that know the evidence, c) not accepted by scientists that don't know the evidence or d) not supported by science organizations or e) supported by evidence but not in textbooks.--Ihaveabutt (talk) 01:44, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

When one reads the original content, with the refs, it seems to be clear that "ideas such as subluxation" is the part that is "not based on solid science", and the sources used bear out that interpretation:

For most of its existence, chiropractic has battled with mainstream medicine, sustained by ideas such as subluxation that are not based on solid science.

Could it be worded in a better way? BTW, lest anyone accuse editors of a SYNTH violation here, both quotes used are actually synthesized by the chiropractic authors in one of the sources used. It is the chiropractic authors who make it clear that it is subluxation that is "not based on solid science". We have just found the original sources and used direct links to each of them. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:17, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, the current version is a whitewashed version, IOW a pagt with the devil made with a certain editor who wishes this article to be written from a subluxation-based POV and including little or no criticism, even from chiropractic sources. We originally attempted to include more words (anti-scientific and pseudo-scientific ideas) from the quote:

A significant and continuing barrier to scientific progress within chiropractic are the anti-scientific and pseudo-scientific ideas (Keating 1997b) which have sustained the profession throughout a century of intense struggle with political medicine.... One example of this conundrum is the continuing controversy about the presumptive target of DCs' adjustive interventions: subluxation (Gatterman 1995; Leach 1994).[2]

For some reason we ended up with a whitewashed version, even though this is an extremely significant chiropractic source! Go figure. Some editors here go over to the dark side occasionally and cooperate with whitewashing attempts. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:32, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

This editor appears to have forgotten, or never read, WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF. 24.68.247.69 (talk) 18:18, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

CIVIL doesn't apply to my very civil comment, and there is no need to AGF when the history speaks for itself. Note that I haven't named anyone. Longtime editors here may recognize whom I'm referring to, but no one else will. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:47, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

When you state that people are attempting to whitewash the article, you are neither AGFing nor are you being CIVIL. The fact that you say "longtime editors here may recognize who I'm referring to" illustrates the problem. You are focusing on the editors, and not on the content, thus failing to follow WP:FOC. 24.68.247.69 (talk) 19:30, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Here's another more recent example from a chiropractic source, describing the chiropractic subluxation as "an entity that is yet to be shown to exist". Brunton (talk) 11:59, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Brochures

A recent pair of edits added this text to Chiropractic #Scope of practice:

"Various chiropractic groups distributed patient brochures which contained unsubstantiated claims. Chiropractors, especially in America, have a reputation for unnecessarily treating patients. In many circumstances the focus seems to be put on economics instead of health care."

This text has little to do with scope of practice, and it contains potentially-controversial text that was added without discussion here. I suggest that it be reverted. It's better to discuss potentially-controversial changes here first, before installing them. Eubulides (talk) 23:10, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Chiropractic#Treatment of patients above. QuackGuru (talk) 00:38, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this controversial (well, only because certain obstructive editors will dispute its inclusion, even though it is written by chiropractors and is undisputable fact) text should be discussed first and formulated better. It should be included, but the inclusion was poorly formulated and totally unattributed. It can be done better. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:30, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I am following up here, rather than in #Treatment of patients above. (I suggest that further comments continue to be made here; it is confusing to have these discussions bifurcated all the time.) The revised proposal in that section doesn't address the comments I made above. In particular, the existing coverage of abuse, fraud, and quackery is in Chiropractic #Education, licensing, and regulation, which suggests that this new text needs to be added there too. However, a new paragraph should not be just plopped in there; the new text should be integrated with what's already there. Eubulides (talk) 07:36, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

The largest chiropractic associations in the U.S. and Canada distributed patient brochures which contained unsubstantiated claims. Chiropractors, especially in America, have a reputation for unnecessarily treating patients. In many circumstances the focus seems to be put on economics instead of health care.

I propose we add these two sentences to the article. QuackGuru (talk) 07:57, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

This seems like such a minor point in the grand scheme of the subject and I object to it being inserted per WP:WEIGHT and WP:NPOV in general. It seems that inserting this is an attempt to further push a negative spin on the subject rather a fair attempt at a neutral article. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 15:42, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

What is the specific objection? QuackGuru (talk) 17:46, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

WP:WEIGHT and WP:NPOV. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 18:38, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

You have not given a specific reason for excluding it. The text is sourced and neutral in tone. QuackGuru (talk) 19:10, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Sure I have. Though this text is faithfully sourced, it is extremely POV yet presented as plainly factual. An article should not present opinions as facts. Furthermore, this opinion seems inconsequential in the grand scheme of the subject. We have limited space. Let's leave the petty POV minutia out. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 19:24, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

You have not explained what is not NPOV about it. You believe the text is "faithfully sourced". QuackGuru (talk) 19:33, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

The problem of unsubstantiated claims being made for chiropractic is a notable one, and it's definitely not a WP:WEIGHT violation to mention it. On the contrary, it'd be a WP:WEIGHT violation if the problem were omitted from the article. Similarly for the problem of unnecessary treatment. However, this proposal doesn't say exactly where the text should be added. Eubulides (talk) 19:49, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that it is a notbale - certainly not as notable as the proposed text is making it out to be. What about the substantiated claims? Are those too just as notable in your mind? The POV comes in when we ask, "Who is saying that a claim in unsubstantiated? Who is saying that the same claim is substantiated? Who is right and who is wrong? Do we cite these positions as facts or attribute them as opinions?" Until we can honestly address these questions, then the proposed text (IMO) remains in violation of WEIGHT and NPOV. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 19:54, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

You previously stated the text is "faithfully sourced". Simon says attribution is unnecessary. QuackGuru (talk) 20:34, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

• The cited source (Grod et al. 2001, PMID 11677551) says that the claims in question are unsubstantiated. And this is not an isolated source on the topic of chiropractic and exaggerated claims. There is also Gilbey 2008 (PMID 18670471), Sikorski & Grod 2003, and others. For example, Cooper & McKee 2003 (PMID 12669653), writes that chiropractic 'risks damaging its legitimacy in both the public and political arenas by false and exaggerated claims that emanate not only from individual practitioners but also from its major organizations'; and Keating et al. 2005 (PMID 16092955) writes, 'Whether the ACC's subluxation claims have succeeded as a political statement is beyond our concern here. These assertions were published as a priori truths (what many chiropractors have traditionally referred to as "principle"), and are exemplary of scientifically unjustified assertions made in many corners of the profession.' There is no controversy among reliable sources that chiropractors make some claims that are false or exaggerated or scientifically unjustified, and that this is a significant problem.
• The substantiated claims of chiropractic are notable, and are covered quite extensively in Chiropractic #Effectiveness, which is a sizeable fraction of the article. I don't see how one could plausibly argue that substantiated claims are ill-covered in Chiropractic.

Eubulides (talk) 20:43, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I see no problem with properly attributing these chiropractic opinions, based on chiropractic research of chiropractic literature. Make it clear this is a notable and uncontroverted opinion of major chiropractic researchers based on very clear and abundant evidence. -- Brangifer (talk) 23:37, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

i reverted the addition of such material because it is clearly not NPOV and there are issues with WEIGHT as well, i mean Ernst, a major CRITIC of chiropractic is already cited way too much and we shouldnt be giving more weight to his OPINIONS. You can tell from the edit history of the article too that there is no way there is consensus to add this to the article probably because of these reasons 70.71.22.45 (talk) 19:02, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

It was previously explained it would be a WEIGHT violation not to include the text. QuackGuru (talk) 19:16, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

It was previously explained why it would be a WEIGHT violation to keep it. I removed the whole section until some consensus on the matter can be reached. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 19:35, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Without prior discussion the entire paragraph was completely removed. No specific reply was given to "Unsubstantiated claims are well-sourced and notable. Substantiated claims are already well-covered."[3] QuackGuru (talk) 19:53, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Either you somehow missed the reams of prior discussion above your comment or you are ignoring the input of editors who disagree with you... lets get real. 70.71.22.45 (talk) 20:32, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

There was no prior discussion above to delete an entire paragraph for no valid reason. QuackGuru (talk) 20:50, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

A real discussion has taken place but an editor has continued to ignore the dicussion. QuackGuru (talk) 22:19, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

endlessly repeating urself doesnt make a discussion 70.71.22.45 (talk) 23:33, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

No specific objection was made to the real discussion. QuackGuru (talk) 23:43, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

NPOVing Education, licensing, and regulation

A 2008 commentary proposed that the chiropractic profession actively regulate itself to combat abuse, fraud, and quackery, which are more prevalent in chiropractic than in other health care professions, violating the social contract between patients and physicians. Unsubstantiated claims about the efficacy of chiropractic have continued to be made by individual chiropractors and chiropractic associations. The largest chiropractic associations in the U.S. and Canada distributed patient brochures which contained unsubstantiated claims. Chiropractors, especially in America, have a reputation for unnecessarily treating patients. In many circumstances the focus seems to be put on economics instead of health care. Sustained chiropractic care is promoted as a preventative tool but unnecessary manipulation could possibly present a risk to patients. A study of California disciplinary statistics during 1997–2000 reported 4.5 disciplinary actions per 1000 chiropractors per year, compared to 2.27 for MDs; the incident rate for fraud was 9 times greater among chiropractors (1.99 per 1000 chiropractors per year) than among MDs (0.20).

This proposal is to fix the WEIGHT and NPOV violations. The text is proposed to go in the last paragraph of Chiropractic #Education, licensing, and regulation. QuackGuru (talk) 20:34, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose per WEIGHT and NPOV objections stated above. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 20:41, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Please be specific. Your previous comments was a good reason to include to text, especially when it is faithfully sourced. QuackGuru (talk) 20:45, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

More whitewashing from Levine2112. Is chiropractic controversial? Yes. Why? This is one of the most significant reasons. To leave it out would violate NPOV and WEIGHT. -- Brangifer (talk) 23:35, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I added the proposal to the article. QuackGuru (talk) 22:55, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Kusserow noted that, ‘‘overtly aggressive marketing [is]...deliberately aimed at misleading patients and the public regarding the efficacy of chiropractic care.’’135 In fact, unsubstantiated claims regarding the efficacy of chiropractic continue to be made, not merely by overenthusiastic individuals but also by official organizations. For instance, a patient brochure published by the UK General Chiropractic Council (the body that oversees chiropractic in Great Britain) stated that ‘‘chiropractors primarily treat: spine, neck and shoulder problems, joint, posture and muscle problems, sciatica, sports injuries, tension headaches and benefit may also be seen for some types of asthma, digestive disorders, migraine, infant colic, menstrual pains.’’136

This is from Chiropractic: A Critical Evaluation QuackGuru (talk) 18:53, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I made this change to fix the WEIGHT violation. QuackGuru (talk) 19:05, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Maintenance chiropractic care is promoted as a preventative measure for both musculoskeletal and visceral problems92 even though ‘‘such unnecessary manipulation might present a risk to patients.’’93

This is from Chiropractic: A Critical Evaluation QuackGuru (talk) 19:34, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I made this change to fix the WEIGHT violation. QuackGuru (talk) 19:53, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I made this change to fix the WEIGHT violation. No specific objection was made to the real discussion. QuackGuru (talk) 19:51, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

‘‘Widespread unjustified claims which chiropractors routinely make’’ have become a concern even for some chiropractors.96

The author thought it was important to mention some chiropractors disagree with the unsubstiatiated claims. To have a neutral point of view we can include this which will satisfy NPOV. QuackGuru (talk) 17:46, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I made this change to address the WEIGHT and NPOV issue. QuackGuru (talk) 18:02, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Doctor title

Some chiropractors appeared to have used the title 'Doctor' in a way that implied they are a registered medical practitioner, when no evidence was presented it was true.[4]

Here is another proposal for the section. QuackGuru (talk) 03:55, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Um, that's New Zealand, so that should be clear. But this is a minor study and certainly not up to the level set here for sources. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 06:05, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

That's why it begins with the word "Some". Do you have any specific proposal for improving it. QuackGuru (talk) 06:07, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

"Some" is a vague term and frowned upon by Wikipedia GA standards. Try being more specific. Regardless, this is a weak source. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 06:32, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Do you have any particular wording in mind. You believed a chiropractic promotional website is very reliable for Wikipedia standards. This ref is far more reliable. QuackGuru (talk) 06:45, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Not for how you are (mis)using it. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 07:37, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean. Please be specific. QuackGuru (talk) 07:40, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I've been as specific as one can be. You use of "some" is vague and therefore misleading. Also, the source is weak as this article - by Eubulides' doing - relies on reviews of literature and not one-off studies. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 16:36, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Directories

It is not uncommon for a Chiropractor to provide a no obligation and sometimes reduced fee consultation to prospective patients, to find out of Chiropractic may be beneficial to them. There are over 22 000 searches a month for the phrase "Chiropractor" so a directory may be the best first port of call. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stevloc (talk • contribs) 08:10, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

It is not specifically meant for this article. I have added it to another article for now. The other article is about chiropractic education that covers doctor of chiropractic. You believed a chiropractic promotional website is reliable for Wikipedia. I'll do my best to fix the perceived vague. QuackGuru (talk) 17:55, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

[1][6][10][89][90]

There seems to be too many refs to verify the text. QuackGuru (talk) 19:57, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

To help a bit I combined the last two citations into one. The others can't be combined since they're cited elsewhere. This is a controversial point among many editors, and to some extent this justifies having several citations. Eubulides (talk) 23:12, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I would comment out one of the refs such as number six. QuackGuru (talk) 02:18, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Or remove one of the unnecessary refs. Three ref citations in a row is enough. Four is too much. QuackGuru (talk) 06:02, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Or make them bulleted under one ref, as I have done some other places, like in the Quackwatch article. See refs 49, 51-53. It's not that hard to do. We need to be careful not to delete refs since they are valuable sources for readers who wish to study the subject of the article. Work has been exerted by editors, and we need to show good faith towards that effort. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:57, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I already combined all the citations that can be bulleted under one ref. The other citations are used multiple places, and therefore cannot be combined in this way. Eubulides (talk) 23:53, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

There is currently four refs. I suggest we remove one of the unnecessary refs to make it three refs. Four is too many. QuackGuru (talk) 18:56, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Too many quotes in Vertebral subluxation

A recent edit to Vertebral subluxation added even some more quotes. This section is weaker than it should be, because it uses too many quotes rather than simply stating its points. We should not make things worse by inserting even more quotes. Wikipedia articles are not supposed to be quote farms, and there are currently so many quotes in that section that it detracts from what should be an encyclopedic feel. Eubulides (talk) 07:36, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. (WTF?!) I think those quotes would be better suited at Vertebral subluxation. They are so specific to that subject and only tangential to this one. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 15:44, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Come on Eubulides. I expect this type of obstructive and whitewashing behavior from Levine2112 (which he's doing above as well), but I'm beginning to wonder if you aren't acting more like a good hand sock of his. You make an effective tag team. The quotes happen to directly address the subject in the previous sentence, and are from one of the highest-placed leaders in the profession, hence they are a very significant opinion. Maybe they should be used instead of some other less significant quotes? -- Brangifer (talk) 23:33, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

The same paragraph seems to contradict itself. It says it is a "functional entity" then another sentence says that subluxation are "not structural entities". This is a bit confusing to a reader who is not familiar with vertebral subluxation. Are there more reliable sources on this. QuackGuru (talk) 03:40, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

being a functional entity is not a contradiction of being a structural entity... for example say someone has altered proprioception in their ankle they have a problem with function but not with structure 70.71.22.45 (talk) 04:37, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. There is no contradiction. The section just happens to quote from different schools of thought in the profession, so they are naturally meaning different things when they use the word. This may be confusing to readers, and such wordings should be attributed to straights or reformers (mixers who deny subluxations, since most mixers ascribe to them). Straight chiropractors wish to retain the use of the term "subluxation", but they mean something different than when all other members of the medical community use the word. Some mixers (mixers who don't ascribe to subluxations are reformers) are attempting to get the profession to stop using the word as anything other than a historical word, but not as a description of a real, physical entity. They are using the word in its medical meaning - a structural entity. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:07, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

My objection to the section is not about its content, but about its style. Wikipedia articles should not be a collection of glued-together quotations; quotations are Wikiquote's job. For more on this subject please see When not to use quotations. As I understand it, the other editors who have commented on this topic agree that the section relies too heavily on quotes. Eubulides (talk) 23:12, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I rewrote it to remove the quotes. QuackGuru (talk) 17:31, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

While I agree with the overall goal of rewriting the section to remove the quotation marks, that change had several problems. For example, it introduced the text "Chiropractic is similar to osteopathy" but this is not at all what the cited source said, which was "Chiropractors must do something similar with chiropractic subluxation" (my emphasis): that is, the cited source was exhorting chiropractors to behave differently, and was not describing chiropractors' current behavior. More generally, the change presents several opinions as facts, and should not do this when the opinions are not shared by reliable sources. Instead of editing the main article, I suggest presenting a detailed proposal on the talk page, so that details like this can be hashed out before being installed. Removing the quote marks will not be such a simple matter, I'm afraid. Eubulides (talk) 20:00, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Change this: Attorney David Chapman-Smith, Secretary-General of the World Federation of Chiropractic, has stated that "subluxations are not structural entities and cannot be detected on x‑ray."

To this: Vertebral subluxation is not a structural entity and cannot be identified on a x‑ray.

Delete this: Pointing to the path chosen by osteopathy, he wrote that "Chiropractors must do something similar with chiropractic subluxation ‑ use the term internally because of its rich history, but use another externally. I would recommend joint dysfunction. They must acknowledge that adjustment is manipulation, albeit precise and skilled, and that they do nothing unique ‑ they just do an interesting blend of things better."

I suggest we change the first quote to the proposed version without quotes and remove the second sentence. The second is editorializing that can't be written as fact. QuackGuru (talk) 21:37, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

It would be OK to remove the 2nd quote, but the 1st change is not reasonable, because most chiropractors believe that subluxation is detectable by x-ray; see Keating et al. 2005 (PMID 16092955), which is already cited by Chiropractic. I suggest removing both quotes instead, as they don't rise to the level of importance to be in this article. They can be moved to the subarticle Vertebral subluxation instead (if they're not there already). Eubulides (talk) 06:16, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Begin the rewrite of Vertebral subluxation

Change this: Attorney David Chapman-Smith, Secretary-General of the World Federation of Chiropractic, has stated that "subluxations are not structural entities and cannot be detected on x‑ray."

To this: Vertebral subluxation is not a structural entity and cannot be identified on a x‑ray.

This proposal is to begin removing the quotes in Vertebral subluxation. QuackGuru (talk) 05:25, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately that would remove the important attribution. We are writing about the different opinions on the subject, not about the "truth". Different opinions need attribution. That will make it NPOV. Without attribution, and just stating it as fact (which it is), we violate NPOV. It must be stated as the opinion of someone, unless it is an uncontroverted fact like the earth is round, one which 99% of the population agree is fact. This subject is not in that class. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:45, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Per WP:ASF, attribution is unecessary. We can remove all the attribution and quotes in the section. QuackGuru (talk) 05:47, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually you have ASF backwards. We are not supposed to assert facts as though they were opinions. Hence the call for attribution. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 07:38, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Per WP:ASF, When No one seriously disputes any of these things, so we assert as many of them as possible.

By value or opinion, on the other hand, we mean "a matter which is subject to dispute."

No evidence has been presented there is any serious dispute from reliable references. Please show a dispute over the facts among reliable references. When the facts are not in dispute we assert it as fact without attribution. QuackGuru (talk) 19:49, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Sure, for instance: The vertebral subluxation has a misalignment component that is measured with a very specific and repeatable x-ray analysis, and a neurological component that is detected as an imbalance in supine leg length, palpable tenderness in the suboccipital muscles, and asymmetric skin temperature in the paraspinal area. [5] -- Levine2112 ^discuss 20:51, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

There is no serious dispute among reliable references. The opinion of chiropractors does not qualify as a serious dispute. Chiropractors dispute the opinion of Ernst but we assert that opinion as fact. Please, let's stick to reliable references and not reach down into unreliable opinions. See WP:RS. QuackGuru (talk) 20:40, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Um, chiropractic sources would probably be among the most reliable in documenting a chiropractic dispute. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 20:51, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I understand you think chiropractic sources would probably be among the most reliable. But the most unreliable sources are chiropractic sources. Please see WP:MEDRS. QuackGuru (talk) 21:11, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I understand that you think that this source is unreliable in this situation. I disagree. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 22:38, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

For now I formatted the two references. It does seem there is too many quotes. QuackGuru (talk) 22:55, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Two models for practice

Continued from above.

MSchreiber/32.174.185.155 [6] and several other IPs and likely socks are supporting Levine2112 and Stmrlbs in their attempts to restore some one-sided fluff that we have previously discussed. To get this hammered out and stop the edit war, I'm resuming the discussion, even though it seemed settled before. For one thing the matter is covered in the next subsection, so it doesn't need mentioning where it currently is in the philosophy section. To balance it, we'd need to include the other part which is shown in the diagram in the next subsection:

• Two models for practice:

• Straights tend to use a doctor/model-centered approach which focuses on convincing the patient that the chiropractor is an important part of the patient's preventive health maintenance; that the patient has dangerous vertebral subluxations; and that only a chiropractor can treat them through the regular use of chiropractic adjustments.

• Mixers tend to use a patient/situation-centered approach which focuses on the patient rather than the disease, preventing unnecessary barriers in the doctor-patient encounter. The patient is considered to be indispensable in, and ultimately responsible for, the maintenance of health. (Needs other wording and sourcing, likely the same source as above: )

Maybe the best solution is to keep it, but balance it as proposed above, and move it to the "Straights and mixers" section. We can't continue to let a one-sided fluff comment stand alone. It would be a violation of NPOV and WEIGHT to leave it as is. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:26, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Balancing it would be fine, but the proposed wording is not supported by the cited sources, and so would need to be reworded so that it reflects what the sources say. Nothing in the source supports the claim that straight approach "focuses on convincing the patient that the chiropractor is an important part of the patient's preventive health maintenance", or that it focuses on convincing the patient "that the patient has dangerous vertebral subluxations", or that it focuses on convincing the patient "that only a chiropractor can treat them through the regular use of chiropractic adjustments". Instead, how about replacing all 3 of the above bullets with the following 1 bullet?

• "Straights tend to use an approach that focuses on the chiropractor and the treatment model, whereas mixers tend to focus on the patient and the patient's situation."

This wording is better-supported, and is shorter. Eubulides (talk) 23:53, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree that the proposed text is not currently supported by those refs. The proposed text is true, and could be supported using multiple V & RS, but your version would be a simple way to get both points included using the sources we already have. The "treatment model" happens to be the straight one, IOW a "subluxation-based treatment model", and that wording could be used, as it is implicit in any straight model. That's what defines it. Go for it. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:03, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I made this change to add the new sentence. This replaces the previous disputed text. QuackGuru (talk) 19:55, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

The wording that was added is quite vague. How can a treatment approach focus on the Chiropractor? Will the reader understand this (even though I don't)? This should be expanded for clarity (with WP:RS of course). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.68.247.69 (talk) 20:13, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Here is the ref for the sentence. If you have a suggestion to improve the sentence for clarity I would like read it. QuackGuru (talk) 06:19, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

That source fails verification. It says nothing about focusing on the chiropractor and the treatment model, and instead says that straight chiropractic focused on the patient's ability to self-heal. So we have a problem with vague, unsourced content. 24.68.247.69 (talk) 19:35, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

The "Practice attitude" line of Table 2 in the source does say something about focusing on the chiropractor and the treatment model: it contrasts the straight practice attitude, which is "doctor/model-centered", with the mixer practice attitude, which is "patient/situation-centered". In this context, "doctor" means "doctor of chiropractic", i.e., chiropractor. The patient's ability to self-heal is clearly a straight belief (it's part of the Innate Intelligence system of beliefs), but (a) this does not contradict Table 2, and (b) this is already summarized in Chiropractic #Philosophy in the "Homeostasis" bullet. Eubulides (talk) 22:51, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

As was pointed out by someone else, we are not being faithful to the source and thus we are violating WP:NPOV by using this source in this way. We are presenting it as if there is a dichotomy between straights and mixers, whereas the source makes the effort to say "Although there are still remnants of this dichotomy, the situation has changed with the advent of federally recognized accreditation, research consortia, and more collaborative political agendas. **Distinctions among current chiropractic perspectives are complex and can no longer be viewed as a simple dichotomy.**" 24.68.247.69 (talk) 17:22, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, so if I understand you correctly, it's not a "fails verification" issue; it's really more of a weight issue. In that case, I agree: a bit more weight should be given to the diversity issue. The article currently does say "Although a wide diversity of ideas currently exists among chiropractors," which does give a nod to the notion that it's not a simple dichotomy; but the article emphasizes the dichotomy more than most reliable sources do. This goes along with the problem that the straight-mixer dichotomy is currently repeated, both in the 1st paragraph and last bullet of Philosophy, and in the Straights and mixers section. This repetition should be removed. But what's been lacking, so far, is an editor with the time and energy to propose a specific fix for the problem, a fix that is well-sourced. 19:27, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

It is both a failed verification issue and a weight issue. The article says that straights "tend to" and that mixers "tend to", but the source doesn't say that at all, it says these are POTENTIAL end points. It is also a weight issue, as the article currently is presenting two separate groups, straights and mixers, even in the abstract, and this source (which I believe we all agree is a reliable reference, despite the fact it is not peer-reviewed) clearly states that such a dichotomy no longer exists. Simply put, it should be removed from the article until a SUITABLE replacement is created, and perhaps one that actually has consensus, unlike the last one that was edit warred in. 24.68.247.69 (talk) 02:25, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

It is not a failed verification issue: as stated above, the source verifies the text in Chiropractic. "Tend to" is an adequate paraphrase of the source. The source makes it clear that, although the straight-versus-mixer division is not a simple dichotomy, it is a useful way to think about the philosophical distinction among chiropractors. I agree that the text could be improved, but simply removing all discussion of straights and mixers would not be an improvement. I suggest proposing specific wordings for improvement. Eubulides (talk) 03:40, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I fully disagree with you that it is not a failed verification issue, and I took it to Reliable sources/Noticeboard and got the opinion that it was not reliable for sourcing that statement, from User:Blueboar. Further, I disagree with you that "tend to" is an adequate paraphrase of "potential end point". A better paraphrase for "potential end point" would be "Straights might" and "Mixers might". Finally, I disagree with you that the source makes it clear that we should discuss straights vs. mixers as a dichotommy - we are not representing the source faithfully when we do so, and end up lacking balance and failing to adhere to WP:NPOV. 24.68.247.69 (talk) 21:43, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

This is indented too far, so I've started a new section #Straights, mixers, Mootz & Phillips below. Eubulides (talk) 06:16, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

[undent] Frankly, the piece of wording being discussed here looks like gobbledygook. The article already has an adequate description of the distinction between "straights" and "mixers" in the section headed "Straights and mixers". Brunton (talk) 22:40, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Which piece of wording does the previous comment refer to? (Also, ideally, what would be a good way of rephrasing the confusing wording?) I agree that the straight-mixer stuff should be reorganized (the 1st paragraph of Chiropractic #Philosophy should be merged with the 1st paragraph of Chiropractic #Straights and mixers), but surely the model- vs. patient-oriented schism is worth mentioning one way or another. Eubulides (talk) 22:51, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I think this edit fixed the sentence. QuackGuru (talk) 03:41, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

This edit added too much detail and is redundant. QuackGuru (talk) 06:18, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree. It was better the old way. Also, the new way distracts from the central point of the sentence, which is the doctor-centered versus the patient-centered issue. Eubulides (talk) 06:41, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

It's "doctor/model" centered. The addition describes the model, which wasn't even describeded. That's a fundamental difference between straights and mixers. Straights stick to the original model, while mixers, even if they believe in vertebral subluxations, and many do, they use differential diagnostics, IOW they don't consider vertebral subluxations to be the only cause of all diseases, and they'll also tend to use a bit of other methods, while still depending largely on spinal adjustments most of the time. A failure to describe the method leaves the sentence empty of significant meaning. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:04, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

The recent edit changed the meaning of the sentence which was a chiropractic-centered perspective compared to a the patient-driven approach. QuackGuru (talk) 04:11, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand you. The sentence contains two portions (straights and mixers), and each one deals with two elements. Only one was dealt with, while the "model" part wasn't described at all. That's what I did. Try reading it again, and if you don't understand, then ask. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:44, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

"Straights tend to use an approach that focuses on the chiropractor's perspective and the vertebral subluxation treatment model, whereas mixers tend to focus on the patient and the patient's situation."

I suggest we shorten the sentence to this proposed version. QuackGuru (talk) 18:53, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

This is not about the staight versus the mixer treatment model. So I removed the text that describes the straight treament model. It is also redundant. This is discussed in the vertebral subluxation section. QuackGuru (talk) 17:06, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

:::::::Please stop making changes when it is clear that you do not have consensus to do so. There is clearly ongoing discussion in this very section, and you should not make changes that ignore that discussion. 24.68.247.69 (talk) 21:44, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

There was no consensus to delete the entire sentence. QuackGuru (talk) 00:36, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

There was no consensus for you to edit war it in the first place. The source does not support the statements, and as such it should not be in the article unless a replacement source is found. 24.68.247.69 (talk) 01:07, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

It was previously explaned how the source verifed the text. QuackGuru (talk) 01:17, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Please see #Straights, mixers, Mootz & Phillips below. Eubulides (talk) 06:16, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

This is still a continuing source of debate within the chiropractic profession as well, with some schools of chiropractic (for example, Palmer College of Chiropractic[29]) still teaching the traditional/straight subluxation-based chiropractic, while others (for example, Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College[30]) have moved towards an evidence-based chiropractic that rejects metaphysical foundings and limits itself to primarily neuromusculoskeletal conditions.[31][32] I provided the evidence it was redundant. QuackGuru (talk) 17:11, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Straights, mixers, Mootz & Phillips

(This is following up a long thread in #Two models for practice above.)

• "I took it to Reliable sources/Noticeboard and got the opinion that it was not reliable for sourcing that statement, from User:Blueboar." What Blueboar wrote was 'Given that the source says that the entire "Straight vs. Mixer" differentiation is outdated, I would say No, it isn't reliable for that.' In other words, Blueboar stated his opinion assumed that the source says the distinction between straights and mixers is outdated. But this assumption is completely incorrect. The cited source (Mootz & Phillips 1997) does not claim that the distinction betwen straights and mixers is outdated. Furthermore, mainstream opinion strongly disagrees with the claim. Here are some examples:

• "A challenge confronting all health care professionals is establishing the clinical effectiveness of the therapies that they employ. With support from the Health Resources and Services Administration, chiropractic has mounted a vigorous effort in this direction (Mootz, Coulter, and Hansen 1997). Unfortunately, this effort has not been universally endorsed within the profession, and indeed it has widened the schism that already exists between the 'straights' and the 'mixers' (Kaptchuk and Eisenberg 1998)." (Cooper & McKee 2003, PMID 12669653). What Cooper & McKee are saying is that the straight-vs-mixer schism is not only still important, it's gotten more important since the late 1990s.
• "Depending on the practitioner's training and personal philosophy, the techniques employed in the modern practice of chiropractic vary considerably. The main distinction is between "straight" chiropracotrs who practice spinal manipulation exclusively and adhere to vertebral subluxation as the sole rationale of care, and "mixers"—the majority—who utilize a wider range of concepts and modalities." (Horowitz 2007, doi:10.1089/act.2007.13505)
• "D.D. Palmer termed these deviants 'mixers,' a term that continues to be used today to describe the intraprofessional schism between chiropractors, at least in America.... it is generally understood that the mixers far outnumber the straights ...." (Villanueva-Russell 2005, PMID 15550303)

• 'Further, I disagree with you that "tend to" is an adequate paraphrase of "potential end point". A better paraphrase for "potential end point" would be "Straights might" and "Mixers might".' No, that table says that the straight philosophy is a "potential belief endpoint", and that associated with that same end point is a belief in doctor/model-centered practice attitudes. Merely saying "might" doesn't capture the source's claim that the straights (that is, the people on the end points) by and large believe in intuitive diagnosis, vitalistic philosophy, etc. It would be completely misstating the source to say only something like "straights might be vitalistic, and mixers might be materialistic".
• "I disagree with you that the source makes it clear that we should discuss straights vs. mixers as a dichotommy" There must be some confusion here. What I wrote was "The source makes it clear that, although the straight-versus-mixer division is not a simple dichotomy,...". In other words, I agree with you that the text should not say that it's just a straight-vs-mixer world. What the text should say is that the straight-vs-mixer divide is the most important distinction in chiropractic, and that there are other distinctions, which should also be (and are) mentioned.

Eubulides (talk) 06:16, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

• Your interpretation of the source is not in agreement with other editors interpretation of the source. The source makes it clear that the straight/mixer dichotomy is a historical concept, and that while "there are still remnants of this dichotomy, the situation has changed". AKA, the concept is outdated.
• "Furthermore, mainstream opinion strongly disagrees with the claim.". I agree, which is why this source should be used to BALANCE the statements made about the straight/mixer dichotomy as if it still did exist. AKA - the article should adhere to WP:NPOV.
• "No, that table says that the straight philosophy is a "potential belief endpoint", and that associated with that same end point is a belief in doctor/model-centered practice attitudes.". The table doesn't say that at all. It says that doctor/model-centered is a potential belief end-point for the attribute practice attitude, as is patient/situation-centered. Similarly, narrow ("straight") is a potential belief end-point for the attribute "Scope of practice", as is broad ("mixer"). Please stop mispresenting the source.

24.68.247.69 (talk) 21:30, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

• 'while "there are still remnants of this dichotomy, the situation has changed"' This is quoting the source out of context. The dichotomy the source is referring to here is not the dichotomy between the straights and the mixers. It is the dichotomy where (as the source's previous sentence says) 'chiropractic schools would affiliate with a particular national professional association that gravitated toward a "straight" or "mixer" perspective'. That is a different matter, one that is not discussed in Chiropractic and probably is not important enough to discuss there.
• 'The source makes it clear that the straight/mixer dichotomy is a historical concept' No, it says only that the dichotomy with respect to chiropractic schools affiliating with professional associations is present only in remnants. This is quite different from saying that the straight vs mixers dichotomy itself is merely a historical concept.
• 'Please stop mispresenting the source.' I have not misrepresented the source. What the source is saying is that disputes among chiropractors cannot always be easily characterized as straights vs. mixers (a point which I think we all agree on), and that if you pick apart the traditionally straight positions (column number 1) and the traditionally mixer positions (column number 2), then you can find chiropractors who choose some from column 1 and some from column 2. This is an entirely reasonable claim. However, this claim does not at all contradict the point that the straight viewpoint is vitalistic and the mixer viewpoint materialistic. Nor does it contradict the point that the straight viewpoint is doctor/model-centered and the mixer viewpoint patient/situation-centered.
• In short, the source is not saying the straight-vs-mixer schism is dead. It would have been a very strange claim for it to make, given that all the other reliable sources we have on the subject say that the schism is still alive and notable.

Eubulides (talk) 21:54, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

• "Distinctions among current chiropractic perspectives are complex and can no longer be viewed as a simple dichotomy." Another sentence that *clearly* shows that the author feels that the straight/mixer dichotomy is outdated. It is a historical concept. Either way, the source fails to backup the claim it is being used for. 24.68.247.69 (talk) 23:46, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

• No, that quote merely indicates that the source doesn't see the chiropractic world as entirely black-and-white, and that there are some shades of gray. That is, the source is saying that the straight-vs-mixer distinction doesn't explain every dispute among chiropractors. Such a claim is entirely consistent with what our more-recent and more-reliable sources say; see, for example, the quote from Horowitz 2007 above, which says that straight-vs-mixer is the "main distinction" in chiropractic practice: i.e., there are other distinctions, but the straight-vs-mixer distinction is the main one. It is a complete misreading of the source to read it as claiming that the straight-vs-mixer distinction is obsolete; it's not making any such claim. And even if this 1997 source were claiming such a thing—which it's not—then the source would be wrong, as later events (documented by reliable sources) have shown. Eubulides (talk) 00:04, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Possibly controversial edit made without discussion or consensus

I do not understand how this edit improves the article. Please discuss on the talk page any possibly controversial edit. QuackGuru (talk) 19:00, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

That edit does three things.

• It removes a citation to Gouveia et al. 2009 (PMID 19444054), without which the preceding text is unsourced. This cannot be right.
• It replaces this text:

"and the incidence is unknown, due to high levels of underreporting and to the difficulty of linking manipulation to adverse effects such as stroke, which is a particular concern"

with this text:

"however, research literature has suggested that the incidence of serious injury is between 1.46 to 2.68 cases per 10,000,000 spinal manipulations"

in both cases citing Ernst 2007 (PMID 17606755). But the cited source does not contain those statistics. On the contrary, the cited source directly supports the original text; for example, the source says in its abstract "the incidence of such events is not known".

• It removes the following text:

" A 2005 systematic review of economic evaluations of conservative treatments for low back pain found that significant quality problems in available studies meant that definite conclusions could not be drawn about the most cost-effective intervention."

which sources van der Roer et al. 2005 (PMID 15949783).

None of these three changes, as far as I know, have been discussed on the talk page. The first two changes are obviously incorrect, in that they create unsourced text. The third change removes well-sourced text without any justification. Repeatedly installing this same controversial and low-quality edit, against consensus, is wasting editors' time. Eubulides (talk) 20:43, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

TheDoctorIsIn has been blocked under the pseudoscience discretionary sanctions for 72 hours. Tim Vickers (talk) 00:49, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Revert mass edits

QuackGuru seems to have problems understanding WP:CON. Most of his edits have been rebuffed or challenged on this page yet he has continuously attempted to slowly edit-war them into place. Thoughts? -- Levine2112 ^discuss 20:57, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Please read the above threads. All my edits were discussed and no specific objection to my edits were made. QuackGuru (talk) 21:00, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

WP:IDHT seems oddly appropriate all of a sudden. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 21:01, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

You have not provided any specific objection to the edits. QuackGuru (talk) 21:05, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Here is evidence that Levine2112 has ignored previous discussion. QuackGuru (talk) 21:14, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

You made that edit 2 minutes ago declaring that no specific objections were made. You're being disruptive now by gaming the system. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 21:26, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

You still have not provided any specific objection to my edits. Please read the other threads. QuackGuru (talk) 21:27, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Levine2112, you should be commenting in the appropriate sections above. Those threads will answer your questions. These edits have been discussed and there were no objections, so QG's edits were proper and your reversions are obstructive. Please discuss above, not here. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:50, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

It seems a bit much to call those recent edits "mass edits", as the total number of changes is fairly small. It also seems a bit much to call the reversion of these edits "disruptive"[7] in an edit summary. Please try to stay calm and discuss changes here in a reasonable way, before installing anything that's potentially controversial. (See #Brochures below for info on one such installation.) Eubulides (talk) 23:10, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

imo, since this Wikipedia is a public medium, the full name should be used instead of a Wikipedia acronym whenever possible. I think "Oxford English Dictionary" means much more to most people than OED.

Why did Quackguru remove this?: "A patient-centered approach focuses on the patient rather than the disease, preventing unnecessary barriers in the doctor-patient encounter.[20] The patient is considered to be indispensable in, and ultimately responsible for, the maintenance of health.[21]"

I also think to add something as vague as "Various chiropractic groups distributed patient brochures which contained unsubstantiated claims." What groups? what claims? too vague.

--stmrlbs|talk 00:18, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Please read previous discussion for the OED bit and patient-centered approach bit. If you think the "Various chiropractic groups" bit is too vague then that what would you propose to make it not vague. QuackGuru (talk) 00:36, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Stmrlbs, you should be commenting in the appropriate sections above. Those threads will answer your questions. These edits have been discussed and there were no objections, so QG's edits were proper and your reversions are obstructive. Please discuss above, not here. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:48, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

your kidding! that it is 'obstructive' for someone to revert an edit that they dont agree with? have you ever heard of WP:BRD? just because they didnt discuss it before they reverted it does not make it 'obstructive'. give me a break!

Not kidding. This subject has been beaten into the ground for several years now and no significant new proposals or RS have been brought forward that change the matter. Since you are new here, you are excused for not recognized this push by Levine2112 as obstructive, but he's been beating this dead horse for years, and that is considered obstructive/disruptive behavior here. If new information or RS of a different type had been found, this would be a very different discussion. Until then it's plain disruption. -- Brangifer (talk) 23:19, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

This article is on a controversial topic, and as such it makes sense to discuss potentially-controversial changes, preferably before they're made, but at least soon after. This includes reverts; they should be discussed as well. Eubulides (talk) 19:49, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Mysterious IP reverts

Resolved

 – Page semi-protected. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:18, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

This talk page is for discussing the article, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations is for discussing possible socks.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Special:Contributions/166.191.172.116 http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Special:Contributions/166.191.166.100 http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Special:Contributions/166.191.225.235 http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Special:Contributions/166.190.79.69 This IP sock seems to be the same IP sock here. This IP sock made a strange statement "Undocumented claim" when the abstract clearly indicates the text is faithfully sourced. And then Levine2112 was quick to support the IP sock with a revert stating, actually I just read the source. It says nothing about Mysticism... see talk.. This mysterious revert was undiscussed on the talk page by the IP. All these edits made by the IP could not be an editor who forgot to log in. I think the edit by the IP should be completely reverted because no specific explanation on the talk page was given for the revert while other editors have given reasons for their edits. The last edit to the page restored most of the information the IP deleted. There is still a concern for the puffery in the philosophy section restored without discussion on the talk page by the IP. Finally, there is the missing wikilink spiritual inspiration, and a change from the word "among" to "between". QuackGuru (talk) 19:46, 12 May 2009 (UTC) http://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Chiropractic&diff=prev&oldid=289621649 http://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Chiropractic_history&diff=289600392&oldid=289414602 Here are two more edits made by IPs. No comment on the talk page has been made by the mysterious IPs. QuackGuru (talk) 06:22, 13 May 2009 (UTC) http://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Chiropractic_history&diff=prev&oldid=289690250 Here is another IP that reverted an edit when the text is faithfully sourced. QuackGuru (talk) 16:19, 13 May 2009 (UTC) IP addresses seem to have jumped out of the woodwork in the recent edit war, which would be a very strange thing if the IP addresses had been acting independently: the page had been quiet for some time. It would help everybody concerned if editors logged in before making potentially-controversial edits (see WP:LOGIN for details). Eubulides (talk) 23:12, 14 May 2009 (UTC) http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Special:Contributions/166.135.140.115 Here is another IP sock. QuackGuru (talk) 19:25, 23 May 2009 (UTC) http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Special:Contributions/67.49.123.119 [8][9] QuackGuru (talk) 01:54, 24 May 2009 (UTC) Dude you have been repeatedly asked to stop posting this type of stuff to talk pages where it doesnt belong! Take it to SSP or dont post it at all... just because someone doesnt agree with you doesnt make them a sockpuppet... remember assume good faith right? 70.71.22.45 (talk) 17:47, 24 May 2009 (UTC) Specifically, who told Quackguru to stop? If IP's are disrupting the page then it seems like a valid concern. David D. (Talk) 15:22, 27 May 2009 (UTC) This page has been under probation and we discuss things on the talk page. Admins know of the situation. There is a new account that is a probable sock. Based on the edit summaries I think I know who it is. QuackGuru (talk) 19:18, 27 May 2009 (UTC) Then please report it at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:33, 27 May 2009 (UTC) Things are stale and there is not hard evidence. When an editor is using different IPs a checkuser is useless. After three years, the chiropractic page is finally stable. This is how Wikipedia works. QuackGuru (talk) 19:46, 27 May 2009 (UTC) QuackGuru has thrown around a lot of accusations [10], vandalized user pages [11][12]and replaced it with a big Sockpuppet accusation, even though QuackGuru had filed no WP:SPI report. He accused me of being a sockpuppet as well as Levine2112, pasted IPsocks on those IPs saying they were suspected sockpuppets of me.. yet never told me, or filed an WP:SPI report. Odd. All these IPs appear, and Quackguru uses them to hurl accusations at editors he doesn't like. but doesn't file a WP:SPI. Perhaps he really doesn't want Admin checking these new IPs against QG's IP? --stmrlbs|talk 20:11, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Admins have left the building

Admins have lost interest in this page and have not managed this page for a while now. So I made this change. QuackGuru (talk) 18:10, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I made this change because I don't see evidence any of the admins are actively managing this page. QuackGuru (talk) 18:16, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Admins are not maintaining this page. Admins are not active on this page. It is better if each admin would add their own name to the section if they are active. QuackGuru (talk) 22:09, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Admins are not responsible for "maintaining" or "managing" articles. Instead, you should use the standard methods of dispute resolution to resolve any issues in content you encounter. There is no need to remove names from the list since those admins are familiar with the ongoing disputes on the page and can assist in cases where action is need under the ArbCom ruling, for example. Shell ^babelfish 23:51, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm still here, not "managing" the article since that isn't what admins do, but I do have this page on my watchlist in case any edit warring, socking, etc pop up. MBisanz ^talk 00:10, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Same here. I may not be online when things happen, and I don't claim to read everything, but I am here. I believe I took the most recent administrative act on this article, semi-protecting it a couple of days ago. If you feel the page needs attention it isn't getting, post on the talk pages of the listed admins, or MBisanz or my page. KillerChihuahua^?!? 20:18, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Redirects for speedy

Redirects for speedy:

Chiropractic care: Research and Criticism Safety of chiropractic Scientific inquiries into chiropractic care Scientific investigation of chiropractic

Some have talk pages that can be deleted too. QuackGuru (talk) 19:55, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

None of these would qualify for speedy deletion, surely. For regular deletion I suggest following the procedures and listing them at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion. I don't have a strong opinion on these redirects. I just now edited most of them to point to the Evidence basis section rather than to the entire Chiropractic article. Eubulides (talk) 20:11, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

New V & RS article about chiropractic

What you should know about chiropractic, New Scientist, 29 May 2009 by Edzard Ernst

-- Brangifer (talk) 02:59, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Critical view of chiropractic

This critical view of chiropractic may have some good ideas to expand this page or we can create a new page. QuackGuru (talk) 20:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

i dont think it would be a good idea to create a new page under that topic... ill have to go read WP:NPOV again but i think there is something in there about having balanced articles 70.71.22.45 (talk) 18:47, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

A new article with that title would be a classic POV fork. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:00, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Do you have a suggestion for a better title or you think I should not start a new page. QuackGuru (talk) 22:44, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it would be a POV fork. To use that article for ideas and sources (not Citizendium itself) we could use in THIS article might be good idea. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:57, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Can we put critical views of the pill pushers on the medicine wiki?114.78.181.84 (talk) 19:16, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Your request is a bit unclear: Are you talking about putting the POV of "pill pushers", or criticisms of pill pushers? What is "the medicine wiki" to which you are referring? Are you even on the right page? Please explain. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:16, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I understood the request to be something like, "If Chiropractic is to contain criticism of chiropractic, then Medicine should contain criticism of mainstream medicine". (Which it does.) Eubulides (talk) 03:48, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree. That was also my suspicion, but, it being a new IP who might not know policies here, it's hard to say. There are many articles here that include criticisms of mainstream medicine, or are completely devoted to them. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:40, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Vaccination

See discussion at Talk:Chiropractic controversy and criticism#Vaccination. Re the statement in this article about vaccination, "one of the most cost-effective forms of prevention against infectious disease", I just noticed that the source for this says "Although most public health authorities would agree that vaccination constitutes one of the most cost-effective infectious disease control measures of the last century, few, if any, would argue that there are no problems associated with their use." The statement in this article seems one-sided and over-confident; the source itself doesn't even go so far as to state that it is "one of the most cost-effective ..."; it only says that others say this, so I don't think we can claim that this verifies it as a fact. I suggest changing it to "generally considered one of the most cost-effective infectious disease control measures, although not free of problems." ☺Coppertwig (talk) 19:55, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

The cited source is written by and for chiropractors, and as such it has put weasel-words in front of the mainstream opinion. There really is no need to add a reliable source to support the claim that that vaccination is one of the most cost-effective public-health interventions, but since you've raised this topic more than once I just now added a source, namely Ehreth 2003 (PMID 12531324). Dozens more such sources could be added, but surely one suffices. Ehreth's conclusions begin with the sentence "Vaccines are unquestionably one of the most cost-effective public health measures available, yet they are undervalued and under-utilised throughout the world." Eubulides (talk) 21:19, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

some registered user please add...

please link to Chiropractic controversy and criticism thanks 79.101.174.192 (talk) 21:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

also, please add this more usable citation (doesn't require subscription) just after citation number 14: http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/09/us/appeals-court-rules-ama-acted-against-chiropractors.html

thanks

79.101.174.192 (talk) 21:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I just now added a wikilink to Chiropractic controversy and criticism. The citation to the old New York Times article shouldn't be needed, as Chiropractic is already citing Johnson et al. 2008 (PMID 18722194) on the battle between chiropractic and the AMA, and Johnson et al. is a much better source: it's published in a peer-reviewed journal and was not rushed to print. (This is currently citation number 13 in Chiropractic.) Eubulides (talk) 00:49, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Ernst's double-entendre

A recent series of edits added this text:

"A 2009 study states that the latest evidence fails to show a clinically meaningful benefit of chiropractic for pediatric patients and suggests there is even some evidence that chiropractors cause serious harm to children."

citing the following source:

• Ernst E (2009). "Chiropractic manipulation, with a deliberate 'double entendre'". Arch Dis Child. 94 (6): 411. doi:10.1136/adc.2009.158170. PMID 19460920.

The cited source is not a "study"; it's an opinion piece, and is little more than a letter to the editor. We don't need to cite it when we are already citing many far-more-reliable sources, sources that Ernst himself is already citing. On the contrary, citing this source weakens Chiropractic, by making the article appear to be an opinion piece. I removed the text. As per WP:MEDRS, when we have high-quality reviews available, we should be using them in preference to primary sources, opinion pieces, and the like. Eubulides (talk) 06:00, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Considering the actual evidence, these statements might need correction. I would suggest a dramatically different conclusion: the best evidence available to date fails to demonstrate clinically relevant benefits of chiropractic for paediatric patients, and some evidence even suggests that chiropractors can cause serious harm to children.5 6 5. Vohra S, Johnston BC, Cramer K, et al. Adverse effects associated with pediatric spinal manipulation: a systematic review. Pediatrics 2007;119:e275–83. 6. Schmidt K, Ernst E. MMR vaccination advice over the internet. Vaccine 2003;21:1044–7.

When the article cites refs to come to the conclusion it is not an opinion. This article reviewed "the best evidence available to date". QuackGuru (talk) 17:43, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

We could use the newer 2009 ref or a 2007 review. QuackGuru (talk) 18:35, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

You inserted into Effectiveness the text "A 2007 systematic review found that serious adverse events of pediatric SM have been identified, and their actual incidence is unknown.", but this insertion is about safety, not effectiveness, so it doesn't belong in that section. I undid the change. That review is already adequately summarized in Safety, so I don't see a need for a change there. Eubulides (talk) 15:59, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I reread the sources (including the other sources that we cite) and it does appear that among the reliable sources there is no disagreement that clinically relevant benefits in children have not been firmly established for chiropractic manipulation, so I added "that does not demonstrate clinically relevant benefits". Is this a reasonable compromise? Eubulides (talk) 16:26, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the compromise. QuackGuru (talk) 18:03, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Chiropractic article and the legitimate fork Chiropractic controversy and criticism. A suggestion

It seems that some editors are questioning the NPOV status in some aspects of the Chiropractic controversy and criticism article. My view [13] is that this is not the result of the article content but the way the fork is implemented. If you could try to implement the fork as per WP:SUMMARY with its own sub-section summary them maybe some of the objection will be addressed and clearly the result will be an improved article. Am I making sense here or did I put my foot on a land mine? --LexCorp (talk) 01:14, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Chiropractic follows the advice in WP:CRITS, which is that criticism sections are often a symptom of bad writing. Let's not worsen the writing in Chiropractic in order to defuse a controversy in some other article. Instead, it would be better to fix the other article. Eubulides (talk) 01:34, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I follow your reasoning but the other article is clearly a fork of this one so in order to avoid WP:CFORK something must be done. Either merging both articles or implementing WP:SUMMARY. To me it is a non issue I have no bias either way. I am just pointing out that editors from this article and editors from the fork must cooperate and find a solution as to what an unbiased editor may perceive as a WP:CFORK. If not action is taken I am certainly not going to object but a Damocles sword will hang over these two articles until this is resolv^{Superscript text}ed.--LexCorp (talk) 01:48, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I started a new sub-section to address the obvious problem. See WP:SUMMARY. QuackGuru (talk) 01:55, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes I believe that is the logical way of solving the dilemma. Now Chiropractic controversy and criticism is safe from WP:CFORK or WP:POVFORK attacks and any challenge as to the NPOV status of either article must necessarily be quite specific in order to warrant a warning tag.--LexCorp (talk) 02:03, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

the other article is a blatant POV fork... the article Chiropractic already contains the criticsm... just not in its own section as eubulides says... it is throughout the article... 70.71.22.45 (talk) 03:35, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

The other article is a NPOV article. Please see WP:SUMMARY for implementing the controversy and criticism section in this article. QuackGuru (talk) 03:38, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of whether the other article is NPOV, it is a major WP:WEIGHT violation to include so many words about controversy and criticism, words that largely duplicate text that is already in Chiropractic. One cannot simply slap a lot of duplicative text here in order to avoid some problem with some other article. The other article should be fixed instead. For more about the problems with the recent insertion, please see #900-word insertion without consensus or adequate discussion below. Eubulides (talk) 08:47, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

The othet article is nowhere near NPOV as it is completely unbalanced... as i said above we dont need a controversy and criticism section in Chiropractic because the criticism is already thoughout the article... that is unless we completely rewrite the entire article and move all the criticism to the criticism section... which im sure i read somewhere in the archives that this has been proposed before and the consensus was to not have a criticism section... please stop your disruptive editing... 70.71.22.45 (talk) 04:41, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

i have attempted to remove the section from the article until we can determine if there is consensus to add such a poorly written section despite previous discussion in the archives... however the antivandalism bots and antivandalism squad keep reverting me... 70.71.22.45 (talk) 04:41, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

It is not appropriate to remove unilaterally. Please reach a thorough consensus. ZooFari 04:45, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

This is backwards. The material was just now added unilaterally, without consensus or adequate discussion. And the material is not appropriate for this article. Please see #900-word insertion without consensus or adequate discussion below. Eubulides (talk) 08:47, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

as i said above it is all in the archives... the section also blatantly violates WP:NPOV... [[14]], in fact the article used to have a criticism section and it was REMOVED... by consensus... 70.71.22.45 (talk) 04:50, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

If editors want to shorten the section a bit that would be fine. I have always had a difficult time understand what 70.71.22.45 is doing. For example, this edit changed the meaning of the sentence. Now it is misleading and incorrect. I suggest 70.71.22.45 WP:LOGIN. QuackGuru (talk) 04:52, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

if you have a problem with an edit of mine on another article... then discuss it on that articles talk page... you have been reminded of this in regards to this VERY issue previously... further your allegation that i have changed it to be misleading and incorrect are contary to WP:CIVIL and should be removed... the section is not needed and was added without consensus... 70.71.22.45 (talk) 05:06, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

more relevant discussions from the archives [[15]]

I agree that the idea of having a Controversy section has been discussed several times before and rejected. Such a section should not be inserted unilaterally without consensus. Plus, this insertion has many other problems; please see #900-word insertion without consensus or adequate discussion below. Eubulides (talk) 08:47, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

There are several problems at present:

1. Several users, notably certain chiropractic supporters and suppressors of well-sourced criticism, WP:IDONTLIKEIT. (Their actions here reveal who they are.) That argument doesn't cut it, and we should therefore ignore their arguments, since they are aimed at censoring a very real part of chiropractic history and keeping it out of Wikipedia.
2. There are legitimate concerns that the new section might be a regular dumping ground for criticisms. Eubulides and others, myself included, are concerned about this. We have managed to avoid this problem by including a few criticisms in appropriate sections in the article. That's good, but it doesn't do justice to the whole subject. That's what the new article and section here are about.

There is a whole different facet to this subject which isn't dealt with, and it's a huge one. This section should be for summarizing it, and that necessitates a section (and article) title change to something like "History of chiropractic controversies and criticisms". This is not the same as all criticisms, but is about the long tradition of controversies within the profession, and criticisms about the profession from without. The profession was born in controversy, and has been plagued by it right from the beginning. This includes conflicts and disagreements with other organizations like the AMA, law enforcement (for example jailings for practicing medicine without a license), accusations of illegal and unethical practices, legal disputes, lawsuits against other professions and individuals, lawsuits by individuals against chiropractors and chiropractic organizations, campaigns to inform the public of problems, etc., all from RS. This is also about why these controversies and criticisms have started and continued. If there is any one word that characterizes the history of the profession, it is continual controversy (two words!). The history of this article just shows how that controversy continues even here, with the continual attempts to whitewash chiropractic history, while at the same time the same chiropractic editors claim that controversy is a small topic. Well, if one has grown up within a walled garden, then any criticism seems absurd and a minor irritation that's just wrong and unfair. Regardless of that impression, the real world is full of RS that document lots of controversy and criticism, and this section is the place to briefly summarize it, and the main article (History of chiropractic controversies and criticisms) to develop it. Brangifer (talk) 05:20, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree that Chiropractic can and should discuss these issues more, particularly the law-enforcement issues (which are not adequately covered now). But this recent insertion does a bad job of this: it contains way too much detail and it is not neutrally presented. This stuff should be discussed, briefly and neutrally, in History; the other material should be relegated to other articles. For more about what's wrong with the recently inserted text, please see #900-word insertion without consensus or adequate discussion below. Eubulides (talk) 08:47, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Just putting out a feeler, but might we merge Chiropractic controversy and criticism into History of chiropractic and Chiropractic, as appropriate? There are WP:SIZE concerns, as those articles 24, 36, and 99 kB, respectively, but much of the material at or belonging at CCC is in those articles and can be treated just as well in an integrated fashion. Chiropractic controversy and criticism#Ethics and claims could go with Chiropractic#Utilization, satisfaction rates, and third party coverage, perhaps renamed as Reception or something like that. If nobody thinks this is obviously a horrible idea I will moot the merge this weekend for more complete discussion. - 2/0 (cont.) 08:12, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps some of what's in Chiropractic controversy and criticism could be merged into Chiropractic, but it'd be quite a small amount. Most of that article is either duplicative of what's in Chiropractic, or is supported by lower-quality-sources, or is way too-detailed, or is POV. For further comments about these problems, please see #900-word insertion without consensus or adequate discussion below. Eubulides (talk) 08:47, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Requesting image upload

Here is an image that would fit like a glove for the Controversy and criticism section. We request an editor with the experience with images upload it to Wikipedia. QuackGuru (talk) 01:55, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't see any evidence that that image satisfies the Wikipedia copyright policy. Eubulides (talk) 08:47, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Need for a "Reactions to criticism" section

Currently our article doesn't have a "criticism" section, but when one can get sued by the chiropractic profession for using one's right of free speech to criticize it, then the subject becomes so notable as to deserve a section. The last two sections of the New Scientist article mentioned above deal with that subject and could be included as sources. There have been other instances where the profession has sued competitors and critics. Attempts to silence critics is a practice that is also used by organizations like Scientology.

Note that I'm not proposing a section where all criticism is collected, as is often done here at Wikipedia, but a section with a title like "Reactions to criticism". -- Brangifer (talk) 03:12, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

The Simon Singh case has come up before in this forum; please see Talk:Chiropractic/Archive 26 #Law suit against Simon Singh and broader issues of controversy and Talk:Chiropractic/Archive 29 #Simon Singh to put chiropractic on trial in UK. There wasn't a consensus to mention the Singh case earlier, and I expect that Singh's recent defeat at the preliminary hearing wouldn't change that. By itself the Singh trial does not deserve a whole section in Chiropractic, as it's just one relatively-minor libel case involving a particular reading of one turn of phrase. Perhaps if a reliable source covered the topic of suing chiropractic critics in general, we could use that; but mentioning Singh here based only on the source given would smack of WP:RECENTISM, and coming up with our own list of lawsuits would be WP:OR. Eubulides (talk) 05:37, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

While it's true that the Singh case is what sparked my comment above, the whole subject has a long history and would be worthy of a section at some point in time. The profession is notorious for treating its critics badly, rather than learning from its mistakes and reforming. -- Brangifer (talk) 13:33, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

hello backwards pov!! He is guilty of libel and yet they are the ones who are notorious for treating its critics badly? I guess they were wrong for taking on the AMAs conspiracy boycott too? 70.71.22.45 (talk) 18:47, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

This might be a good time to start pulling out sources/text for discussion rather than letting this discussion wander. Shell ^babelfish 22:09, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

For another example from last year, see this editorial from the New Zealand Medical Journal (Frizelle, F.: Defamatory articles or not? NZMJ August 2008, Vol 121 No 1279, pp. 16-18). Brunton (talk) 15:42, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the example, but what we really need here is a reliable source that characterizes this overall activity and puts it in perspective. Chiropractic isn't really the place for a list of recent demand letters and/or lawsuits by chiropractors; that's far too low-level for this article, and anyway it would be WP:OR for us to compile a list of selected legal events like that. Eubulides (talk) 16:28, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I obviously care pretty deeply about the potential chilling effect of lawsuits like this, but I think the incident is better treated at British Chiropractic Association and such articles. If a good history of the profession mentions several similar incidents (show us your evidence, not your legal muscle comes to mind) then I can see possibly adding something within the bounds of WP:DUE. - 2/0 (cont.) 14:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Now that this issue has spread to issues of evidence it seems pertinent to include it here.

In response to calls for peer reviewed evidence, the British Chiropractic Association listed 19 papers:

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/339/jul08_4/b2782

In response, Edzard Ernst published the following rebuttal:

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/339/jul08_4/b2766

Finally, the BMJ, published an editorial on the issue:

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/339/jul08_4/b2783

His demolition of the 18 references is, to my mind, complete.

Of course, the fact that a medical association has resorted initially to libel rather than answering the science is major news now and both the media and medical journals: In an article in the Guardian last year, Singh made claims regarding the evidence base alleged to support the promotion of chiropractic treatments in certain non-skeletal conditions in children. As Singh explains on the website www.senseaboutscience.org.uk, the Guardian offered the BCA an opportunity to lay out their evidence rather than to sue him for libel. The BCA opted to sue.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/339/jul08_4/b2783

With the evidence issue now moving to the centre of this case, it is totally appropriate here rather than being 'hidden' in a separate article.

Macgroover (talk) 08:00, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but this still appears to be WP:RECENTISM. It's far less significant to chiropractic than the AMA case, or the early 20th-century cases that put chiropractors in jail (and eventually freed them). It might be worth 20 words, perhaps, but no more. More space should be spent on the jail cases. Eubulides (talk) 08:47, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it's recentism now that it's led to the issue of evidence. This has been reported in Nature, the BMJ, the Guardian etc. Chiropractic issues that happen outside the United Stated are relevant. It's only recentism if this article doesn't take a world view. This issue has led to direct challenges to the evidence with the BMJ editorializing that the evidence has been 'demolished'. Perhaps, it can be integrated into the evidence section. [User:Macgroover|Macgroover]] (talk) 06:44, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

A brief summary of the Singh libel case is mentioned in this article at Chiropractic#History. The discussion is also in another thread further down. See Talk:Chiropractic#900-word insertion, line by line. QuackGuru (talk) 06:54, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Struggling to understand the balance in this article

I'm not saying this article is biased one way or another but I'm struggling to understand how the editors go about choosing which paper to use as citation and whether that citation is merited. For example, this passage:

A 2008 critical review found that with the possible exception of back pain, chiropractic SM has not been shown to be effective for any medical condition, and suggested that many guidelines recommend chiropractic care for low back pain because no therapy has been shown to make a real difference,[11] but a 2008 supportive review found serious flaws in the critical approach and found that SM and mobilization are at least as effective for chronic low back pain as other efficacious and commonly used treatments.[95]

It's the nature of science that most papers will have dissenting opinion, but that doesn't mean the dissenting opinion is necessarily give the weight of the original paper if that original paper is regularly cited. To a non-scientist reading this it reads like the 'serious flaws' have been factually established as opposed to possibly one dissenting opinion amongst many others that don't dissent ( and in fact the citation doesn't seem to actually mention the Ernst paper anyway) . How many times have these papers been referenced? Do we even know? Why are this paper chosen over say Ernst & Canter's systematic review of systematic reviews - which I'd suspect would be a more cited paper in the medical establishment.

I don't know but to me a review paper by Ernst who New England Journal of Medicine call the 'one of the best qualified people to summarize the evidence on complementary medicine' and who is called upon to write by New Scientist, BMJ etc, would seem to carry more weight than a dissenting opinion (and it doesn't seem to be a paper) by Bromfort and Haas who both work at chiropractic colleges. I think it would be impossible not to find dissenting opinion amongst chiropractors themselves to Ernst's conclusions. I'm just not convinced by the synthesis that's going on here especially when we can probably find syntheses often done for us in scientific editorials. It's almost as if because the studies 'are typically of low quality' that the conflicting outcomes are given equal weight. A low quality study should not lead us to say it might work or it might not, it should lead us to say there is no evidence that it does work. Macgroover (talk) 08:33, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Evidence of IP socking

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

I believe it is important to collect evidence against the ongoing IP sockpuppets before they are buried in the archives. Here is a link.[16] The IP sock has returned.[17] QuackGuru (talk) 03:12, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

The talk page is the appropriate venue to discuss IP socking

i believe you have been asked several times before to take it to the appropriate venue... which is not the talk page for this article! 70.71.22.45 (talk) 03:17, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

you have been told by an admin before that this is not the appropriate venue..[18] 70.71.22.45 (talk) 03:28, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

This is the correct venue. The articles are not semi-protected yet. Do you support the IP socking. QuackGuru (talk) 03:31, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

This talk page is for discussing the article, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations is for discussing possible socks. 70.71.22.45 (talk) 03:36, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I asked if you support IP socking and you ignored or chose not to answer my question. Does that mean you support the socking. QuackGuru (talk) 03:39, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

900-word insertion without consensus or adequate discussion

Over 900 words of text was recently inserted without any discussion of the change in advance. It is not appropriate to insert a big slug of obviously-controversial text like this without discussion or any attempt at coming to consensus. I am reverting the change for now, and am copying the text below, with my comments on the proposed change. Let's discuss the matter here first (like it says at the top of the talk page) and come to a consensus rather than installing such obviously-controversial changes without discussion.

Major problems with this insertion include:

• Several of the changes in this insertion have already been proposed on the talk page, and rejected by consensus. Problems with some other article should not be an excuse for inserting text here against consensus.
• There is lots and lots of duplication with what's already in Chiropractic.
• Much of the insertion is not about either controversy or criticism, and does not belong in a Controversy and criticism section.
• Much of the insertion is about long-ago historical matters, which belong in History or in Chiropractic history, not in a new section.
• There is waayy too much detail about the criticism, including a severe case of WP:RECENTISM with respect to the Singh case, as well as long and repetitive quotes from non-notable critics.
• Some of the inserted text is incorrect.
• The overall effect is to introduce a strong point-of-view into the article. Chiropractic should not give a platform to strident critics of chiropractic without giving due weight also to strident supporters.

More details are in #900-word insertion, line by line below.

Eubulides (talk) 08:47, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

900-word insertion, line by line

Here are more details about the problems with the insertion. The following bullets list all of the recently-inserted text (in italics) with my comments below the text.

• "== Controversy and criticism == {{main|Chiropractic controversy and criticism}"

• Inserting a separate Controversy and criticism section weakens Chiropractic, for reasons discussed above and in WP:CRITS. We should not introduce a new section in this article, merely because there's a perceived problem with some other article. Chiropractic already wikilinks to Chiropractic controversy and criticism; there's no need for it to use {{main}} to do so.

• "The core concepts of chiropractic, vertebral subluxation and spinal manipulation, are not based on sound science."

• This misrepresents a critical view of chiropractic as if it were mainstream. There is some science behind spinal manipulation, and arguably parts of that science are sound, despite what Ernst (a critic) says. Chiropractic should not be taking sides in this dispute among mainstream sources. The point about vertebral subluxation being unscientific is a valid one, but is already discussed in Vertebral subluxation and (for earlier history) in History, and need not be repeated again.

• I'm sorry, but that's wrong. Saying that it has a positive effect for anything but back pain is a gross distortion of the mainstream view. Vertebral subluxation is the entire supposed logic behind how it works, so it is clearly not based on sound science. Indeed, some studies show it may only be a particularly good placebo for back pain. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 02:53, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

• "The birth of chiropractic was on September 18, 1895. On this day, Daniel D. Palmer, manipulated the spine of a deaf janitor named Harvey Lillard, allegedly curing him of deafness. And his second patient, a man with heart disease was also cured."

• All of these claims are probably false. And even if they were true, this material wouldn't be "controversy or criticism". So what is it doing in this section?

• 'D.D. Palmer, the founder of chiropractic, defined chiropractic as "a science of healing without drugs" and considered establishing chiropractic as a religion.'

• This duplicates text already in Chiropractic, which says "D.D. and B.J. both seriously considered declaring chiropractic a religion". There is no need for this duplication. Furthermore, this text is not controversy or criticism.

• "Chiropractic included vitalistic ideas of innate intelligence with religious attributes of universal intelligence to substitute science."

• This is duplicative of Philosophy, which talks about universal intelligence, innate intelligence, and vitalism. There is no need to repeat this material. And again, this material is not controversy or criticism.

• "Evidence suggests that D.D. Palmer had acquired knowledge of manipulative techniques from Andrew Taylor Still, the founder of osteopathy."

• This material belongs in History if it belongs anywhere. Furthermore, History also mentions osteopathy (though it does not mention Still specifically). It is controversial whether Palmer stole from Still, and Chiropractic should not present one side of this dispute as if it were gospel.

• 'Although D.D. Palmer combined bonesetting to give chiropractic its method, and "magnetic healing" for the theory, he acknowledged a special relation to magnetic healing when he wrote, "chiropractic was not evolved from medicine or any other method, except that of magnetic."'

• Again, this is not controversy or criticism. It belongs under History if it belongs anywhere. Better, it belongs in History of chiropractic, as it's too much detail for here.

• "According to D.D. Palmer subluxation is the sole cause of disease and manipulation is the cure of all disease for the human race."

• Again, this is not controversy or criticism. Again, this material is duplicative of what is already in Chiropractic.

• "Chiropractic is rooted in mystical concepts, leading to internal conflicts between straights and mixers which continue to this day. Chiropractic has seen considerable controversy over its philosophy."

• This duplicates the discussion that's already in Philosophy. There's no need to discuss this topic twice in the article.

• "The rivalry was not solely with conventional medicine; many osteopaths proclaimed that chiropractic was a bastardized form of osteopathy."

• This is long-dead history, and belongs in History of chiropractic, not here.

• "In 1906, D.D. Palmer was the first chiropractor who went to jail. He was jailed for practicing medicine without a license. In the 1920s hundreds of unlicensed chiropractors chose jail rather than fines. Herbert Reaver was the most jailed chiropractor in the U.S.[19] Chiropractors were charged with not complying with the medical practice act. California chiropractors adopted the motto, "Go to jail for chiropractic." 450 chiropractors were jailed in a single year at the peak of the controversy. Many chiropractors treated fellow prisoners and visiting patients while in jail."

• Chiropractors going to jail circa 1910 is a valid topic; but it should be covered in History, which already talks about organized opposition by medicine. It should be briefly summarized there, with most of the detail in Chiropractic history.

• "Some New Zealand chiropractors appeared to have used the title 'Doctor' in a New Zealand Yellow pages telephone directory in a way that implied they are registered medical practitioners, when no evidence was presented it was true. In New Zealand, chiropractors are allowed to use the title ‘doctor’ such as in the Yellow Pages under the heading of 'Chiropractors' when it is qualified to show that the title refers to their chiropractic role."

• This is way, waayy to much detail for Chiropractic. Chiropractic should take a worldwide view and not give so many words to a tiny spat in New Zealand. This detail should stay in Chiropractic controversy and criticism.

• "UK chiropractic organizations and their members make numerous claims which are not supported by scientific evidence. Many chiropractors adhere to ideas which are against science and most seemingly violate important principles of ethical behaviour on a regular basis. The advice chiropractors gave to their patients is often misleading and dangerous."

• This duplicates Education, licensing, and regulation, which already says "Unsubstantiated claims about the efficacy of chiropractic have continued to be made by individual chiropractors and chiropractic associations."

• "On 19 April 2008, Simon Singh wrote an article in the The Guardian which resulted in him being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association. Singh wrote in The Guardian criticising the claims made by chiropractors about the efficacy of spinal manipulation in treating childhood ailments, among other things. He suggested there was "not a jot" of evidence to support such interventions for these ailments, and argued that the British Chiropractic Association "happily promotes bogus treatments".[20] The suit is ongoing, with Singh stating that he will "contest the action vigorously... There is an important issue of freedom of speech at stake." The article developed the theme of Singh's recently published book Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial, making various claims about the usefulness of chiropractic. Commentators suggest this ruling could set a precedent to restrict freedom of speech to criticise alternative medicine. The charity Sense About Science has launched a campaign to draw attention to this particular case. They have issued a statement entitled "The law has no place in scientific disputes", which has been signed by myriad signers representing science, journalism, publishing, arts, humanities, entertainment, skeptics, campaign groups and law. As of June 13, 2009, over 10,000 have signed."

• This text is WP:RECENTISM and gives waayy undue WP:WEIGHT for the Singh case. The topic was already discussed in #Need for a "Reactions to criticism" section above, and the consensus is that it doesn't belong in this article.

• "Not all criticism originated from critics in the medical profession. Some chiropractors are cautiously calling for reform."

• This text duplicates the discussion of Grod et al. 2001 (PMID 11677551) that is already in Chiropractic, but it cites a far-less-reliable source (the popular press) on the same subject. As per WP:MEDRS, we should not be citing the popular press in favor of peer-reviewed journal article on the same topic.

• "The concept of subluxation remains unsubstantiated and largely untested, and has been debated about whether to keep it in the chiropractic paradigm for decades."

• This text duplicates text that is already in Vertebral subluxation, which says "The concept of subluxation remains unsubstantiated and largely untested, and a debate about whether to keep it in the chiropractic paradigm has been ongoing for decades."

• "The cost, effectiveness, and safety, of spinal manipulation are uncertain."

• This text duplicates the Evidence basis section.

• "Quackwatch is critical of chiropractic; its founder, Stephen Barrett, has written that it is "absurd" to think that chiropractors are qualified to be primary care providers."

• Quackwatch is not a particularly reliable source on chiropractic, and should not be cited or promoted in Chiropractic, as we have far-more-reliable and equally-critical sources.

• 'and considers applied kinesiology to be a "term most commonly used to identify a pseudoscientific system of muscle-testing and therapy".'

• This is not directly relevant to chiropractic.

• 'Lon Morgan, DC, a reform chiropractor, expressed his view of Innate Intelligence this way: "Innate Intelligence clearly has its origins in borrowed mystical and occult practices of a bygone era. It remains untestable and unverifiable and has an unacceptably high penalty/benefit ratio for the chiropractic profession. The chiropractic concept of Innate Intelligence is an anachronistic holdover from a time when insufficient scientific understanding existed to explain human physiological processes. It is clearly religious in nature and must be considered harmful to normal scientific activity.'

• This is just offering a critic a soapbox and is a WP:WEIGHT violation. Morgan is not notable enough to make the cut for Chiropractic. Perhaps for an article focused on criticism, but not here.

• 'William T. Jarvis, Ph.D. stated: "Chiropractic is a controversial health-care system that has been legalized throughout the United States and in several other countries. In the United States in 1984, roughly 10.7 million people made 163 million office visits to 30,000 chiropractors. More than three fourths of the states require insurance companies to include chiropractic services in health and accident policies. The federal government pays for limited chiropractic services under Medicare, Medicaid, and its vocational rehabilitation program, and the Internal Revenue Service allows a medical deduction for chiropractic services. Chiropractors cite such facts as evidence of "recognition." However, these are merely business statistics and legal arrangements that have nothing to do with chiropractic's scientific validity."'

• Likewise. Jarvis is not a good source and is not worth emphasizing. This is a long quote from an old (1990) source and there's no reason that it should be in this article.

Eubulides (talk) 08:47, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Again as an unbiased editor I won't push for any action but I will say this. Chiropractic controversy and criticism is a fork of this article. I was under the impression that it was a legitimate fork but after seen your essay now I am in doubt. Nevertheless Chiropractic controversy and criticism is either a content fork, a point of view (POV) fork as per WP:POVFORK or a legitimate fork badly implemented as per WP:SUMMARY. The actions that Wikipedia policy suggest for these cases are 1. if content fork the merge with main article and delete. 2. if point of view (POV) fork merge any NPOV part with main article and delete. 3. if legitimate fork then a sub-section as per WP:SUMMARY in the main article and leave the articles linked but separate. Now it is up to willing editors to find consensus as to how to proceed from here. PS I will copy this into the Chiropractic controversy and criticism Talk Page.--LexCorp (talk) 12:15, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Eubulides. I consider Chiropractic controversy and criticism to be a POV fork, and the way to fix that is to delete the other article, not to add an unbalanced section to this one. In a mature article, varying opinions about subtopics are discussed where those subtopics arise in the article, not relegated to a "controversy" or "criticism" section. LexCorp, when writing section headings please avoid non-NPOV wording such as "legitimate". ☺Coppertwig (talk) 14:21, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I disagree, but only on a few points. The Singh case, although recent, seems unique, even in the history of British libel cases. It should be incorporated in the main Chiropractic article. And the statement that vertebral subluxations (the basis of at least one school of chiropractic) is questioned as being totally wrong should be more prominently in the main Chiropractic article, not only in vertebral subluxation. Otherwise, although there are few incorrect statements in the forked article, it is a POV fork and should be removed. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:37, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I summarized the main points after reading the comments of other editors. QuackGuru (talk) 23:15, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

i agree with eubulides that the addition wasnt a good idea and that the criticism in this article should remain the way it is now - balanced (NPOV) and not tucked away in one section... i also agree with coppertwig that the other article is a pov-fork and that any NPOV content should be merged... or even that any important content that is not covered here and is relevant be merged here as long as it is turned into NPOV content... i am neutral on the singh case... we should probably give a worldwide view to chiropractic right (not just a USA view)? but then at the same time is the issue really relevant to chiropractic in the rest of the world?? i also agree with eubulides that we shouldnt give too much attention to critics of chiropractic... otherwise we would have to give a bunch of attention to prominent supporters of chiropractic, right? 70.71.22.45 (talk) 03:59, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

The main points I included per WP:SUMMARY can further be improved to be more concise if editors prefer. QuackGuru (talk) 04:18, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

i think you are giving too much weight to ernst by putting in the sound science bit, and it now also doesn't make sense... "Vertebral subluxation, a core concept of chiropractic, is not based on sound science. Subluxation remains unsubstantiated and largely untested, and a debate about whether to keep it in the chiropractic paradigm has been ongoing for decades." ... how can there be debate about keeping a core concept? if it is a core concept it can't be removed... do you have a link to this reference?? or maybe you can quote the sentence where the reference says it is a core concept?? i dont have a library. 70.71.22.45 (talk) 06:24, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

You can read the abstract at least. "The core concepts of chiropractic, subluxation and spinal manipulation, are not based on sound science." QuackGuru (talk) 06:30, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

70.71.22.45, what part troubles you? Are you questioning whether VS is a "core concept", or whether there has been an ongoing debate within the profession, or maybe you are questioning to what degree there has been a debate, or something about the nature of the debate? I'd like to get your understanding of this. Brangifer (talk) 16:13, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

another reference i dont have access to is the one about dd palmer being the first chiropractor to go to jail... i read the abstract and it said "first of hundreds of chiropractors who would "go to jail for chiropractic" which isnt the same thing as being the first to go to jail... maybe it was cut without context that would explain this more?? 70.71.22.45 (talk) 06:27, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

"When the iron doors of the Scott County Jail shut on D.D. Palmer in the spring of 1906 he was destined to be the first of hundreds of chiropractors who would "go to jail for chiropractic" through most of three quarters of the century." QuackGuru (talk) 06:33, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

(to 70.71.22.45) Singh is a British case, and I believe all the parties are actually British subjects, rather than being brought in British law through obscure "long arm" statutes, although I don't have a specific source to that effect. I don't know why you think it has something to do with American chiropractic. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:37, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

@quackguru... that makes him the first to go to jail for chiropractic... not the first to go to jail... the reference does not say he was the first chiropractor to ever go to jail... 70.71.22.45 (talk) 17:43, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I provided verification for the text. QuackGuru (talk) 18:55, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

ummmmmmmm... no! the quote you gave says the same thing as the abstract i read... that he was the first chiropractor to go to jail FOR CHIROPRACTIC... that is NOT the same thing as being the first chiropractor to go to jail! 70.71.22.45 (talk) 01:13, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

@arthut rubin i'm not saying that it has anything to do with american chiropractic i just dont know... i also dont know how much weight this should be given if it hasnt effected chiropractic on a worldwide scale... 70.71.22.45 (talk) 18:00, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

This is a unique case reported in numerous WP:RS. QuackGuru (talk) 18:55, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

i dont remember saying that it hasnt been mentioned in reliable sources or that it wasnt a unique case... 70.71.22.45 (talk) 01:13, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

The edit summary states no verification was provided for the fact that he was the first chiropractor to go to jail. The text said "first of hundereds" according to the source. The first of hundreds part was deleted without explanation. QuackGuru (talk) 01:51, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

the source doesnt say that he was the first of hundreds to go to jail, it says he was the first of hundred to go to jail FOR CHIROPRACTIC! 70.71.22.45 (talk) 02:01, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

"When the iron doors of the Scott County Jail shut on D.D. Palmer in the spring of 1906 he was destined to be the first of hundreds of chiropractors who would "go to jail for chiropractic" through most of three quarters of the century."

The edit summary alleged no verification was provided for the fact that he was the first chiropractor to go to jail. The first of hundreds part was deleted without explanation. QuackGuru (talk) 02:07, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Eubulides very detailed analysis of the different points, and I agree with Coppertwig's assessment. --stmrlbs|talk 23:32, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I am very much in agreement with the analysis and assessment too. It would seem that this also means that much of the content in the forked article (Chiropractic controversy and criticism) is unsuitable for Wikipedia due to NPOV and RS issues. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ ^ssnɔsıp 00:46, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure about unsuitability other, of course, than WP:MEDRS for efficacy. Would Popular perceptions of chiropractic or somesuch solve the POV issues and overlap with History of chiropractic? - 2/0 (cont.) 03:09, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Seems kind of vague. How are we to gather what is a "popular" perception and what is not? -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ ^ssnɔsıp 06:56, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Any interaction not covered by safety and efficacy that reflects on the profession as a whole? Reception of chiropractic both makes the profession sound more monolithic than I think it is and sounds like a wedding covered by Vanity Fair. Extent of third party coverage and hospital access, surveys of how utilizers and the public at large view chiropractic, reactions of various associations to criticism might be a decently non-nebulous basis for an article. We might also pull out the licensing and regulation material, as it in some ways relates more closely to third party coverage than to education, but that might be too much topic creep. Misleading advertising could go under Safety or Scope. The vaccination and fluoridation material is covered here, and the AMA and the Palmer material are covered at History. - 2/0 (cont.) 15:14, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Whiplash review

A recent edit added this text:

"A 2009 review study concluded that there was no evidence that chiropractic helped whiplash injuries and noted that 2 cohort studies with 2486 and 1963 patients respectively suggested that chiropractic might delay recovery."

The info about the 2 cohort studies is not really part of the systematic review, but is an aside, and probably is not worth mentioning here. The text didn't mention that the review was only of controlled clinical trials of chiropractic SM (not of all evidence about all of chiropractic). Also, the edit was added at the end of a paragraph that listed reviews in reverse time order; it should be put near the start of the paragraph, for consistency. I made a change to attempt to fix the problems noted here. Eubulides (talk) 08:08, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Singh paragraph

A recent edit inserted this paragraph:

"Conflicts between the profession and individual critics have occurred. On 19 April 2008, Simon Singh wrote an article in the The Guardian which resulted in him being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association. Singh wrote in The Guardian criticising the claims made by chiropractors about the efficacy of spinal manipulation in treating childhood ailments, among other things. He suggested there was "not a jot" of evidence to support such interventions for these ailments, and argued that the British Chiropractic Association "happily promotes bogus treatments".[21] The suit is ongoing, with Singh stating that he will "contest the action vigorously... There is an important issue of freedom of speech at stake.""

This text has serious WP:WEIGHT and WP:RECENTISM issues; it is way too much detail for Chiropractic about one incident. There have been thousands of prosecutions over chiropractic, many more serious than this one (resulting in significant jail time), and most of this has been chiropractors being the jailed rather than the prosecutors. Furthermore, there is WP:OR here. The topic sentence "Conflicts between the profession and individual critics have occurred." is clearly original research, as it is not supported by any of the sources. To attempt to address this problem, I replaced the paragraph with the brief summary "In 2008 and 2009, chiropractors used libel lawsuits and threats of lawsuits against their critics. Eubulides (talk) 08:08, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Not based on sound science

A recent edit made this change:

"Vertebral subluxation, a core concept of chiropractic, is not based on sound science. The concept of Subluxation remains unsubstantiated and largely untested ..."

The resulting text is duplicative (between "not based on sound science" and "unsubstantiated and largely untested"). The more-critical phrase "not based on sound science", although supported by a reliable source, is not balanced by the valid argument from defenders of chiropractic that large chunks of medicine are not based on sound science. For example, a large fraction of autistic children in the U.S. are currently being prescribed antidepressants and stimulants, despite the fact that there is almost no reliable research about the effectiveness or safety of these treatments for the symptoms of autism. One way to fix this problem is to balance the "not based on sound science" phrase with an argument from the other side, but a simpler fix is to remove the duplicative phrase, which I've done. Eubulides (talk) 08:08, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Jailed chiropractors

A recent edit inserted this text:

"In 1906, D.D. Palmer was the first chiropractor who went to jail for practicing medicine without a license. In the 1920s hundreds of unlicensed chiropractors chose jail rather than fines.[22] 450 chiropractors were jailed in a single year at the peak of the controversy."

This text has some POV problems: it mentions a controversy but describes only one side of it (the medical side). Better would be to mention not just the practicing-without-a-license side, but also the chiropractic-is-not-medicine side.

Furthemore, this addition is somewhat redundant with the existing text, which in a different paragraph already says "Prosecutions and incarcerations of chiropractors for practicing medicine without a license grew common". The two parts of the text should be merged and duplication removed. I made an edit to try to do that. Eubulides (talk) 08:08, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Inappropriate "See also"

The misguided effort that added to Urinary incontinence a wildly inappropriate "See also" to National Public Toilet Map, also added to Chiropractic a "See also" to National Association for Chiropractic Medicine. I suppose rescuing orphans is a good thing, sometimes, but often articles are orphan for a good reason, and both of these cases are examples. I reverted the addition. Eubulides (talk) 02:03, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Your comment is quite telling and reveals your ignorance of the subject, but I'm not going to restart an old debate. You have engineered that this type of information about the history of chiropractic is kept out of the article, so of course this is an obscure subject, kept so by yourself to the glee of straight chiropractors. Your hold on this article is too strong, and yet you're also a good editor in other ways, so it's just not worth trying to change things, since the effort would be wasted time. Brangifer (talk) 05:30, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

With their phones disconnected for at least a year and their website down for who-knows-how-long, I am not convinced that NACM exists anymore. BullRangifer, please take your personal attacks elsewhere. If you have a greivance with a particular editor, please take it to that editors talk page but please remember to stay civil. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ ^ssnɔsıp 07:48, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Sourcing, grammar, and blurb

A recent series of edits had some good changes, but some problems too:

• "a notion that brings ridicule from many in mainstream science and medicine" The cited source, Keating et al. 2005 (PMID 16092955), says "brings ridicule from the scientific and health care communities". There is no "many in" qualifier in the source, and we should not be inserting our own opinion here.
• "that many medical doctors claim are not based on solid science". The cited source, Ernst 2008 (PMID 18280103), says "The concepts of chiropractic are not based on solid science and its therapeutic value has not been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt." There is no "many medical doctors claim" in the cited source, and we should not be inserting our own opinion here.
• In a couple of places the word after a semicolon was capitalized. Proper English punctuation is to capitalize only the start of a sentence.
• "Holism assumes that health is affected by everything in people's complex an individual's inner and outer environments". Nothing in the cited source, Freeman 2005 (PMID 15720949), talks about "inner and outer" environments.
• "traditional the chiropractic lexicon" Surely a typo.
• "Adjustive instrument" was removed from the list of techniques received by more than 20% of patients. I went back and checked the source, and found three problems. First, adjustive instrument made the cut. Second, the cut was listed here as 20%, but was evidently smaller since many less-popular techniques were listed. I changed the cut to "10%" and added "cranial", which also made that cut.
• "Sacro-Occipital Technique (SOT) (which models the spine as a torsion bar and particularly stresses the importance of the foundation of the spinal column)" This overemphasizes SOT and sounds like a blurb. There's no need for the acronym (it's never used later), the double parenthesization is weird, and the blurb is unencyclopedic.

I made a few edits to try to fix the above problems. Eubulides (talk) 16:45, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Christ, Muhammad and Martin Luther

A recent series of edits by an IP address made the following change to the start of the lead:

"Chiropractic is a discredited health care discipline and profession that emphasizes diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, especially the spine, under the hypothesis that these disorders affect general health via the nervous system.. it was invented by a magnet therapist, convicted of practising medicine without a licence, who suddenly decided in 1895 that 95% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae, and compared himself to Christ, Muhammad and Martin Luther.

and inserted the following at the start of Effectiveness:

'On 8 June the McTimoney Chiropractic Association sent a confidential email to its members, which has been obtained and is available in full on Quackometer. “If you have a website,” this email begins, “take it down NOW … REMOVE all the blue MCA patient information leaflets, or any patient information leaflets of your own that state you treat whiplash, colic or other childhood problems in your clinic … IF YOU DO NOT FOLLOW THIS ADVICE, YOU MAY BE AT RISK FROM PROSECUTION. Finally, we strongly suggest you do NOT discuss this with others” – and on this they were clear – “especially patients.” they have no valid peer reviewed scientific evidence to support claims of benefits, and they have warned their members that making any claims of supposed benefits could leave them open to prosecution for false advertising. '

These changes obviously introduce a strong point-of-view into the article, one sharply critical of chiropractic, which does not deserve that much space in the lead. The paragraph about McTimoney has a large WP:WEIGHT problem and does not belong in Effectiveness. Because of these problems I reverted the change. Please discuss this further, as needed, here. Eubulides (talk) 16:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Recent POV edits

A recent series of edits made several changes that caused the text to depart from what the sources say:

• "Traditionally, chiropractic assumes assumed that a vertebral subluxation or spinal joint dysfunction interferes with the body's function and its innate intelligence, a notion that brings ridicule from mainstream science and medicine." The cited sources use the present tense, not the past tense.
• "Chiropractic has had a strong political base and sustained popular demand for services" The cited source doesn't say "popular" or anything like it; it says just "demand".
• "A 2008 commentary proposed that the chiropractic profession actively regulate itself to combat abuse, fraud, and quackery, which are more prevalent in chiropractic than in other health care professions, violating the social contract between patients and physicians so it may more fully integrate the chiropractic profession into mainstream." The deleted material was well-sourced and is much more relevant to the section, which is about unsubstantiated claims and unnecessary treatments.
• "Some contend that chiropractors, especially in America, have a reputation for unnecessarily treating patients. In many circumstances the focus seems to be put on economics instead of health care." The cited source doesn't say that "some contend that". Inserting these weasel words here attempts to undermine the opinion of what a reliable source says, contrary to WP:NPOV. If this point is controversial, let's see reliable sources to that effect and reword the artical accordingly, instead of inserting weasel words to indicate our disapproval.
• "Some believe that chiropractors' attempts to establish a positive reputation for their public health role are also compromised by their reputation for recommending repetitive life-long chiropractic treatment." Same problem as previous bullet.
• "Absolute contraindications to spinal manipulative therapy are conditions that should not be manipulated; these contraindications may include advanced rheumatoid arthritis" The cited source doesn't say "may" or "advanced".
• "Some chiropractors, along with other health care professionals oppose vaccination and water fluoridation," The cited sources don't discuss the inserted phrase.

I made this edit to try to fix the problems introduced as discussed above; this is mostly just a revert. Further discussion here is welcome. Eubulides (talk) 14:56, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

No wheel warring here

This recent edit, soon reverted, had an edit summary "reputation with who?? Still WP:WW". I don't understand the reference to WP:WW, i.e., wheel warring. I don't see any wheel warring here. I do, however, see a repeated attempt to insert a maintenance tag that is not called for. The cited source says "For example, chiropractors, particularly in America, have earned a reputation for zealously recruiting and unnecessarily treating patients.", and this is closely reflected in the article's text "Chiropractors, especially in America, have a reputation for unnecessarily treating patients". Eubulides (talk) 05:05, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I meant Weasel Words, apologies for the link to WP:WW, I meant WP:AWW. The sentences I take issue with are:

Chiropractors, especially in America, have a reputation for unnecessarily treating patients; in many circumstances the focus seems to be put on economics instead of health care.

My problems with the sentence:

1. It should appear in the "Utilization, satisfaction rates, and third party coverage" section rather than the "Education, licensing, and regulation" section, if at all
2. The same point is already made in that section anyway, with better refs than Singh's pop science book.
3. The sentence is weaselly. Reputation among who? The allegation of mercenary motives is pure WP:WEASEL, too ("seems to be")

In other words, ??? "Chiropractors, especially in America, have a reputation for unnecessarily treating patients" means the same thing as "Chiropractors, especially American chiropractors, are generally considered to treat patients unnecessarily", which is a clear WP:AWW vio.

--Surturz (talk) 03:51, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Attribute the opinion. Tim Vickers (talk) 04:55, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

• The last paragraph in Education, licensing, and regulation and the second paragraph of Utilization, satisfaction rates, and third party coverage arguably belong together rather than in those two separate sections. Also, I think it'd make sense to attribute the opinion. Anybody have a concrete wording suggestion?
• I don't see the need for quantifying the reputation "among who", any more than the statement that "Seattle has a reputation for heavy coffee consumption" needs a similar qualifier in the Seattle article. In both cases a reliable source is cited and we don't know of any dispute among reliable sources.

Eubulides (talk) 05:31, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Attributing the opinion is a good alternative, if you can establish on this talk page why their opinion is relevant to this article. --Surturz (talk) 07:08, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

• I have moved and attributed the sentence as agreed. Now, why is Simon Singh's opinion of chiropractors at all relevant to this article? --Surturz (talk) 06:55, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• The book is by Simon Singh and by Edzard Ernst, not just by Singh. Both authors are certainly quite prominent; they are more prominent than the other living authors currently cited in Chiropractic, for example. Also, both authors have published books and other writings on chiropractic. Clearly their opinions about chiropractic are relevant to Chiropractic. But I disagree that Singh should be mentioned by name in the main article text. In all other cases in this article, opinion is attributed in article text with phrases like "A 2008 review" and "A 2007 systematic review". I don't see why an exception should be made for Trick or Treatment, so I changed "Popular science author Simon Singh has written that" to "According to a 2008 book on alternative medicine,"; that's plenty. Also, as suggested above, that edit moved the closely-related material about unsubstantiated claims so that it remains next to the one-sentence summary of the Singh and Ernst book. Eubulides (talk) 07:27, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• No, we must mention Ernst and Singh in this case because the reference is not a peer-reviewed scientific publication; it is a pop science book. There is a big difference between scientific literature reviews and the reference being used here. Again I ask; why is Simon Singh's opinion at all relevant here? Ernst has quite enough references in this article already and doesn't warrant another. WP:AWW says that attributing an opinion consists of naming a source for the opinion. Saying it was written in a book is not enough. --Surturz (talk) 05:06, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

• There is no need for such a long phrase in the article text: that unduly exaggerates the importance of the source. We can simply say "Trick or Treatment" instead of "book on alternative medicine by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst", and I've done that. The topic of unnecessary treatment and patient recruitment is certainly relevant, and this book seems reasonably reliable enough on that point (the opinion is certainly notable, as the existence of a wikilink to Trick or Treatment suggests). Is there really any dispute among reliable sources on this point? If so, can you please show reliable sources disagreeing? And if not, let's give it a rest. Eubulides (talk) 05:17, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

• After I made the previous comment, User:Surturz quickly made, without further discussion, another edit inserting potentially controversial text into Chiropractic #Evidence basis saying "According to the 2008 book Trick or Treatment, chiropractic has some evidence of limited efficacy for certain ailments." I'm not sure what the point of this edit was; that section sites similar claims made by higher-quality sources for that particular topic, and there's no need at all to add a Simon-says quote here from a lower-quality source. Since we seem to have difficulty coming up with a solution to this problem in the article, I suggest we revert to the longstanding stable wording and then work out a solution on the talk page rather than continue to edit at cross purposes in article space. Certainly the article is weaker now than it was before all this started. Eubulides (talk) 05:34, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be a double standard here. Eubulides is quite happy to include the pop science book Trick or treatment in the 'Utilization, satisfaction rates, and third party coverage' section among the higher quality references indicating the reputation of chiropractic, yet the same reference is apparently low quality when used in the 'Evidence Basis' section. Either it should be used in both sections, or not at all. I see no need to revert, we have only added content so far. --Surturz (talk) 06:32, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

This article should use the best sources available on every particular topic. For unnecessary treatment and patient recruiting the best source we have is Trick or Treatment, so we should use that; for effectiveness and safety we have better sources than Trick or Treatment, so we should use them. A source is not necessarily the best in all categories. The fact that journal reviews are more reliable than Trick or Treatment for effectiveness does not at all mean that Trick or Treatment is unreliable on the subject of unnecessary treatment and patient recruiting. No reason has been given for injecting Trick or Treatment into the Evidence basis section, and that controversial edit was inserted unilaterally without discussion, contrary to common practice in this article. It should be reverted. Eubulides (talk) 06:47, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent)Simon Singh is a popular science writer, his particular expertise is science. I have never heard any claim that he is an expert on market research, professional ethics or popular opinion. If we do not think his opinion on the science of chiropractic is worth including, why on earth are we including his opinion on chiropractic's reputation? I think it is undue weight to include his opinion on something that is not in his area of expertise. Only his opinion of the science would be (possibly) worthy of inclusion. I don't think we can rely on him to tell us what the bulk of Americans believe about chiropractic. --Surturz (talk) 08:01, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

That section of the book is well sourced and I see no reason to dispute what it says in this area. It cites Joseph C. Keating's comments that chiropractic "has never truly renounced the marketing and advertising excesses modelled by B. J.". It cites Peter Fernandez's five volume series Secrets of a Practice-Building Consultant, with its lead volume 1,001 Ways to Attract Patients and its final volume How to Become a Million Dollar a Year Practitioner. It cites chiropractor G. Douglas Anderson's 1999 piece in Dynamic Chiropractic which says "an excellent argument can be made that the variety of tricks, techniques and claims still used by a large percentage of our profession to keep fully functional, asymptomatic people returning for care is fraudulent". And these are just the citations on the page containing the quote "For example, chiropractors, particularly in America, have earned a reputation for zealously recruiting and unnecessarily treating patients." (page 170); I'm sure there are similar sources in other pages of that book. In contrast, despite repeated requests, you have provided no reliable sources that dispute the claim (currently in Chiropractic) that is supported by this source. In short, there is no dispute among reliable sources on this point, and there is no basis even for requring in-text attribution of it, much less removing it. Eubulides (talk) 08:36, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

North American College of Manipulative Medicine

A recent edit added the following material to Chiropractic #History:

(During the final trial, before Hon. Susan Getzendanner, in Fed. Dist Ct. in Il., it was proven that the AMA entered into a years long conspiracy to first, destroy the profession of Chiropractic, and then re-invent it for themselves, as the North American College of Manipulative Medicine.)

This material is unsourced, and so I moved it here for further discussion. Please see Wikipedia:Reliable sources (medicine-related articles) for the sort of sources that are needed for material added to this article. Also, this sentence appears to focus on a relatively minor detail of one case. If it's suitable at all for Wikipedia, surely it belongs in the history subarticle, not here. Eubulides (talk) 22:24, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Sports chiropractic category

A recent edit put Chiropractic into Category:Sports chiropractic. This appears to be an elementary categorization error. Chiropractic is not a special case of sports chiropractic: it is the other way around. Eubulides (talk) 03:09, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

History and osteopathy

A recent edit made this change to Chiropractic #History:

"Chiropractic competed with its predecessor osteopathy, another a medical system based on magnetic healing anatomy and physiology and founded by a charismatic midwesterner in opposition to the conventional allopathic medicine of the day; however, where osteopathy postulated improved blood flow via manipulation, chiropractic postulated improved neural transmissions.[Baer 1987, doi:10.1525/maq.1987.1.2.02a00030]"

with the edit summary 'removed false references to osteopathy- it is not a system of "magnetic therapy", it is and was a medical system (which is unlike chiropractic which was practiced by non-physiicans)'.

There are several problems with this edit:

• It removes a reliable source (Baer 1987) that is needed to support this sentence.
• It removes the point that osteopathy and chiropractic were both originally based on magnetic healing (even if they are not based on magnetic healing now). This point is directly supported by Baer, who writes (p. 178):

'As Gevitz observes, Still developed osteopathy by synthesizing "some of the major components of magnetic healing and bonesetting into one unified doctrine". Similarly, Palmer's predilection for eclecticism allowed him to merge his earlier interest in magnetic healing with both the art of bonesetting and some approaches that he may have picked up from osteopaths. In reality, both osteopaths and chiropractors engaged in a greater cross-fertilization of ideas and techniques than most of them have cared to admit.'

(Hmm, this sentence emphasizes bonesetting as being common to both founders, and that should be mentioned in Chiropractic too.)

• The word "allopathic" should be omitted from the phrase "the conventional medicine of the day"; it's redundant and most readers won't know what it means.
• It removed the phrase "where osteopathy postulated improved blood flow via manipulation, chiropractic postulated improved neural transmissions". This phrase indeed has problems, as its summary of the following material is pretty cryptic (Baer, p. 177):

'After regular medicine failed to prevent the death of three of A. T. Still's children from meningitis, he concluded that many, if not all, diseases are due to faulty articulations or "lesions" in various parts of the musculoskeletal system, particularly in the spinal vertebrae and their associated musculature. Such dislocations produce disordered nerve connections, which in turn impair the proper circulation of the blood and other body fluids. In his private practice, Still began to rely more and more upon manipulation as a form of therapy ... Palmer argued that disease emanates from "subluxations" or spinal displacements. These subluxations result in interference with neural transmission, which in turn triggers dysfunctions in various bodily organs. Spinal adjustment restorest the normal "nerve force," and health ensues.'

To try to address the above issues, I restored the citation, and reworded the sentence in question to be:

'Chiropractic competed with its predecessor osteopathy, another medical system based on magnetic healing and bonesetting; both systems were founded by charismatic midwesterners in opposition to the conventional medicine of the day, and both postulated that manipulation improved neural transmissions and thereby health.'

Further comments are welcome. Eubulides (talk) 06:38, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Osteopathy explained the use of manipulation to affect blood supply (not just spinal, btw). Andrew Still manipulated all body parts in an effort to increase what he thought was the effects of proper flow of the bodies vital fluids to affect health (he writes it in his own autobiography which is sourced elsewhere). Palmer postulated that spinal manipulation improved health by affecting nerve supply and restoring balance to the "inborn intelligence" system - initially describing it as affecting "heat" or "fever" in the nerves. This is how they were eventually legally separated as well. Also, chiropractic's initial graduating classes were mostly MDs. Both competed with allopaths (which technically no longer exist as scientific medicine prevailed). I would remove the "neural transmissions and thereby" from the above and it would be unarguably correct, though perhaps not thoroughly correct. -- Dēmatt (chat) 15:55, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Done, and thanks for the comment and analysis. Eubulides (talk) 18:17, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Numerous National Olympic Committees

A recent edit (by the same editor as the previous thread) added the following material to Chiropractic #History:

Chiropractic Physicians have been included in the sports medical teams of numerous National Olympic Committees, inlcuding notably the US and USSR, since 1976.

Again, this material is unsourced and so I moved it here for further discussion. This material seems to be promotional and thus contrary to the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view policy. Eubulides (talk) 22:24, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this information would need a source for it to be included, but disagree that is seems promotional and contrary to NPOV. DigitalC (talk) 21:44, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I found a reference for chiropractors providing care to the US team since 1980. I also think it's perfectly apprporiate. There is no promotional benefit to any particular clinic, branch of chiropractic, etc. http://www.mnchiro.com/News/tabid/573/ctl/ArticleView/mid/1316/articleId/143/Default.aspx Truthshare (talk) 14:37, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

This article references Canada, and smaller countries such as the Bahamas and the Philippines also using chiropractors in the 2008 Olympics. This shows the advance in the profesion quite well "most impressive was that the United States had, for the first time, a chiropractor as its Medical Director for Sports Performance." http://www.canadianchiropractor.ca/content/view/1380/67/ Truthshare (talk) 14:43, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

It's not a question of promoting one branch of chiropractic over another. It's a question of promoting chiropractic in general. Both of the cited sources are clearly promotional and are of low quality. Adding this material to Chiropractic would decrease the article's credibility, making it appear to be partly an advertisement. Please find a high-quality source, a source that is not promotional, preferably one in the peer-reviewed literature (such as most of the sources currently in the article). Eubulides (talk) 16:40, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

One is a porfessional chriopractic organization and the other is a well known published chirorpactic magazine. There is nothing wrong with using either in this context. We are not talking about research in terms of experimentation. These articles work fine for this context. 64.229.78.25 (talk) 17:24, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I reviewed the references and there are several references that are web-based, including associations, a school, etc. In this context, I think using another association is perfectly apporiapriate. The magazine is for professional use only. It is not sold at your local grocery store is is not about promoting chiropractic. It's a professionally published magazine for chiropractors. These are both valid sources and I can not see any other reason for them not to be used. 64.229.78.25 (talk) 17:38, 5 October 2009 (UTC) 64.229.78.25 (talk) 17:38, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

One is a press release and the other is a fairly thinly disguised press release. Self-published sources, such as press releases, are not considered to be that reliable by Wikipedia standards, for anything other than the opinions of those making the statements; please see WP:SELFPUB. I looked for a better source, and didn't find anything particularly good, but I did find something much better than the ones mentioned above, which at least has the benefit of having one reviewer and an attempt at a global perspective:

• Labuschagne K (2009). "Knowledge, perception and utilisation of chiropractic by National Olympic Committees" (PDF). Retrieved 2009-10-05.

If we can't find any better sources, I suggest we draft something with this as a source. Eubulides (talk) 19:33, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

"ridicule from mainstream science and medicine"

Hi everyone, I'm new to Wikipedia so please forgive any newbie errors.

I have an issue with 'a notion that brings ridicule from mainstream science and medicine.' This is not a neutral statement nor is it something that is researched. It's simply an inference being made by an author of ana article.

We are also discussing chiropractic on this page, not medicine, or medicine's views about chiropractic or the views of dentisty, oir podiatry for that matter. The two are distinct and separate professions.

A good comparisson is the developement of the triathalon. Athletes would argue about who was in better health; swimmers, bikers or runners. So if we are discussing swimming, do we really need to have the beliefs of bikers or runners in the article, 'ridiculing' the overall health of swimmers?

When I read wikipedia's medicine article, is sounds quite neutral at the beginning. Chiropractic's has some significant flaws in comparison.

Truthshare (talk) 13:00, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

The reference is good, the author is a notable Chiropractic researcher/historian. While the statement itself is not positive, to have a NPOV article, not everything is going to be positive. You state that it is not something that is researched, and I disagree. There might not be surveys or clinical trials to back up this statement, but there doesn't have to be. DigitalC (talk) 15:15, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

So I need you to clarify for me please. "You state that it is not something that is researched, and I disagree. There might not be surveys or clinical trials to back up this statement, but there doesn't have to be." So are you disagreeing that it is not researched, or just that it does not have to be researched and is still appropriate.

The reference still has no place in this article because it does not add any value, and physicians are not qualified to make any inferences about chiropractic. We could also list other professions (if we could find a source) to give their opinions on chiropractic if is was appropriate.

I'll ask the question, what value does this statement add to wikipedia users?

64.229.78.25 (talk) 16:43, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

It adds value in that it conveys to the uninitiated reader (who may know little about chiropractic) the depth of the opposition to key components of chiropractic philosophy, by the broader scientific and medical community. This reaction is well-sourced and is notable. The source is well-qualified on this topic. Eubulides (talk) 16:55, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. I haven't seen a source yet that suggests it's well sourced or that the individual is well qualified to make this suggestion. The article does not really discuss how they came to this conclusion. It could simply be speculation. Please provide me with more information or a reference to this point. I'll make this point again, the medical community (physician) is no more qwualified to make specifc inferences about chiropractic than a dentist or podiatrist, so we should not suggest they are qualified by placing this in the article. 64.229.78.25 (talk) 17:21, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

It certainly is well sourced. The source, Keating et al. 2005 (PMID 16092955) was published in the peer-reviewed journal Chiropractic & Osteopathy, and has been cited by several other scholarly publications since then, for example, by George et al. 2006 (PMID 16911795). The lead author, Joseph C. Keating, Jr. was perhaps the leading researcher on the history and sociology of chiropractic of the last two decades. The other authors hail from institutions such as the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College that are well-respected in the chiropractic world. It is not our place as Wikipedia editors to be second-guessing reliable sources such as this one. Eubulides (talk) 19:33, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Palmer's motivation

A recent set of edits made the following change:

"D.D. and B.J. both seriously considered declaring chiropractic a religion, which as a means to be freed from the systematic attempts to stop them from practicing, only temporarily, and precisely because it might have provided legal protection under the U.S. constitution, but decided against it partly to avoid confusion with Christian Science"

First, the new text isn't needed, as the next phrase (talking about "legal protection") makes it clear that the motivation was to provide legal protection, and later text in that section talks about prosecutions etc. Second, the revised text disagrees with what the newly added source says. The newly added source (which is by D.D. Palmer, by the way, and is not by B.J. Palmer) doesn't say anything about B.J.'s opinions. Furthermore, it says "I do not propose to change chiropractic, either in its science, art or philosophy, into a religion." and this contradicts what's in the article text. Third, there is no need to be citing primary sources on this topic when we have good secondary material on it; please see WP:PSTS. For now I have reverted that change. Eubulides (talk) 23:38, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Redirect?

Why does this page not redirect to http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Scam yet?LostMK (talk) 03:38, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

While I understand the ironic humor, it's true that practice building and the accompanying unethical marketing practices aren't covered adequately, if even mentioned at all. Considering that is one of the major points of criticism, this is a lack in the current article and needs coverage. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:11, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Please see #Practice-building below. Eubulides (talk) 20:40, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Practice-building

I agree that there should be better coverage of practice-building and marketing, as this is a central aspect of any chiropractic practice. Here's one possible source for better coverage in that area; further suggestions are welcome.

• Baer HA (1996). "Practice-building seminars in chiropractic: a petit bourgeois response to biomedical domination". Med Anthropol Q. 10 (1): 29–44. PMID 8689442.

Eubulides (talk) 20:40, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

We have discussed this many times, but it hasn't been dealt with. You might recall discussions about some of these significant areas where chiropractic as a profession, or minorities in the profession, hold POV and practices that are at deviance with mainstream medicine, science, advertising laws, and good ethics:

1. Vaccination

2. Fluoridation

3. Pseudoscientific diagnostic methods: Applied kinesiology, Iridology, Activator leg length discrepancy, skin surface temperature differences, Nervoscope type devices, pendulum divining, electroacupuncture, reflexology, hair analysis, herbal crystallization analysis, computerized "nutritional deficiency" questionnaires, Meric system, cytotoxic food allergy test, Reams urine and saliva test, etc.. Needless to say, many if not most of these things are related to methods and ideas designed to convince patients that they suffer from vertebral subluxations which need to be corrected regularly for a lifetime in order to maintain health, even in the absence of any symptoms of ill health.

4. Pseudomedical therapies: magnetic therapy (placing magnets on the body), NAET, homeopathy, herbology, Insight 7000, colonics, colored-light therapy, megavitamin therapy, Spinal Analysis Machine (S.A.M.), radionics (black box devices), bilateral nasal specifics (inserting a balloon in the nose and inflating it), craniosacral manipulation, etc..

5. Sales of nutritional supplements directly to patients.

6. Misuse and overuse of x-rays

7. Questionable practice building techniques

8. Use of "scripts" to manipulate patients into becoming compliant patients and advertisers for the chiropractor:

• A Brief look at a Subluxation-Based Practice-Building Script - Stephen Barrett, M.D.
• Echiropractic Greeting and Reminder Cards: Selling "Maintenance Care" Through the Internet - Stephen Barrett, M.D.
• "Patient Education" As Taught at Palmer College of Chiropractic & NARRATIVES FOR 37 PATIENT EDUCATION VISITS by DR. JOSEPH FLESIA - Stephen Barrett, M.D.
• Chiropractic Practice-Building - Barrett
• The Selling of the Spine - Barrett
• How Chiropractic Subluxation Theory Threatens Public Health - Samuel Homola, D.C. (This article is slightly modified from its original version in the Winter 2001 issue of Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine)
• Practice-Building Advice from the American Chiropractic Association

9. "Wellness" care (treatment of asymptomatic individuals for a lifetime).

10. Anti-medical propaganda:

• How Two "Pediatric Chiropractic" Leaders Advise Chiropractors to Undermine Pediatrician Credibility - Stephen Barrett, M.D.
• Some Notes on Big Ideas Enterprises - Stephen Barrett, M.D.

11. Upfront prepayment for long series of treatments.

12. These chiropractic articles are very relevant:

• Food for Thought 2000 - G. Douglas Andersen
• Quackery in Chiropractic - Joseph Keating, Jr.

I am not suggesting that we necessarily use exactly every link of Barrett's I have listed above. While Barrett has an excellent reputation for reliability in articles of these types he has written (no one has shown him to be wrong), he usually refers to sources that we can use instead, and we can still refer to his opinion as that of a notable critic.

Here is a relevant quote of yours from a previous discussion:

• That section of the book is well sourced and I see no reason to dispute what it says in this area. It cites Joseph C. Keating's comments that chiropractic "has never truly renounced the marketing and advertising excesses modelled by B. J.". It cites Peter Fernandez's five volume series Secrets of a Practice-Building Consultant, with its lead volume 1,001 Ways to Attract Patients and its final volume How to Become a Million Dollar a Year Practitioner. It cites chiropractor G. Douglas Anderson's 1999 piece in Dynamic Chiropractic which says "an excellent argument can be made that the variety of tricks, techniques and claims still used by a large percentage of our profession to keep fully functional, asymptomatic people returning for care is fraudulent". And these are just the citations on the page containing the quote "For example, chiropractors, particularly in America, have earned a reputation for zealously recruiting and unnecessarily treating patients." (page 170); I'm sure there are similar sources in other pages of that book. In contrast, despite repeated requests, you have provided no reliable sources that dispute the claim (currently in Chiropractic) that is supported by this source. In short, there is no dispute among reliable sources on this point, and there is no basis even for requring in-text attribution of it, much less removing it. Eubulides (talk) 08:36, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

If we decide to do this, I suggest you propose some wording to start with, since I get too caught up in it and irritate people. ;-) -- Brangifer (talk) 04:18, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I see no reason to cite any of Stephen Barrett's rambling blog rants in this article. I certainly don't recognize him as a reliable source, nor an expert. I welcome the section, as well as the use of academic sources. Lets try to maintain the high standard of inclusion that we have used in the past, as well as maintain a NPOV. DigitalC (talk) 16:14, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

If this subject dealt with the nitty gritty aspects of scientific evidence, then MEDRS would apply, but it has pretty much zero application to the subject of this thread. This is a political, legal, and ethical subject, and our normal V & RS rules apply. All such sources that discuss the matter can be used, whether they be studies and opinions published in peer-reviewed sources, or opinions and news articles published in other V & RS, especially by notable individuals, which obviously includes Stephen Barrett, Joseph C. Keating, Jr., Simon Singh, Edzard Ernst, Phil Plait, G. Douglas Andersen, Dynamic Chiropractic, Sense About Science, Michael Baum, David Colquhoun and any other commentators and sources within or outside of the profession. Lots of them are listed here: Alternative medicine critics. Since it involves criticism of the profession, I can understand your gut level opposition to the subject, but as a Wikipedian you shouldn't oppose the use of the sources that express such concerns. Doing so would leave the subject uncovered, and it's been left uncovered for far too long. Deletism and whitewashing have no place here.

You mention WP:NPOV. Have you read it recently? The section that explains why and how we use biased sources here in an NPOV manner should be read again and again and understood well. Without the common use of such sources, NPOV would be unnecessary and meaningless. It is a policy that is needed precisely because we are obligated to use biased sources all the time. Neutral sources are often meaningless and rarely offer interesting content. Sure, we use them for the boring facts, but not for the interesting details of reality. We don't build articles with only the content that says little more than "duh". We are obligated to document the real world, controversies and all. Hiding or ignoring them won't do. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:06, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I didn't mention MEDRS. WP:RS still applies, and I don't think that Stephen Barret's blog is a reliable source. If you read my comment above you will note that I don't have a gut level opposition to the subject - I welcome its discussion. I oppose the use of low quality sources that will lower the quality of the article. Your implications that I am attempting to whitewash the article are frankly uncivil. DigitalC (talk) 16:24, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

You mentioned high quality sources, and we have been using high quality sources vetted through our understanding of MEDRS when we have been dealing with the scientific aspects of chiropractic. That is fine and good. That's why I mentioned MEDRS. OTOH, when dealing with non-scientific matters, we use other high quality sources. Those can be critical sources, and we would naturally choose the best examples of notable criticism, and would consider them to be high quality if the statements are well-documented, are widely recommended and quoted in other RS, and/or have successfully resisted counter-criticisms from those who have been the targets of the original criticism. When those who have been criticized for doing unscientific things or illegal things have been unable to rebut, they have resorted to ad hom attacks and deletism, and that just shows that QW and Barrett have once again been proven to be RS.

Quackwatch is hardly a blog, but a highly regarded, recommended and respected source of information that follows the mainstream POV and is backed up other mainstream sources. Only those it criticizes disagree on that matter, and it has successfully resisted attempts to prove it wrong, except for very minor details. It happens to be the largest database of skeptical information regarding alternative medicine and health fraud on the internet. Its thousands of pages function as a repository for many documents, entire books, scientific studies, government reports, historical documents and legal cases, many of which are not available elsewhere. It is operated through the collaborative and voluntary efforts of hundreds of professionals who contribute and help vet information and articles.

You're not a newbie here, and you know, just from reading the Quackwatch article, that your "blog" comment just doesn't cut it and is beneath your dignity if you wish to retain any credibility here. It's a cheap shot. That QW is controversial is another matter, and that obviously can never change. That's just the nature of things. The RS status of QW and Barrett have been the subject of much discussion and several ArbCom proceedings and it has been determined that they have their role as RS in certain situations on a case by case basis, just like all other sources we use. No source is considered a blanket "RS" in all situations. Common sense must prevail. Seeking to keep the most notable critical RS from being used just doesn't make any sense as a Wikipedian. We should seek to use the most notable RS on all sides of a debate. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:25, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I disagree fully. We shouldn't care now notable a source is. We should care about the quality of the source, and use the best sources available. I looked through the first few links you added from Chirobase (which as far as I can tell is separate from Quackwatch, and does seem to be equivalent to a blog), and they seemed old, outdated, and frankly, not very useful in that it didn't contain much relevant content. I don't see that calling a blog-like website a blog to be cheap-shot, or "beneath [my dignity]". DigitalC (talk) 05:34, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

You are welcome to disagree, and I can respect that. Note my statement beginning with these words: "I am not suggesting that we necessarily use exactly every link of Barrett's I have listed above....." Articles do vary in quality, with some being notable opinion pieces, and others being full reports with many good sources we could use. BTW, Chirobase is the largest (huge!) skeptical chiropractic database on the internet, and much of what I wrote about QW applies to it. It depends heavily on chiropractic sources, research, authors, and government reports and alerts. Not all the articles would be appropriate as sources here, but many would, and if not they often use sources that we can use.

You keep using the word "blog", and I'm beginning to wonder if you've ever seen a blog, or understand how a blog works? There is no resemblance in either sense. The only (superficial) resemblance is the appearance of the front page, with the index page actually functioning as an index (!) of the major articles. That's not often the case with websites, and most blogs don't even list most of the articles on their index page. They list a few of the latest posts, with the rest in archives. And of course blogs have a "comments" section. Chirobase doesn't have that since it's a regular (non-blog format) website. Other than the superficial appearance, it doesn't function like a blog at all. The simple outline/list format happens to be ultra effective, very user friendly, and downloads very fast (Alexa: "Very Fast (0.481 Seconds), 93% of sites are slower."). It focuses on information. BTW (again), in some cases blogs are allowed as RS here. Anyway, when all that is said and done, the format really isn't the determining factor when determining whether a website is a V & RS. It is the content. (1) Is it true and accurate? (2) Is it supported by the mainstream? (3) Is it criticized by the fringe? All three count for evidence of reliability. The reliability would also be judged by the article source itself. For example, if it were a government report that was hosted at Chirobase, it would have the same RS status as a government report. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:57, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Religious platform in vertebral subluxation section

A recent pair of edits made this change to Vertebral subluxation:

"He first qualified this by noting that knowledge of innate intelligence was not essential to the competent practice of chiropractic, but later, providing a religious platform for legal purposes, stated that chiropractors have a "moral and religious duty" to remove subluxations so that Innate Intelligence may do its job."

There are a couple of problems with this change: the "first" and "later" imply that the two clauses oppose each other and that the latter superseded the former. But there is no incompatibility between the two opinions. Second, the "providing a religious platform for legal purposes" is not supported by the cited source. The cited source talks about the "moral and religious duty" in Table 3, but the "religious platform" part is in the summary on page 1 which says only "Eventually, his religious platform was offered to provide legal protection to chiropractors under the religious exemption clauses in many medical practice acts." This page-1 statement does not make it clear that B.J. himself offered the religious platform, only that the platform was offered (which could have been done by someone else).

Anyway, given that the topic of religious protection is covered (with a much better source) in the History section, I don't see why it also needs to be covered here. I suggest that we revert the change. Eubulides (talk) 03:30, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I assume you mean DD Palmer. Here's the other Keating source D.D. Palmer's Religion of Chiropractic - Letter from D.D. Palmer to P.W. Johnson, D.C., May 4, 1911

I'm okay if you want to revert back to the way it was before inserting the "moral and religious duty", otherwise the two go together: Religion and legal. Both sources say it. We would be remiss to mention one without the other, but I agree that we already have a section that handles the issue. -- Dēmatt (chat) 17:52, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Recent change

I reverted a recent change to the article by a new editor. The change introduced information about a new study, but the study does not appear to be peer-reviewed, and it is a primary source. I believe it is best to stick to high quality secondary sources (eg: review articles) in this article. DigitalC (talk) 20:23, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Looks right to me - there is enough research in this area that we can stick entirely to the systematic reviews &c. For the sake of transparency, BRD refers to the BOLD, revert, discuss model of editing, and a discussion of sourcing may be found at Wikipedia:Reliable sources (medicine-related articles). - 2/0 (cont.) 20:43, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Recent revert

This change was quickly reverted by an IP editor. I think that the edit by User:Trilobitealive was an improvement to the article, and it is nice to have fresh eyes on the article. I also welcome the fresh eyes from the IP editor, however I must condemn the editwarring that has been going on in the article ([23], [24], [25]), especially as another IP editor was recently blocked for edit warring at this article.

A new reference was added, and User:Trilobitealive stated in the edit summary that it is a POV reference, and more/better references should be found. There is a counterpoint article, published in the same journal [26]. I do not have access to either articles, so it would be nice if someone could perform a verification check on the details that were added by Trilobitealive, or if Trilobitealive could post quotes from the article onto the talkpage. DigitalC (talk) 15:18, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Here's what the change did to the lead paragraph:

"Chiropractic is an evolving health care discipline and profession that emphasizes diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, especially the spine,. It was founded under the hypothesis that these disorders affect general health via the nervous system but critics have discussed alternative viewpoints as well as the desirability of its continued growth into a more conservative portal-of-entry profession, integrated into the mainstream of medical practice. Chiropractic is controversial Even so it remains controversial,"

Some comments on those changes:

• The "evolving" is marketing fluff. Every part of medicine is evolving (or it's dead).
• The "It was founded" implies that chiropractic no longer assumes, or at least downplays, the hypothesis that musculoskeletal disorders affect general health. I'm not sure that this implication is warranted: as far as I can tell, that assumption is still firmly part of chiropractic, both straights and mixers.
• The word "critics" seems to be an editorial interpolation; is that word really supported by the source?
• "alternative viewpoints" is vague; it conveys so little useful information that there's no point putting it in the lead.
• "as well as the desirability of its continued growth into a more conservative portal-of-entry profession, integrated into the mainstream of medical practice" This phrase appears to be advocating a particular point of view, with phrases like "desirability" and "continued growth". I'm not sure that the lead should be putting such a great weight into that opinion piece. It is an important opinion piece, but the opinion is definitely not consensus within chiropractic, much less mainstream medicine.

Sorry to be so negative, as I'm sure the motivation for the change was a good one. The best part of the proposed change was the one summarized in the last bullet. I suggest trimming that text down to avoid its POV problems, and putting the result into the 3rd paragraph of the lead, which would be a more natural home for it. Eubulides (talk) 19:16, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback. However I must point out that if there is a single reference to be used for that particular part of the article, then the article should reflect what the reference says and not what is said by unreferenced material. I'd invite the editor who reverted my edit to carefully consider WP:POV and WP:OR. If I had more experience in reading about the subject at hand I might have better handle on the direction it should go; as it is I'm a general reader and when I come across something which should be made more readableI normally take a shot at it. But I don't want to get involved in edit wars, leaving that task to the dedicated and experienced present editors. Regards to all.Trilobitealive (talk) 01:12, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Child chiropractic

Interesting development:

• Gov't may stop subsidizing child chiropractic treatment. By Jason Warick, Saskatchewan News Network. The StarPhoenix

The article has a number of notable comments. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:07, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Recent edits

There have been a fair number of IP edits and reverts lately. I think that this is one of the only problems being discussed on the talk page points to the stability of the article that has been achieved over the last year (while the article isn't perfect, it is at least stable).

I commend editors for reverting vandalism, removal of sourced information, and addition of unsourced information to keep this article in decent shape. However, if it isn't just vandalism, a short post here is sometimes warranted. I noticed that this edit reverted based on "removing content or sources". Again, in general this is something I commend, but in this instance I think the IP editor may have been correct. I checked the source, and think that it fails verification for the claim. The IP editor should have used an edit summary and mentioned this, or used a fv-tag, but as it is, I don't think this should be in the article. I don't want to start an edit war on an otherwise relatively stable article, so I figured I'd open discussion here.

Thoughts? DigitalC (talk) 16:02, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

The source in question, Pennick & Young 2007 (PMID 17443503), says that they looked for evidence to support suggestions of effectiveness of various things, including "special pregnancy exercises, frequent rest, hot and cold compresses, a supportive belt, massage, acupuncture, chiropractic, aromatherapy, relaxation, herbs, yoga and Reiki". They found no evidence of effectiveness for spinal manipulation; they did find evidence for pregnant-specific exercise programs, physiotherapy, acupuncture, and pillows. The source does seem to be relevant, but it would be reasonable to expand a bit on the text to make the results clearer. Eubulides (talk) 21:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

That quote is better in its full context. It says: "Suggestions to help manage the pain are varied and include special pregnancy exercises, frequent rest, hot and cold compresses, a supportive belt, massage, acupuncture, chiropractic, aromatherapy, relaxation, herbs, yoga and Reiki. Sometimes drugs like acetaminophen have also been suggested." That is the ONLY mention of chiropractic in the entire article. It does not say they found no evidence for effectiveness of spinal manipulation - that is original research. From the methods section, we can't even determine whether "spinal manipulation" or "chirorpractic" were search terms. Further, pregnant-specific exercise programs and acupuncture are a part of chiropractic treatment. DigitalC (talk) 03:36, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

The source specifically said it looked for "All randomised controlled trials evaluating methods for preventing or treating pelvic and back pain in pregnancy". This includes all form of treatment, including treatments used by chiropractors and treatments not used by them. Their mention of "chiropractic" shows that they were not arbitrarily excluding chiropractic methods. There were no RCTs evaluating spinal manipulation for treating these conditions, just as there were no RCTs evaluating what must be hundreds of other methods: the authors did not, and need not, list every method for which they found no evidence. I agree that they reported evidence of effectiveness for four methods, and that these should be reported insofar as they relate to chiropractic. However, our summary should not neglect the bigger picture that most therapies for these conditions (and this definitely includes spinal manipulation), are not supported by scientific evidence. Eubulides (talk) 04:00, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I disagree, and don't think it should be mentioned - they authors didn't think it was worth mentioning that there was no evidence for SMT, so I don't think we should mention it either, any more than we should mention that there was no evidence found for forehead licking and therapeutic touch. DigitalC (talk) 04:07, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I didn't mean to say that we should explicitly call out SMT; all that we need to say is that there was evidence only for those few treatments, and for no other treatment method, which is exactly the result that the source reported. Eubulides (talk) 05:46, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Given that acupuncture and individualized exercises are a part of chiropractic, I think that is a fitting solution. Mention the treatments that they mentioned, and mentioned a lack of evidence for other treatments. Sounds good to me. DigitalC (talk) 20:46, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Sources that are not freely readable

A recent series of edits installed changes with the following edit summaries:

• "deleted sentence which had source that could not be accessed" This edit summary does not accurately describe the change, which negated the sense of a sentence, making it completely the opposite of what the source said. (The source in this case is Ernst 2008, PMID 18280103.) Besides, a source should not be rejected merely because it is not readily available online without a subscription; see Wikipedia:Reliable sources (medicine-related articles) #Choosing sources.
• (no edit summary) This deleted well-sourced material without comment.
• 'deleted ", which are common public health practices" because it was not sourced and was subjective' The sentence was sourced, by Murphy et al. 2008 (PMID 18759966). There is no serious dispute among reliable sources that vaccination and fluoridation are common health practices.
• 'deleted ' "attempts to establish a positive reputation for their public health role are also compromised by their reputation for recommending repetitive' No reason was given for this deletion, which is of well-sourced material.
• "deleted the last paragraph bc was bias and both links did not provide factual evidence" The paragraph was well-sourced, and the facts in it were directly supported by Murphy et al., the cited source, along with the other sources cited. There is no dispute among reliable sources that abuse, fraud, and quackery are a problem in chiropractic.
• "deleted sentence because source could not be accessed and it was not neutral" The source, DeVocht 2006 (PMID 16523145), is available via subscription, which is good enough. This source's statement that opinions differ about efficacy is not controversial among reliable sources and is a fair representation of mainstream views. By the way source is obviously biased in favor of chiropractic, not that this matters here.
• deleted source that could not be accessed Same as previous comment.

In the future, I suggest proposing such potentially-controversial deletions of well-sourced material on this talk page first. Eubulides (talk) 03:19, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Vertebral artery dissection

A recent pair of edits inserted the following text to the lead:

"Chiropractic neck manipulation has been associated with a significant risk for vertebral artery dissection. Of those injured in this study, 52% suffered permanent neurological damage, and 18% died." (citing Reuter, Hämling, Kavuk, Einhäupl, Schielke (2006-03-26). "Vertebral artery dissections after chiropractic neck manipuation in Germany over three years" (PDF). J. Neurol. Retrieved 2010-01-25. we describe the clinical pattern of 36 patients with vertebral artery dissections and prior chiropractic neck manipulation{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)).

This topic is already covered in the lead, with much better sources, namely Ernst 2007 (PMID 17606755) and Anderson-Peacock et al. 2005 & 2008, both high-quality secondary sources. (The Safety section goes into more detail, citing more reviews.) These reviews already cover the Reuter et al. primary source, so there's no need to cite Reuter independently. The article should not be attempting to undermine the conclusions of these secondary sources by citing a primary source like this one; see Wikipedia:Reliable sources (medicine-related articles) #Respect secondary sources and Wikipedia:No original research #Primary, secondary and tertiary sources. For now, I reverted the edit; further discussion here is welcome. Eubulides (talk) 01:49, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Would offer that this source does not undermine the other sources. The key words that we can extract from this source, that are not currently in the article, are "significant risk" ... of VAD... in cases of chiropractic neck manipulation. The current safety section seems to understate the risk. VAS is mentioned in the safety section, but the connection with neck manipulation is not currently stated.

This source also offers an international perspective, being that the study authors and subjects are in Germany. Would suggest that we add these sentences back to the article. Regards, PolarYukon (talk) 06:46, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

This source is also quite unreliable, because what is summarized in the abstract is not what is presented in the article. The reality, when you read the article is that 4 of the patients had prior chiropractic care. 18 (50%) were manipulated by orthopaedic surgeons (therefore "not chiropractic neck manipulation"). Given that "chiropractic" is unregulated in Germany, and that most of the care there is provided by Heilprakktikers who have very little training, or by "Chirotherapists" (medical doctors with additional training), I don't think that this is directly applicable to Chiropractic. DigitalC (talk) 00:14, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Then add it to the safety section and let's see if the lead would need to be updated. The risk is understated, in harmony with the profession's practice of deny, deny, deny. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:04, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid the proposed material does undermine the secondary sources, as the proposed material selects one primary source (Reuter et al.) to argue that chiropractic presents a greater danger of severe adverse effects than what our secondary sources say. These sources have already reviewed Reuter et al.; it's not our job to second-guess our secondary sources (again, please see WP:PSTS and WP:MEDRS#Respect secondary sources). Let's put it this way: some primary sources say that chiropractic treatment for conditions such as migraine is actually less likely to cause these severe adverse effects than conventional medical treatment. There are probably a dozen dueling primary sources in this area, and it's not our job to assess the reliability and noteworthiness of these primary sources by choosing one to emphasize here: evaluating primary sources is the job of the expert reviewers who write the secondary sources, which Chiropractic is (and should be) citing. As for international perspective: first, the secondary sources are reviewing Reuter et al., so they're already reviewing the German perspective. And second, the author of the first secondary source I mentioned, Edzard Ernst, is a German working in England, and the authors of the second secondary source are working in Canada, so the international viewpoint is well-represented by the secondary sources' authors themselves, as well as by the primary sources they review. Eubulides (talk) 07:30, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Eubulides here. We should use secondary sources rather than primary sources. From the other point of view, the risk is overstated - the World Health Organiation Bone & Joint Task force found that the risk was the same whether a person saw an MD or DC - suggesting that the associations are explained by pre-existing conditions. DigitalC (talk) 02:07, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I too agree regarding the part about using secondary rather than primary sources. As to your mention of the unusual results of that one study, it contradicts previous studies.... In Toronto they found a 500% greater risk among those who had seen a chiropractor within the week preceeding their stroke, and in California the risk was 600% greater for those who had seen a chiropractor. So the primary sources disagree, with the one you mention being an unusual one. I suspect a methodological anomaly. That disagreement would need to be mentioned (in an article using primary sources), because there isn't a clearcut picture. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:43, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I still think Edzard Ernst sums up the situation best, both as regards what we know we know, and what we don't know, and how the chiropractic profession is reacting to the situation:

""One gets the impression that the risks of spinal manipulation are being played down, particularly by chiropractors. Perhaps the best indication that this is true are estimates of incidence rates based on assumptions, which are unproven at best and unrealistic at worse. One such assumption, for instance, is that 10% of actual complications will be reported. Our recent survey, however, demonstrated an under-reporting rate of 100%. This extreme level of underreporting obviously renders estimates nonsensical." From: Spinal manipulation: Its safety is uncertain - Edzard Ernst

That sums it up pretty well. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:49, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Life University

A recent series of edits added the following text to the Straights and mixers section:

However, the largest chiropractic college, Life University, in Marietta, Georgia, is a straight institution and continues to increase the number of straight chiropractors. The states of Georgia, South Carolina, Michigan and New Jersey are dominated by straight chiropractors and have highly restrictive laws limiting how chiropractors may practice; which are reflected in restrictions put on students at Life University (GA) and the Sherman College of Straight Chiropractic (SC) who are generally prohibited from ordering laboratory tests on patients to confirm a diagnosis, from utilizing rehabilitative methods and from administering extremity mobilizations.

This text is unsourced, and even if it were sourced it would be original research, as it advances the argument that straight chiropractors are gaining dominance over mixers, an argument that is not sourced. I have removed this text for now, and suggest further discussion here about any coverage of Life University in Chiropractic.

The edits also made the following change:

"Mixers tend to be open to mainstream medicine and are were the majority group in 1998."

apparently under the argument that the cited source (Kaptchuk & Eisenberg 1998, PMID 9818801) is dated. It is not controversial among reliable sources that mixers are the majority, but to allay any concerns in this area my removal of the text also added a recent source (Marcus & McCullough 2009, PMID 19707062) that supports the same claim. Eubulides (talk) 00:51, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Abotnick's edits do need better sourcing. The fact that the largest school, along with several others, are straight schools, is a significant fact. The concern is therefore legitimate, but mixers are still the majority. We should still use the sources that document that fact, but that straights have a much larger influence than their numbers is also documented, and that they are still being produced in large numbers is also true. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:00, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Infobox collage

The subject of collages (such as the one in this article's infobox) has come up in the image use policy; see Wikipedia talk:Image use policy #Collages). Eubulides (talk) 21:46, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Scope of Practice

I edited the scope of practice to be more specific. Currently, physical therapists are prohibited from performing SM in only two states (Arkansas and WA) which I think is worth mentioning. Further, in NO states do physical therapists have to recieve "chiropractic training"...that would make them chiropractors. In some states, PT's must show advanced education in spinal manipulation which does not equate to chiropractic.

Further, I am not aware of ANY states wher ONLY chiropractors can provide spinal manipulation. Could we please find a public record of this claim?

Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.17.98.158 (talk) 04:36, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable source for that information about Arkansas and Washington? The article needs to cite it. The source currently cited, Hilliard & Johnson 2004, cites Arkansas, Michigan, and Montana as states who restrict physical therapists against performing spinal manipulation (it does not say that this is an exhaustive list). You're right about the "chiropractic training" bit: that part has been proposed in some legislatures but hasn't passed (I misread the source). I presume it'd mean that PTs would have to take chiropractic courses though not enough courses to become licensed chiropractors; but it's irrelevant since the laws haven't passed. Eubulides (talk) 04:51, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Advantages and disadvantages

A recent set of changes was mostly good, except that it made the following change to the lead:

"complementary and alternative medicine, a characterization that many chiropractors reject. The advantages and disadvantages of this categorization have been described and it is rejected by many chiropractors."

with the newly added "advantages and disadvantages" idea supported by Cooperstein & Gleberzon 2004 (ISBN 0-443-07413-5). I see three problems with this change:

• This newly-added idea in the lead does not summarize anything in the body, contrary to WP:LEAD.
• I don't see where the cited source directly supports this newly-added idea.
• The idea is vague. Almost everything has pros and cons, so what's the point of saying that here?

For now I undid that part of the changes; further comments are welcome. Eubulides (talk) 03:59, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

It's from pages 304-305: "Is CAM Status Desirable For Chiropractic?" This subject is alluded to in the article, but this discussion isn't mentioned with a source. Using this source bolsters the fact that chiropractic is considered CAM, regardless of whether some chiros don't like the characterization. It has also been a subject of much debate on this talk page, and this chiropractic source reinforces the argument for keeping our current content. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:13, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, Google Books URLs don't work for me. What does the source actually say about this? Eubulides (talk) 07:23, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd copy it if I could. I don't know how. Sometimes Google Books' previews provide the option of viewing the text in HTML or text format, which can be copied very easily. This doesn't offer that option. Maybe someone else can figure it out. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:36, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

OK, I managed to scare up a copy. There's a subtle point here: the source doesn't directly support the claim "The advantages and disadvantages of this categorization have been described", because the source doesn't say that the pros and cons have been described: it merely lists some pros and cons, which is a different thing. Briefly, the source argues that there are political and money reasons to be embraced by conventional medicine, as well as P.R. and some funding advantages to be thought to be CAM. Those funding advantages are a bit dated (and anyway dubious, as funding is also available for conventional medical research), but the other points are valid. I don't think this needs to be in the lead, though. How about appending the following to the first paragraph of Scope of practice, citing the chapter "Current and future utilization rates and trends" (pages 297–305) of the source?

"Aligning with conventional medicine could give chiropractors more university affiliation and access to hospitals and long-term facilities; aligning with the CAM movement could bring more patients looking for nonmedical approaches."

Eubulides (talk) 07:58, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Excellent. Thanks. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:32, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Unnecessary vague tag

This edit added a "vague" tag that's unnecessary. There's nothing wrong with summarizing the cited source as saying that critics of chiropractic get sued. There's no need to repeat their criticisms here, as similar points are already made elsewhere in this article, with much better sources. If it really were problem that this sentence is too vague (which it's not), then let's simply remove the claim; it's not that important. Eubulides (talk) 06:24, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

The reader does not know why the critics were threatened with lawsuits. QuackGuru (talk) 06:26, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

We don't know that. The source doesn't say, and it's unlikely that we'll find reliable sources that do say. Were they criticized to shut them up? or to deter other potential critics? or to make money off them? or simply because of personal feuds? There are lots of things that we don't know and cannot really know for certain, but that doesn't mean that we can't summarize what we do know. Again, the point is relatively minor, and if there's a serious dispute about whether it's vague, then let's simply drop the claim. Eubulides (talk) 07:25, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I briefly mentioned the dispute without going into too much detail. QuackGuru (talk) 07:51, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

It's a notable enough phenomena that it's worth keeping, but just make very short mention. No need to mention all the other cases where this has happened. -- Brangifer (talk) 08:17, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

QuackGuru's edit doesn't say "why the critics were threatened with lawsuits". It therefore does not address the claimed problem. I am mystified why the (not-that-grammatical) change was made. The overall phenomenon of chiropractors suing critics is arguably notable, but mentioning the Singh case itself is WP:RECENTISM. Let's go back to the way it was; the recent change made the article worse. Eubulides (talk) 08:27, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

The Singh case, although recent, seems unique, even in the history of British libel cases. It should be incorporated in the main Chiropractic article. I agree it is a unique case that should be mentioned in this article. QuackGuru (talk) 18:21, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Every case is unique in some sense, but the Singh case is not unique as an example of British libel law's misuse to go after medical critics. There is also, for example, the Wilmshurst case; see Marcovitch 2009 (PMID 19589817). Assertions that the Singh case is unique seem to be based mostly on a lack of understanding of British legal practice. More generally, chiropractors often sue critics (and each other); what's so special about this particular lawsuit? Why not also mention, for example, chiropractors' lawsuits against Blue Cross and Aetna? Do we have a reliable secondary source that talks about a pattern of chiropractors suing people? If not, I'm dubious about our citing individual lawsuits based only on our own editorial judgment. Again, let's go back to the way it was: that was simpler and reflected the source better. Eubulides (talk) 21:03, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Sense About Science: keep the libel laws out of science, BMJ 2009;338:b2254 doi:10.1136/bmj.b2254, BMJ 2009;339:b4429 doi:10.1136/bmj.b4429, BMJ 2009;339:b2783 doi:10.1136/bmj.b2783, Ben Goldacre (2009-07-29). "An intrepid, ragged band of bloggers". The Guardian. Retrieved 2009-10-08., "Chiropocalypse". Richard Dawkins. Retrieved 2009-07-29., Lucas Laursen. "The Great Beyond: Chiropractic group advises members to 'withdraw from the battleground'". Nature.com. Retrieved 20 June 2009., Lucas Laursen. "The Great Beyond: Complaints converge on chiropractors". Nature.com. Retrieved 20 June 2009., (PMID 19848549), (PMID 19833705).

This case is unique in part because of all the coverage by reliable sources. QuackGuru (talk) 21:16, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

No, it's not unique. I can easily cite dozens of reliable sources on the Wilmshurst libel case. Here are a few, for starters: doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7423.1113, doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7433.230-a, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2822, [27], doi:10.1136/bmj.c967. doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7433.230. If anything, there are probably more reliable sources about this one, than about the Singh case. I can also cite dozens of reliable sources about chiropractors suing insurance companies. So, again: why push this particular case in this article? Eubulides (talk) 00:46, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I tried to compromise by keeping it very brief. QuackGuru (talk) 04:55, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

WCA 240 members around the Ronnberg family. Reliable? I dont think so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.217.112.100 (talk) 21:46, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Page loading efficiency and style

I recently edited this page in a minor way and it took about 30 seconds between the time I hit the "Save page" button and the time I saw the resulting page. The vast majority of this time was spent inside the Wikipedia servers (not inside my browser or doing network transmission); this can be determined by reading the little comment at the bottom of the HTML, for example:

<!-- Served by srv141 in 27.744 secs. -->

A major reason this page takes a long time to load to the use of the standard Wikipedia citation templates such as {{cite web}}. Recently developed faster & smaller Vancouver system templates such as {{vcite web}} would make the page significantly faster to generate (roughly 2.5 times faster in my test; admittedly I did only one test) as well as significantly smaller in terms of the HTML generated (the resulting page is 37% smaller, in terms of number of bytes of HTML). Let's use these templates here; they're already in use in Autism, Wildfire, etc., and have resulted in major savings both for time and for the size of the generated HTML. You can see the proposed change here and the proposed new version here. Eubulides (talk) 09:01, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Refs

• Spinal manipulation for asthma: a systematic review of randomised clinical trials.
• Chiropractic spinal manipulation for infant colic: a systematic review of randomised clinical trials. QuackGuru (talk) 17:45, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up; I added those. Eubulides (talk) 21:58, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Kaminskyj, A.; Frazier, M.; Johnstone, K.; Gleberzon, B. J. (2010). "Chiropractic care for patients with asthma: A systematic review of the literature". The Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association. 54 (1): 24–32. PMC 2829683. PMID 20195423.

Johnson, C. (2010). "Conflict of interest in scientific publications: a historical review and update". Journal of manipulative and physiological therapeutics. 33 (2): 81–86. doi:10.1016/j.jmpt.2010.01.004. PMID 20170772.

Alcantara, J.; Pankonin, K. (2010). "Chiropractic care of a pediatric patient with migraine-type headaches: a case report and selective review of the literature". Explore. 6 (1): 42–46. doi:10.1016/j.explore.2009.10.005. PMID 20129311.

Bronfort, G.; Haas, M.; Evans, R.; Leiniger, B.; Triano, J. (2010). "Effectiveness of manual therapies: the UK evidence report". Chiropractic & osteopathy. 18 (1): 3. doi:10.1186/1746-1340-18-3. PMC 2841070. PMID 20184717.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)

Westrom, K.; Maiers, M.; Evans, R.; Bronfort, G. (2010). "Individualized chiropractic and integrative care for low back pain: the design of a randomized clinical trial using a mixed-methods approach". Trials. 11 (1): 24. doi:10.1186/1745-6215-11-24. PMC 2841162. PMID 20210996.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)

Wenban, A. (2010). "Re: Gouveia LO, Castanho P, Ferreira JJ. Safety of chiropractic interventions. A systematic review. Spine 2009;34:E405-13". Spine. 35 (4): 467–468. doi:10.1097/BRS.0b013e3181cddbbf. PMID 20160620.

Haas, M.; Spegman, A.; Peterson, D.; Aickin, M.; Vavrek, D. (2010). "Dose response and efficacy of spinal manipulation for chronic cervicogenic headache: a pilot randomized controlled trial". The spine journal : official journal of the North American Spine Society. 10 (2): 117–128. doi:10.1016/j.spinee.2009.09.002. PMC 2819630. PMID 19837005.

Gross, A.; Miller, J.; D'sylva, J.; Burnie, S. J.; Goldsmith, C. H.; Graham, N.; Haines, T.; Brønfort, G.; Hoving, J. L. (2010). Gross, Anita (ed.). "Manipulation or mobilisation for neck pain". Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (1): CD004249. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD004249.pub3. PMID 20091561.

Leach, R. (2010). "Patients with symptoms and signs of stroke presenting to a rural chiropractic practice". Journal of manipulative and physiological therapeutics. 33 (1): 62–69. doi:10.1016/j.jmpt.2009.11.004. PMID 20114102.. More refs. QuackGuru (talk) 05:26, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that list. I Added Kaminskyj et al.. Johnson et al. isn't that relevant. Alcantara et al. is a low-quality source (a selective and idiosyncratic review). Bronfort et al. is a weird one, as it's seemingly about everything; not quite sure how to work that in (partly because it duplicates contents of reviews by the same authors that we already source; no sense duplicating citations, and I suppose we might drop some of our older citations if we cite this one). This is as far as I've gotten so far, but I'll try to look into this more over the next few days. Eubulides (talk) 07:56, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Davis, M. A.; Davis, A. M.; Luan, J.; Weeks, W. B. (2009). "The supply and demand of chiropractors in the United States from 1996 to 2005". Alternative therapies in health and medicine. 15 (3): 36–40. PMID 19472863.. QuackGuru (talk) 04:31, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

The last reference you added was certainly interesting. We have previously restricted our inclusion criteria to the use of reviews, but perhaps we could add something into the safety section after "Although most contraindications apply only to manipulation of the affected region, some neurological signs indicate referral to emergency medical services; these include sudden and severe headache or neck pain unlike that previously experienced.[20]", along the lines of "Patients with signs or symptoms of stroke may infrequently present to chiropractors for evaluation and treatment". DigitalC (talk) 20:07, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Attribution

I reverted the removal of attribution of an opinion, that can clearly not be documented as fact. DigitalC (talk) 04:22, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Unnecessary attribution is a violation of WP:ASF policy when no serious dispute exists among reliable sources (an objective fact that is not a serious dispute). WP:ASF does not require in-text attribution for information where there is no serious dispute. Requiring in-text attribution for widespread consensus of reliable sources on the grounds that it is "opinion" would allow a contrarian reader to insist on in-text attribution for material about which there is no serious dispute, using the argument that the material is an "opinion". This would mean, in the end, that all material in Wikipedia would require in-text attribution, even if only one Wikipedia editor insisted on it, which is not the intent of WP:ASF or of WP:CONSENSUS. QuackGuru (talk) 06:56, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

This is not unnecessary attribution. At wikipedia, if something is an opinion, we attribute the opinion. I agree that "requiring in-text attribution for widespread consensus of reliable sources" would be wrong, however I dispute that this information has a widespread consensus. Please stop treating wikipedia as a battleground over this issue. Multiple editors have discussed with you that your interpretation of WP:ASF is wrong. You come off of a topic-ban for disruptive editing, and you head straight back at it again. The WP:BRD cycle is supposed to stop at "discuss", until some sort of a consensus is formed. Instead you have gone right back to edit-warring, reverting my reversions. DigitalC (talk) 13:50, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Part of what DigitalC wrote was "I agree that "requiring in-text attribution for widespread consensus of reliable sources" would be wrong, however I dispute that this information has a widespread consensus." You "dispute that this information has a widespread consensus" but you did not provide any sources that disagree with the current text. Every time an editor disagrees with the source does not mean we should include in-text attribution. QuackGuru (talk) 21:03, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

You have not given a reason why it is required to have in-text attribution in this case.

See WP:ASF. "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves. By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." For example, that a survey produced a certain published result would be a fact. That there is a planet called Mars is a fact. That Plato was a philosopher is a fact. No one seriously disputes any of these things, so we assert as many of them as possible."

When the information is not seriously disputed among reliable sources it is not required to include in-text attribution. No editor believes we should add in-text attribution when a contrarian reader insists the text is an opinion. On Wikipedia, we assert facts, including facts about opinions when no serious dispute exists. QuackGuru (talk) 18:30, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

QuackGuru, please do not insert material into an article that says things like "...they [subluxations] do not exist". That's an opinion; there's controversy about it. There are reliable sources presenting the chiropractic point of view that there are subluxations. Wikipedia doesn't state things as fact if there is controversy about them. Believing something to be fact yourself isn't an excuse for editing a Wikipedia article to state it as fact. Controversial statements are given prose attribution in Wikipedia articles: that means not only a footnote, but also something in the sentence like "source X states that ..." ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:00, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

See WP:ASF: By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." When it is not seriously disputed it is considered a fact according to Wikipedia's ASF policy. QuackGuru (talk) 21:18, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Please show how this piece of information is controversial (serious disputed). When is is not seriously disputed we assert it as fact without requiring in-text attribution. QuackGuru (talk) 20:20, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

QG, repeating yourself will not convince anyone. It is your edit that is controversial. Your current attempt to change policy to allow you to remove very valuable attribution is a very dubious attempt to manipulate Wikipedia. You are returning to your previous behavior with this incessant repeating yourself. The dispute is right here, and you need to deal with it. Others are objecting to your edits that definitely do not have a consensus behind them, regardless of your opinions on the subject. I'm going to restore the valuable attributions. Stop the disruption. -- Brangifer (talk) 20:36, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

You have not provided any serious dispute among reliable sources. The serious dispute has not been presented here. QuackGuru (talk) 20:46, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

The editor does not want to discuss this issue any further. This does not imply who is right or wrong but other editor may want to read the discussion. QuackGuru (talk) 02:40, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

The fact that you have multiple editors here, telling you that your interpretation of WP:ASF is wrong, should be a clear signal to you. That other editors give up in trying to resolve an issue with you should send a clear signal as well. DigitalC (talk) 12:40, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

[28][29][30] In a similar content dispute at Vaccine controversy multiple editors disagreed with intext-attribution. In another article that is similar to this content dispute this edit was rejected as against ASF policy too. I have given a detailed explanation why attribution is not appropriate based on ASF policy. This is not a subjective fact like the Beatles is the greatest band. This is an objective fact that is not seriously disputed among reliable sources.

"Chiropractors, especially in America, have a reputation for unnecessarily treating patients, and in many circumstances the focus seems to be put on economics instead of health care." If it was required intext-attribution for this sentence then numerous sentences in this article would have attribution. Simon-says attribution was discussed before for other text in this article but was rejected. See Talk:Chiropractic/Archive 27#Simon-says and DeVocht. QuackGuru (talk) 17:57, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Whether something has a reputation or not is an opinion, unless it has somehow been objectively measured. To determine if there is consensus that "Chiropractors have a reputation for unnecessarily treating patients", I performed this google search which returned no hits that seemed relevant. DigitalC (talk) 01:43, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Since there was a lot of debate about attribution and ASF involving this article I think editors may be interested in this discussion. See Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view#Objective fact differs from a subjective fact. QuackGuru (talk) 08:19, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Baby colic

• Ernst E (2009). "Chiropractic spinal manipulation for infant colic: a systematic review of randomised clinical trials". Int J Clin Pract. 63 (9): 1351–3. doi:10.1111/j.1742-1241.2009.02133.x. PMID 19691620.
• Husereau D, Clifford T, Aker P, Leduc D, Mensinkai S (2003). Spinal Manipulation for Infantile Colic (PDF). Technology report no. 42. Ottawa: Canadian Coordinating Office for Health Technology Assessment. ISBN 1-894978-11-0. Retrieved 2008-10-06.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Reviews have found no evidence of significant benefit for baby colic. See WP:MEDRS. QuackGuru (talk) 07:06, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

These reviews are not about the "entire clinical chiropractic encounter", unlike the Hawk et al. review. This was clearly stated in my edit summary, and it is clear from the text of the article that that sentence is talking about the clinic encounter. These two reviews are only looking at spinal manipulation, which is only one treatment provided by chiropractors. If you yourself read WP:MEDRS you will also see some information on recentism. DigitalC (talk) 13:52, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

"Some chiropractors claim that spinal manipulation is an effective treatment for infant colic. This systematic review was aimed at evaluating the evidence for this claim. Four databases were searched and three randomised clinical trials met all the inclusion criteria. The totality of this evidence fails to demonstrate the effectiveness of this treatment. It is concluded that the above claim is not based on convincing data from rigorous clinical trials." This is from a 2009 review (PMID 19691620). According to what information from which source you came to your conclusion. QuackGuru (talk) 18:35, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I am not being clear here QuackGuru. The reviews which you have linked above are looking at the topic of spinal manipulation as a treatment for infantile colic. Spinal manipulation is one treatment type provided by chiropractors. The Hawk review looked at "the entire clinical encounter of chiropractic care (as opposed to just SM)". Since they are not studying the same thing, one cannot be used to remove another. DigitalC (talk) 18:43, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Heck, even if they WERE studying the same thing, it still wouldn't justify saying "other reviews have found no significant evidence for baby colic", because it would be ignoring the review that DID find significant evidence for baby colic in favour of the more recent reviews, which we should be careful about, as it is not giving parity. This quote from WP:MEDRS is relevant: "Although the most-recent reviews include later research results, do not automatically give more weight to the review that happens to have been published most recently, as this is recentism." DigitalC (talk) 18:43, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

In fact, one of the sources you looked at specifically mentions in their conclusion that they were looking at "spinal manipulation alone", (aka not the entire clinical encounter, or spinal manipulation in combination with soft tissue therapy, etc.). "There is no convincing evidence that spinal manipulation alone can affect the duration of infantile colic symptoms." DigitalC (talk) 18:49, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

According to what information from the Hawk review you came to your conclusion. I'm not sure how you came to your conclusion. QuackGuru (talk) 19:00, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I have previously read the review by Hawk, at a time when it was freely available. I no longer have access to the entire document. However, the abstract states "Evidence from controlled studies and usual practice supports chiropractic care (the entire clinical encounter) as providing benefit to patients with asthma, cervicogenic vertigo, and infantile colic. Evidence was promising for potential benefit of manual procedures for children with otitis media and elderly patients with pneumonia.". DigitalC (talk) 19:15, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

When newer 2009 MEDRS "Chiropractic spinal manipulation for infant colic: a systematic review of randomised clinical trials" specifically concluded that baby colic is not an effective chiropractic treatment then it can't generally be an effective or promising chiropractic care treatment at this time according to this latest review. We can use common sense in this case. QuackGuru (talk) 03:14, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

By stating "newer", you are specifically ignoring WP:MEDRS content about recentism. You are also ignoring that Ernst's study looked at "Chiropractic spinal manipulation", and not at the entire clinical encounter. In analogy, a study that finds that dietary intake of oranges doesn't decrease your risk for cancer does not refute a study finds that a variety of fruit in your diet decreases your risk for cancer. DigitalC (talk) 12:45, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

What study found that dietary intake of oranges doesn't decrease your risk for cancer. This could be a new subject I could edit on Wikipedia. I found that "Fruit and yellow-orange vegetables, particularly carrots and selenium, are probably associated with a moderately reduced risk of bladder cancer." See (PMID 18815914).

A major part of the entire clinical encounter is spinal manipulation. I previously explained the study concluded that baby colic is not an effective chiropractic treatment. When it is not specifically an effective chiropractic spinal manipulation treatment then it can't generally be an effective or promising chiropractic care treatment. We can use common sense in this case. QuackGuru (talk) 18:36, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I have bolded the "In analogy" part to make it more clear to you that it was an analogy. The rest of your comment does not make any sense, and as such I can't reply to it, as I can't understand what you are trying to say. DigitalC (talk) 01:17, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps this quote from Dr. Hawk about the study might clarify the issue for you:

"An important distinction should be made betwen the terms "chiropractic manipulation" and "chiropractic care." The term "chiropractic care" refers to the entire clinical encounter in a chiropractic setting which may include many nonmanipulative therapies such as dietary advice, nutritional or herbal supplements, posture correction, therapeutic exercise, physiotherapeutic modalities, and behavioral counselling."

The sum is more than the parts, and whole-systems research does not use a reductionist approach. DigitalC (talk) 14:39, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

3rd Opinion

User:QuackGuru removed sourced information from the article. The information comes clearly from the source, but he believes that newer research that looks at "chiropractic manipulation" instead of "chiropractic care" allows for the removal of content. I disagree, and believe that the older information and the newer information are looking at two separate concepts. A third opinion request has been filed. More information is available immediately above this subsection. DigitalC (talk) 19:59, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

As noted in the (long) section above, and useful for editors not well-versed in the subject, "The term 'chiropractic care' refers to the entire clinical encounter in a chiropractic setting which may include many nonmanipulative therapies such as dietary advice, nutritional or herbal supplements, posture correction, therapeutic exercise, physiotherapeutic modalities, and behavioral counselling". DigitalC (talk) 20:01, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I was the third opinion on this dispute. I and another editor agree with the the placement of baby colic. Three editors are involved in this dispute, not two. QuackGuru (talk) 23:55, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

You weren't the 3O by the 3O standards. First, the discussion above is between you and DigitalC, so you can't be the third opinion in an argument in which you're involved. Second, you've been active on this page since at least mid 2009, so you're heavily involved in the topic. Wait 'til another uninvolved person comes along. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 00:19, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Response to Third Opinion Request:

Disclaimers: I am responding to a third opinion request made at WP:3O. I have made no previous edits on Chiropractic/Archive 30 and have no known association with the editors involved in this discussion. The third opinion process (FAQ) is informal and I have no special powers or authority apart from being a fresh pair of eyes. Third opinions are not tiebreakers and should not be "counted" in determining whether or not consensus has been reached. My personal standards for issuing third opinions can be viewed here.

Opinion: I've read with moderate care (i.e. neither a close reading nor a quick skim) all three articles in question. (The Wolf Hawk article is, BTW, available through EBSCO Academic Search Complete, which many public libraries make available online to their cardholders.) The asserted superiority of the Ernst article due to its recency is meritless. While Wikipedia:MEDRS#Use_up-to-date_evidence does recommend the use of studies 2–5 years old, it is to be noted that all three of these studies are meta–analyses, studies of studies, not reports of independent research, and all three evaluate some or all of the same studies. The 2009 Ernst article only considers one study (out of only three evaluated by Ernst), a 2008 study by Browning, which is more recent than those studies considered in the other two articles and dismisses it for not being a comparison of the effectiveness of chiropractic treatment vs non-chiropractic treatment, but instead being a comparison of two different forms of chiropractic manipulation. In effect, therefore, Wolf Hawk, Husereau, and Ernst are all different studies of essentially the same evidence. The recency of the 2009 Ernst study simply does not justify giving it any more weight than the other two. The attempt to make a distinction between "chiropractic manipulation" and "chiropractic care" is, however, also meritless. To suggest that the 2009 Ernst study focused entirely on manipulation whereas Wolf Hawk took into consideration the entire care package supposes that the manipulation studies evaluated by Ernst were performed in an environment where the patients received no chiropractic services other than manipulation. That ignores the fact that the two studies evaluated by Ernst, other than the dismissed Browning study, were also evaluated by Wolf Hawk. In other words, the Ernst study cannot be distinguished from the Wolf Hawk study on the basis of the manipulation/care distinction because both looked at the same evidence. This, then leaves us with this: these are three studies which look at the same evidence and come to opposite conclusions about it. Unless one or more of them is unreliable for some reason or can be distinguished on some other basis — neither of which I've attempted to evaluate and about which I express no opinion — then the disagreement should be noted in the article with something like, perhaps, "meta–analyses of clinical studies disagree on whether chiropractic provides effective treatment of infant colic."

What's next: Once you've considered this opinion click here to see what happens next.—TRANSPORTERMAN (TALK) 16:50, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

self-whack! Hawk -> Wolf preditor substitution correction made (thanks to DigitalC for catching my senior moment). — TRANSPORTERMAN (TALK) 18:49, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your input. I agree that a statement such as what you have suggested is appropriate, with the multiple references used. My only concern is that it is possibly original research to state that these reviews are looking at the same thing, when one author states they are looking at Chiropractic manipulation, and the other author explicitly states that they are NOT looking at just manipulation, but rather the whole encounter. I am actually quite confused as to how the same studies could be used to look at two different concepts, because they studies they looked at would presumeably only be looking at one or the other. DigitalC (talk) 18:57, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

First, if my analysis of the studies were to be put into the article, it would indeed be WP:OR, no doubt about it, but what we do to evaluate sources is different than what can go into the article. Wikipedia:MEDRS makes it clear that sources must sometimes be weighed and analyzed in choosing what to use in an article. Second, your confusion comes, first, from the fact that while the goal of the Hawk study was to "evaluate the published evidence on the effect of chiropractic care, rather than spinal manipulation only, on patients with nonmusculoskeletal conditions" it is difficult to find anything in their paper which says how they attempted to judge that distinction in regard to colic. See their discussion section and conclusion sections on colic, below:

• (Discussion:) "A variety of SMT techniques were used among the 8 studies, most specifying a modification of force to accommodate treating infants; 1 study used instrument assisted SMT (Leach). Both full-spine and localized SMT were utilized. Results were consistent in the direction of improvement with SMT; 1 systematic review judged the evidence insufficient, whereas the other indicated that, although SMT did not appear to be superior to placebo/sham treatment, it appeared that the delivery of chiropractic care resulted in improved parent-reported outcomes."
• (Conclusion:) "Evidence from both controlled studies and usual practice is adequate to support the “total package” of chiropractic care, including SMT, other procedures, and unmeasured qualities such as belief and attention, as providing benefit to patients with asthma, cervicogenic vertigo, and infantile colic."

In their discussion they, thus, make two evaluations: "Results were consistent in the direction of improvement with SMT," i.e. spinal manipulative therapy, which is irrelevant to the distinction that they were attempting to make, and more to the point, "1 systematic review judged the evidence insufficient, whereas the other indicated that, although SMT did not appear to be superior to placebo/sham treatment, it appeared that the delivery of chiropractic care resulted in improved parent-reported outcomes." In short, they based their conclusion as to colic on one study. "The other" study, when you look in their Table 12, was "Hughes S, Bolton J. Is chiropractic an effective treatment in infantile colic? Arch Dis Child 2002;86:382–384."

I pulled and read the Hughes study and it reaches a significantly different conclusion than that drawn from it by Hawk: "The first [Wiberg 1999] study is a study of effectiveness—it is pragmatic. Parents taking their child to a chiropractor clearly report a significant improvement. By eliminating parental bias, the second study [Olafsdottir 2001] is an efficacy study of chiropractic intervention. Chiropractic itself does not appear to be efficacious. ... CLINICAL BOTTOM LINE: The evidence suggests that chiropractic has no benefit over placebo in the treatment of infantile colic. However, there is good evidence that taking a colicky infant to a chiropractor will result in fewer reported hours of colic by the parents." (Hughes 384, emphasis added.) (Wiberg and Olafsdottir are, notably, the two studies which are common to all three of Hawk, Husereau, and Ernst.) The difference between Wiberg and Olafsdottir was this: in Olafsdottir the parents of the infants did not know whether their child was receiving chiropractic treatment or not, whereas the parents in the Wiberg study — and apparently all other studies mentioned in Hawk — knew one way or another (or no other form of therapy was being provided). Since these were infants, the evaluation of the treatment results depended on the parent's perceptions and, thus, what Hughes is, rather gently, saying is that when parents know that their child is receiving chiropractic treatment then that treatment is, indeed, effective, but not because it benefits the infant in any way — that it does not was shown by Olafsdottir, implies Hughes — but because it makes the parents feel like something has been done. That interpretation is further confirmed by examination of Hughes' topic and conclusion,

• (Topic:) "Mrs A presents with her 6 week old baby, complaining of his excessive and uncontrollable crying behaviour, particularly in the evening and at night. The ... child is exhibiting typical colic behaviour. There are clear signs that the continual and excessive crying behaviour is impairing the mother–child relationship, and you consider the child might be at increased risk of harm (or neglect). In discussing the treatment options, Mrs A tells you that her chiropractor has offered to treat her baby for the excessive crying behaviour. She herself has been treated by this chiropractor in the past for back pain, and it is obvious she has considerable confidence in him. She asks your advice."
• (Conclusion:) "In this clinical scenario where the family is under significant strain, where the infant may be at risk of harm and possible long term repercussions, where there are limited alternative effective interventions, and where the mother has confidence in a chiropractor from other experiences, the advice is to seek chiropractic treatment."

Thus, Hughes is in effect saying that if the infant is at risk of abuse or neglect because the crying is driving the mother mad, if she believes in chiropractic, and if there's not much else that can be done to relieve the colic, then sending the child to her chiropractor isn't going do do the child any direct good, but may prevent the child from being abused or neglected by causing the mother to falsely believe that the chiropractic treatment has helped the child. That is quite different than what is implied by Hawk's carefully–worded statement that "that the delivery of chiropractic care resulted in improved parent-reported outcomes" and in no way supports Hawk's conclusion about colic.

Thus, in short, if Hawk's conclusion insofar as it relates to manipulation vs totality is founded entirely upon Hughes, as it seems to be, then it is based on a house of cards. Your confusion results from the fact that Hawk fails to do what it sets out to do, at least in relation to colic, partly because it almost entirely fails to address the manipulation/totality issue in reference to colic and partly because it misinterprets Hughes' results to the minor extent that it does attempt to address that issue. — TRANSPORTERMAN (TALK) 21:32, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Cheryl Hawk, D.C., Ph.D. - Cleveland Chiropractic College, Kansas City, Missouri, and Los Angeles, CA.

Anthony J. Lisi, D.C. - University of Bridgeport College of Chiropractic and VA Connecticut Healthcare System, West Haven, CT.

Hawk C, Khorsan R, Lisi AJ, Ferrance RJ, Evans MW (2007). "Chiropractic care for nonmusculoskeletal conditions: a systematic review with implications for whole systems research". J Altern Complement Med. 13 (5): 491–512. doi:10.1089/acm.2007.7088. PMID 17604553.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

This favorable study seems to be headed by chiropractors. Chiropractors know what they are doing. Do there own research and get it published. Does this study meet MEDRS policy? QuackGuru (talk) 01:12, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Since I answered DigitalC's question, I'll take a shot at answering yours as well: Take a look at Wikipedia:MEDRS#Use_independent_sources. That's the closest thing I've been able to find; it's up to you to decide whether it applies in this situation. — TRANSPORTERMAN (TALK) 16:08, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Hawk's paper is a peer-reviewed scientific article. It is absurd to think that we should not use articles written by Chiropractors on an article about Chiropractic. Would you propose that we not use articles by MD's on a more medical-related wikipedia article? DigitalC (talk) 19:31, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

It was implied that this study had bias conclusions. QuackGuru (talk) 19:33, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

"It was implied" (by whom?)

OOH, weasel words 71.161.198.124 (talk) 01:27, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

New Mexico allows chiropractors to prescribe medications

http://www.nmcpr.state.nm.us/nmac/parts/title16/16.004.0015.htm http://www.rld.state.nm.us/Chiropractic/PDFs/RuleChanges/NMAC%2016.4.15.pdf Refs. QuackGuru (talk) 19:45, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Peculiar tone and phrasing in opening paragraph

"Many studies of treatments used by chiropractors have been conducted, with conflicting results. Collectively, systematic reviews of this research have not demonstrated that spinal manipulation is effective, with the possible exception of treatment of back pain."

This passage is phrased with the apparent intent to discredit the effectiveness of spinal manipulation, however it resolves with the admission that "back pain is a "possible exception" This is akin to a passage in an article about Heart Surgery reading as follows:

"Collectively, systematic reviews of this research have not demonstrated that cardiac surgery is effective, with the possible exception of treatment of heart disease"

Spinal Manipulation is - as a rule - used to treat back pain. Why this is noted as "an exception" in this regard is mystifying to me. 71.161.198.124 (talk) 01:16, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the intent is to discredit it, but to summarize the results of research, which has the effect of discrediting the claims made for it as a cure all for nearly every disease known. The research shows that it might have some effect in the treatment of back pain, but not better than other treatments. In fact, DD Palmer did claim it could cure 100% of diseases. Note that the "opening paragraph" is what's called the lead section, and there are special rules as to what it should contain. It is a summary of the whole article, and it doesn't necessarily have to include any references, since its content must be based on sourced content in the body of the article. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:30, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

That's a patently outrageous claim that the overwhelming majority of chiropractors would not hesitate to dismiss. There's no need to smear the reputation of an entire medical profession based on the absurd claims of a handful of quacks. Using a man who has been dead for nearly a century as an example supposedly representing the modern profession of chiropractics is equally absurd, It's like claiming contemporary psychiatric practice strictly adheres to the ideas advocated by Freud.

Indeed the claim that "it could cure 100% of disease" should rightly be treated as nonsense. But it would be much more appropriate in a "history" or "controversy" section than in the article's lead. Contemporary chiropractics advocates spinal manipulation exclusively for the treatment of back and neck pain, and not to attempt to "cure" other illnesses. Granted you will find a few quacks who may claim they can treat other illnesses, but unfortunately there are crackpots and incompetents in every branch of medicine. On the other hand, if the consensus of research is in fact that Chiropractics is ineffective in treating back pain, than that certainly should be noted in the lead, but it would seem prudent to include several reliable sources for that, as it is a very significant point, and likely to be considered contentious. 71.161.204.87 (talk) 16:58, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I see we are in total agreement about the ridiculous nature of the claims of straight chiropractors, so don't get mad at me, get mad at the straights. Where we might differ is in how many there are and the degree of their influence. They are still very noticeable and their influence is much greater than their numbers, a fact that chiropractic commentators have noted. The profession needs to do something about them, but it can't really be very effective when several straight schools still exist, including Life University, the largest chiropractic school in the world. Many leaders are also straights, which also makes it hard to get rid of this historical baggage that continues to affect the profession. Keep in mind that the profession is still largely made up of older graduates, not those who have recently graduated from non-straight schools. Note that in 2000, Ronald Carter, DC, MA, Past President, Canadian Chiropractic Association, wrote that belief in subluxations was killing the profession: Subluxation - The Silent Killer. Things have changed a bit since then, but not enough. It is very telling that we have to link to the NLM website for this article, because the CCA removed it from JACA, but not the commentaries and heated letters against it. I have repeatedly requested them to restore the article, but they won't do it. That's very odd behavior. Why the censorship? -- Brangifer (talk) 02:29, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Lead changes

Changes were made to the lead that does not summarise the article. See WP:LEAD. I would like to gain talk page consensus to restore the lead. QuackGuru (talk) 19:38, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Consensus would be required to make such changes in the first placem so I have restored the previous NPOV lead that was developed according to the guidelines at WP:LEAD. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:16, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I've inserted the word 'alternative' in the lead, seeing as the infobox and the rest of the article is quite clear that it's not a mainstream discipline. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 14:28, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

There is a sentence in the lead that says "It is generally categorized as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM),[2] a characterization that many chiropractors reject.[3]" Inserted the word 'alternative' in the lead was duplication. QuackGuru (talk) 18:01, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Not necessarily - I feel that we're not giving enough weight to the fact that it's not real science. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 19:24, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Chase me..., I suspect you forgot "not" in "that it's [not] a mainstream discipline". -- Brangifer (talk) 05:35, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks :-) *blushes* 16:28, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

The lead says "It is generally categorized as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM),[2] a characterization that many chiropractors reject.[3]" Inserted the word 'alternative' in the lead was duplication.

Not necessarily - I feel that we're not giving enough weight to the fact that it's not real science.

You did not explain how it is "Not necessarily" duplication. You think "that we're not giving enough weight to the fact that it's not real science." Whether or not it is not real science is a separate issue and irrelevant to this discussion. The word alternative and not real science are different topics. An unattributed opinion is a violation of WP:ASF. See WP:ASF: "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves. By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." When there is a serious dispute it is considered an opinion according to ASF. QuackGuru (talk) 18:23, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I fixed the attribution problem and reworded it to avoid wordiness. The first mention is appropriate for the summary description in the first sentence. The next mention deals with documenting the categorization fact and also that many chiropractors reject it. That should take care of it. -- Brangifer (talk) 22:40, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

No, you did not fix the attribution problem and you reworded another sentence is irrelevant to the attribution problem. The first mention is clealry not appropriate for the summary description in the first sentence. It is still an unattributed opinion that is a violation of WP:ASF. Instead of improving the article, the edit made things much worse. This edit did not remove the duplication. Chiropractic is a complementary and alternative[1][neutrality is disputed] health care is an unattributed opinion. I made this change because the sentence violates ASF and the other reworded is not neutral in tone. QuackGuru (talk) 01:30, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

It's attributed to the chiropractic source, Chapman-Smith. Don't you know who he is? He's the next-to-the-top dog in the profession. It's his statement. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:44, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

It is still a violation of ASF. The text is referenced to the source but it is not in-text attributed. The text is asserted as fact without in-text attribution. The opinion is asserted as fact without explanation from other editors. QuackGuru (talk) 01:53, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Since you don't think it's attributed properly, how would you do it? Do you think his name should appear in the text, and not just in the ref? Propose a better wording. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:48, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think this mess to the lead can be fixed with in-text attribution. My proposal is to revert all the non-consensus edits to the lead and I suggested a proposal in another thread that will fix the confusion. QuackGuru (talk) 01:53, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Try a better wording right here. Make a proposal and maybe a consensus wording will emerge.

You aren't a consensus. Your discussing in circles needs to stop. Your one track mind is currently running in two tracks: ASF and WEIGHT. There's more to life than that. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:59, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Do you agree it is a violation of ASF?

There was not a problem with the previous consensus version. The recent bold changes are against ASF and WEIGHT. Please explain how an unntributed opinion is not a violation of ASF. My proposal is to revert all the recent changes. I don't see a problem with the previous version but I have pointed out how the non-consensus version does have problems. If editors want to clarify about primary care providers I made a proposal in another thread. QuackGuru (talk) 02:09, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

When discussing ASF with you, I know you have your own peculiar ideas of what that means that are at variance with many other editors' understanding, so I'm not going there. Instead you should demonstrate what you mean right here. If you believe that Chapman-Smith's name has to be visible in the lead, then try to make a proposal here and let's see how it works. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:33, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

No, I do not have peculiar ideas of what ASF means. That is your excuse to ignore my comments. When I discussed ASF you did not respond to my concerns. You have not explained how this unattributed opinion is not a violation of ASF and you did not answer the question whether you think it is a violation of ASF. There was no problem with the previous version so there is no need to make a proposal with non-consensus version. There is still a problem with duplication in the lead. I pointed this out before but it was ignored. I did make a different proposal. The proposal was to revert all the bold changes and clarify the lead with another proposal that you are not interested in commenting on. QuackGuru (talk) 02:45, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

And I have asked you to demonstrate what you mean, since your definition varies from others'. If you mean that Chapman-Smith's name should appear in the lead, then confirm that's what you mean. Is it? That's a very simple question. Just answer the question instead of going in circles. That's known as stonewalling, something you are well-known for doing. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:50, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I previously explained my point of view. I suggested to revert the bold changes that were duplication and against ASF and clarify the matter with a different proposal. QuackGuru (talk) 03:00, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

<- You know good and well that you have been asked to not use links to your previous comments rather than answer questions. That's stonewalling and totally unhelpful. I have already read what you wrote.

You have complained about an ASF issue. Now answer my question: "If you mean that Chapman-Smith's name should appear in the lead, then confirm that's what you mean. Is it?" If you refuse to answer I will report you for stonewalling. Your answer will bring clarity as I can't read your mind. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:09, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Did you address my concerns about duplication. The more that I think about it the more I think the problem cannot be fixed with Chapman-Smith's name appearing in the lead. I have a better idea. That sentence is poorly written and should be fixed by reverting to the long standing consensus version. I have complained about duplication in the lead which was not fixed. The duplication can be fixed by restoring to the previous version. QuackGuru (talk) 03:23, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I'll take your "Chapman-Smith's name appearing in the lead" as an affirmative answer to my question, but next time don't bury it. What version are you proposing going back to? Please provide a diff. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:29, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Did you address my concerns about duplication.

I proposed restoring to the version before this edit without "Chapman-Smith's name appearing in the lead". If we restore to the long standing consensus veersion then we don't need to add attribution to the lead using poorly written sentences. QuackGuru (talk) 03:40, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, to get what you want with the lead without undoing other intervening edits elsewhere, here's the lead paragraph from that time:

• Chiropractic is a health care discipline and profession that emphasizes diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, especially the spine, under the hypothesis that these disorders affect general health via the nervous system. It is generally categorized as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), a characterization that many chiropractors reject. The main chiropractic treatment technique involves manual therapy, including manipulation of the spine, other joints, and soft tissues; treatment also includes exercises and health and lifestyle counseling. Traditional chiropractic assumes that a vertebral subluxation or spinal joint dysfunction interferes with the body's function and its innate intelligence, a vitalistic notion that brings ridicule from mainstream science and medicine.

You could just substitute it. I have no objection. There is only one small edit I made to the lead that would be affected and I can fix it easily. Go for it. It can always be reverted if someone objects. It's still not attributed in the manner you prefer (actually naming the source person in the text, rather than just in the lead), but whatever. Go for it. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:23, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I would of liked my concerns about duplication among other problems be addressed. You can revert your own edit if you like. QuackGuru (talk) 04:30, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I only made that edit because you complained about the attribution. Normally lack of attribution refers to lacking a source, so I provided it. If you just want me to revert my edit from that time, I can do that. I'm not hung up on the matter, but Chase me ladies might not like it if I go too far, so I'll leave his edit, but with the source so it's attributed in the normal manner. Why not write him an email and get him to come here and discuss this? -- Brangifer (talk) 04:37, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

You want to leave his edit but you encouraged me to substitute it the the previous version. You wrote "I have no objection." among other things. QuackGuru (talk) 04:41, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Forget that. I forgot that his edit was there, and I have no problem with it, especially now that it's attributed with the ref. I have stricken that comment of mine to avoid confusion.

I have carried out my change per my comment above. Now I'm out of it and you can discuss this with him. I support that content in its present form. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:45, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Attributed with the ref is irrelvent. Did you address my concerns about duplication yet.

You wanted me to revert his edit and instead you reverted my edit. I partially reverted by restoring the tag. There is still an issue with duplication. QuackGuru (talk) 04:52, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

You wanted me to revert my edit and that's what I did. What I said about "substitute"ing was wrong. I have stricken it so don't mention it again. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:54, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Of course you have no objection if I revert Chase me ladies, the Cavalry but for you it was a different story. QuackGuru (talk) 05:07, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I do have an objection to that. I didn't revert Chase me. I didn't revert back to my edits, but only undid my own edits. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:41, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

You seem to have forgotten about my concerns about duplication. QuackGuru (talk) 04:57, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I see no problem with the "duplication" since it's very minor and deals with two different matters. The first identifies the placement of the profession with one word, right where it needs to be done. The second goes into depth about how many chiropractors feel about the characterization. That's a different matter and probably is too much detail for the lead. If anything, the second mention should be moved into the body of the article, if it isn't already there. That would solve your problem with "duplication" and remove unnecessary discussion from the lead. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:00, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

You don't see a problem with duplication when there is a problem. "It is generally categorized as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), a characterization that many chiropractors reject." This sentence that summarises the body shows a serious dispute and adding the unnatributed opinion 'alternative' to the previous sentence is duplication. QuackGuru (talk) 05:07, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

The word "alternative" is properly sourced to Chapman-Smith in the ref, and that's all that's necessary. If you were being consistent instead of selective, you'd require that the other places he is cited would also mention his name in the text, which would be ridiculous. No, the ref is good enough. The duplication is also fixed by moving the second duplication to the body. Problem solved. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:41, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

"Mainstream health care and governmental organizations such as the World Health Organization consider chiropractic to be complementary and alternative medicine (CAM);[1] and a 2008 study reported that 31% of surveyed chiropractors categorized chiropractic as CAM, 27% as integrated medicine, and 12% as mainstream medicine.[3]" This text is in the body and was summarised in the lead.

This bold change removed text from the lead that summarised the body. Now the lead does not summarise the body because of this odd edit. QuackGuru (talk) 05:15, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

That was the old text before my move. The part that was in the lead (about many chiropractors objecting...) wasn't even in the body, but the rest of the content from that source was, and now it's gathered together very logically. Read it. We can't duplicate every single detail in the lead, and the mention that it's "alternative" in the lead covers the mention in the body, where more detail is allowed. The lead was too clutterd with all that discussion which was inappropriate for a lead. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:41, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I propose restoring to the last NPOV version before all the problem edits began. QuackGuru (talk) 05:30, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

That way you'd get to remove everyone else's edits and preserve only your own. No, that won't do. The duplication problem is solved. I've got other things to do than continually converse with you. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:41, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

This text is from the body: "Mainstream health care and governmental organizations such as the World Health Organization consider chiropractic to be complementary and alternative medicine (CAM);[1] and a 2008 study reported that 31% of surveyed chiropractors categorized chiropractic as CAM, 27% as integrated medicine, and 12% as mainstream medicine.[3]"

This text summarised the body: "It is generally categorized as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), a characterization that many chiropractors reject."

I previously explained how the text deleted from the lead violated WP:LEAD.

BullRangifer agreed to revert his edit but then without consensus deleted the sentence from the lead. QuackGuru (talk) 05:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Summarise Scope of practice

Although chiropractors have many attributes of primary care providers, chiropractic has more of the attributes of a medical specialty like dentistry or podiatry. I propose summarising Chiropractic#Scope of practice in the WP:LEAD. This edit is an unattributed opinion in violation of WP:ASF but this proposal will clarify in the lead that chiropractic is not necessarily a primary health care provider. QuackGuru (talk) 18:41, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

The attribution problem is fixed. -- Brangifer (talk) 22:41, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

The attribtuion problem is not fixed. You have not commented on the above proposal. So far no specific objection was made to the proposal in this thread. QuackGuru (talk) 00:57, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I was only responding to your mention that there was an attribution problem. I fixed it. See my comment above. As to the other part of your statement, no, I didn't comment on it. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:46, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

You asserted that you fixed it when I think you made things much worse. This proposal will fix or clarify the issues in the lead IMHO. QuackGuru (talk) 01:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, let's see what you've got. Just plunk it down here and let's look at it. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:35, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

There is no need to repeat my proposal. QuackGuru (talk) 02:51, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Where is your proposal located and what does it look like? You are supposed to collaborate with other editors, not just refuse to cooperate, refuse to answer questions, stonewall, and generally run discussions into the ground with endless circling. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:55, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

"Although chiropractors have many attributes of primary care providers, chiropractic has more of the attributes of a medical specialty like dentistry or podiatry." This is the proposal you missed. QuackGuru (talk) 03:02, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. It's easier to notice when it's in quotes. Is it going to be used to replace any content in the lead or will it be an addition? -- Brangifer (talk) 03:05, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

It is proposed as an addition to the lead. QuackGuru (talk) 03:25, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Go for it and let's see what it looks like. If it doesn't work we can always revert and you can try in a different manner. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:27, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

That would be a bit bold to make such an edit so soon. QuackGuru (talk) 03:44, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

If anyone doesn't like it they can revert it. It's as simple as that. Go for it. The evidence is right here that I encouraged you to do so, but if there is some other reason you're not doing it, let me know. Do your sanctions forbid you making any edits? You've been making them, so I don't get it. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:01, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I was waiting for Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry to comment in another thread or consider this proposal to fix the confusion in the lead. QuackGuru (talk) 04:06, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

This is a separate addition, not a reversion, so it can be dealt with separately. Just go for it. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:27, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I think this is a related issue to this edit. This proposal may resolve the other issue with the lead. QuackGuru (talk) 04:36, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

<- As long as it doesn't disturb that edit, then maybe you can make your addition without any problem. You answered my query and stated that it was "an addition to the lead", not a replacement. Where are you proposing to place it in the lead? -- Brangifer (talk) 04:52, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't know exactly where. But I thought in the first paragraph somehwere. QuackGuru (talk) 04:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay. When you figure it out let us know. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:01, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Weight violation again

The article says "In 2008 and 2009, chiropractors, including the British Chiropractic Association, used libel lawsuits and threats of lawsuits against their critics.[94]"

This change is a weight violation. QuackGuru (talk) 18:26, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

If there is any problem there, it's probably that the first mentioned sentence is separated from the newer content. Maybe they can be merged and the sourced still used. -- Brangifer (talk) 23:38, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

No, this was dicussed before and it was rejected to have this amount of coverage of this subject. This was a violation of WEIGHT according to past discussion on a similar paragraph. I made this change to the disputed paragraph. The paragraph should not be merged. It should be deleted. QuackGuru (talk) 01:20, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah! I get it now. You finally graduated from chiropractic school and are now engaged in whitewashing. That explains everything. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:42, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

There was no misunderstanding. You have made similar comments like this before. QuackGuru (talk) 03:50, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Nice to see you also have a sense of humor! -- Brangifer (talk) 04:03, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't recall the previous discussion. That may have been the consensus then, but now we can form a new consensus. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:05, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

There are past discussions about similar text. See Talk:Chiropractic/Archive 30#Singh paragraph. QuackGuru (talk) 06:44, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Regardless of past discussions, please remember that WP:Consensus can change. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:16, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

You have not given a reason why the text should remain or be removed. QuackGuru (talk) 19:18, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

And neither have you - citing a policy is all well and good, but you haven't explained why it's undue weight. I must also point out that citing a 9 month old opinion by a single editor doesn't really hold any water as far as providing consensus, nor does it qualify as past discussion. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:28, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

There were a lot more previous discussions on this that were all rejected as against WEIGHT. QuackGuru (talk) 19:33, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

This text has serious WP:WEIGHT and WP:RECENTISM issues; it is way too much detail for Chiropractic about one incident. There have been thousands of prosecutions over chiropractic, many more serious than this one (resulting in significant jail time), and most of this has been chiropractors being the jailed rather than the prosecutors. QuackGuru (talk) 19:33, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh good, and here I was afraid you might just copy and paste the same arguments the other editer made last time... I do happen to agree with you, however, that more than a sentence in the main article is probably excessive (but then I'm completely unfamiliar with the topic, so another editor may point out a reason that it's not undue weight). Rather than just deleting it however, the new sources should be used to update the paragraph about the event in the Chiropractic controversy and criticism article, since it still states that "the suit is ongoing". VernoWhitney (talk) 19:43, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

The content should be deleted from this article first and then anyone is free to update the controversy article. A quick check of the archives will show past discussion on this topic. For example, see Talk:Chiropractic/Archive 29#Simon Singh to put chiropractic on trial in UK. QuackGuru (talk) 19:50, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I made this change to the case. QuackGuru (talk) 20:05, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Looks good to me, I can now support the removal of that paragraph from this article without hesitation. Others (e.g., BullRangifer) may disagree, but I get the feeling that's a common occurrence around here. Cheers! VernoWhitney (talk) 20:09, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I'll defer to Chase me ladies. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:40, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I would have to agree that it smacks of recentism, and is a weight violation. It should be covered, but we probably don't need more than a sentence about it. DigitalC (talk) 03:46, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Failed verification

Attorney David Chapman-Smith, Secretary-General of the World Federation of Chiropractic, has stated that "subluxations are not structural entities and cannot be detected on x‑ray."[35]

I was unable to find this quote in the book. Thus, it failed verification. QuackGuru (talk) 02:17, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

No, you just weren't able to find it. A simple search would have confirmed it's in the book. Even when we can't access a book, that doesn't mean it's not there. It was there when the edit was made, and I doubt that it's been removed. You need to be creative! Here are a couple chiropractic sources that affirm it's there:

• http://www.wcanews.com/archives/2003/oct1503a2.htm

• http://www.worldchiropracticalliance.org/tcj/2000/mar/mar2000d.htm

Brangifer (talk) 02:47, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Did you know I have a copy of the book. I think we both know what is verified and what is not verified. QuackGuru (talk) 02:53, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea whether or not you have a copy. If you have a copy, please explain why you started this specious thread. Are you baiting me?

I don't know what you mean by "what is verified and what is not verified". Please explain and be specific. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:58, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Please respond to my comments. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:30, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I started this thread because I have a concern with the text. That was it. See WP:V.

David Chapman-Smith (2000). The Chiropractic Profession: Its Education, Practice, Research and Future Directions. NCMIC Group. p. 160. ISBN 1-89273-402-8.

If other editors want to contribute to this discussion I suggest getting a copy of the book and try to verify the text in quotation marks. QuackGuru (talk) 03:48, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

You explicitly stated that you were "unable to find this quote in the book. Thus, it failed verification." What's the problem? Can't you find it? Don't you believe it's in there? Don't you believe what the World Chiropractic Alliance says when it complains to the Word Federation of Chiropractic, discusses that book and cites that exact quote? Maybe the quote isn't being quoted exactly. Is that what you're saying? If you are complaining, then you need to help us understand the problem. You've got the book, what does it really say? -- Brangifer (talk) 03:58, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I just wanted to explain I could not verify the text. I'll leave it up to other editors to decide if the text in quotation marks should stand or be rewritten. QuackGuru (talk) 04:09, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay. Then there's really no problem and it can just remain. It's not always easy to read a complete book and spot an exact detail others have read. Let's move on. Thread closed. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:29, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

What is in the book may not be the same from the websites. I would like it if someone else would get a copy of the book and try to verify the quote along with the page number. QuackGuru (talk) 05:11, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I wonder why you are so concerned? Don't you believe that Chapman-Smith would say such a thing? Keep in mind he's a lawyer, not a chiropractor, so he doesn't have the exact same POV as the straights and he no doubt has more common sense than they do, so the statement seems pretty consistent for his POV. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:45, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I am concerned because I cannot verify the claim. See WP:V. Did you have a copy of the book. What page is the quote on. I could not verify the exact quotes. Did you add the quotes to the chiropractic article? QuackGuru (talk) 20:51, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Hope you two don't mind me jumping in again. BullRangifer did add the quote, and I don't know if it helps (since I don't have a copy of the book), but here is a webpage which talks about the section it's in, so maybe that will help you narrow down your search area for verifying it. Cheers! VernoWhitney (talk) 21:38, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

What is found on the webpage was not what I could find in the book. I could not find the exact quotes anywhere in the book. QuackGuru (talk) 21:48, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I request the exact page number where the exact quotes appear in the book. A webpage is not the book. QuackGuru (talk) 03:04, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I never said I had the book or a page number (I have neither), but the webpage I mentioned says something about the section in which the quote is allegedly found. I was just trying to help. Now I'll let you two get back to slugging it out. VernoWhitney (talk) 03:27, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I made this change. There is a proposal to replace the source with a MEDRS approved source that I know is verified. See Talk:Chiropractic#Neutral point of view. QuackGuru (talk) 03:51, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I removed the edit as a POINT violation. MEDRS doesn't apply to that quote. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:45, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I could not find the exact quotes in the book. MEDRS does apply to the source. There was past discussion on this to remove this quote too. QuackGuru (talk) 05:05, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

In what way does MEDRS apply? The statement is the opinion of Chapman-Smith. Do you doubt that what he says is correct? Have you become a believer in the existence of chiropractic vertebral subluxations? If you have changed your mind and doubt him and believe in their existence, then this whole exercise of yours is a POINT violation and gaming the system. Why are you pulling our leg? -- Brangifer (talk) 05:26, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

MEDRS applies to this source like any other science material. There are a number of chiropractors who have written a book but there are better sources avaiable that cover the same specfic topic. See WP:MEDRS. Why you removed this. Is it because the exact quotes do not appear on 160. I request what page number the exact quotes appear. QuackGuru (talk) 05:37, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

No, the 160 refers to the total pages. You have the book. Numerous sources confirm it's in the book. Read the book. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:42, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

The edit summary claims The ref provides the page. The page does not verify the claim. I have the book and I read the book. I could not find anywhere in the book the exact quotes. Have you read the book. Can you tell me what page the exact quotes appear. QuackGuru (talk) 05:47, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Your use of a quote from an edit summary that no longer applies is disruptive. When someone drops an argument, move on. All we have established is that you couldn't find the statement. Good bye. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:51, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Since you claim to have read the book, why not provide what he does say on the subject. It's likely quite significant because of his status in the profession. Since you can't find the exact quote, then maybe you can find something else to use from that significant book. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:54, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Why not just attribute it to the review? An article published by the World Chiropractic Alliance quoted X as saying Y. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:17, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Because the review is unreliable and the review's claim that the statement is from the book could not be verified. QuackGuru (talk) 16:19, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

What makes you think the source is unreliable? DigitalC (talk) 00:16, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

You did not explain how the source is reliable. No editor was able to give a page number for the text. The webpage does not claim the text is a quote from the book because it is not in quotation marks. The webpages think they are is paraphrasing the book. The chiropractic article is plagiarising the webpages without proper attribution. I already did explain why I think the source is unreliable. No specific response was made to my previous argument. The statement is not the opinion of Chapman-Smith when the exact words were not found in the book. QuackGuru (talk) 01:18, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Neutral point of view

Chiropractic is a health care discipline and profession that emphasizes diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, especially the spine, under the hypothesis that these disorders affect general health via the nervous system.[1]

This two sentence proposal below, among other things, is to go after the first sentence in the lead.

"It is generally categorized as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), a characterization that many chiropractors reject. Although chiropractors have many attributes of primary care providers, chiropractic has more of the attributes of a medical specialty like dentistry or podiatry."

This proposal is to remove the word alternative and add the two sentences above to the lead while reverting this edit and this edit, revert this edit, remove the weight violation from History and controversy, and reverting this unsourced edit.

An unattributed opinion is a violation of WP:ASF. See WP:ASF: "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves. By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." When there is a serious dispute it is considered an opinion according to ASF. To fix the problem I propose to add the two sentences which clarifies the health care discipline. We should explain the serious dispute rather than asserting it is an "alternative" health care as fact. Summarising the body is in accordance with WP:LEAD. The word alternative is not a good summary of the body.

Editorial note (16:30, 23 April 2010): ASF policy no longer exists. The elimination of ASF policy was fully supported by BullRangifer. I assume BullRangifer and other editors prefer WP:IAR.

There was no misunderstanding on my part. BullRangifer, you have made similar comments like this in the past. The Singh paragraph has serious WP:WEIGHT and WP:RECENTISM issues; it is way too much detail for Chiropractic about one incident. There have been thousands of prosecutions over chiropractic, many more serious than this one (resulting in significant jail time), and most of this has been chiropractors being the jailed rather than the prosecutors. BullRangifer agreed to revert his edit but then without consensus deleted the sentence from the lead which went against summarising the body.

For Chiropractic#Vertebral subluxation.

Replace this WP:MEDRS violation less reliable source: Attorney David Chapman-Smith, Secretary-General of the World Federation of Chiropractic, has stated that "subluxations are not structural entities and cannot be detected on x‑ray."[34]

With this MEDRS source: The 2008 book Trick or Treatment states "X-rays can reveal neither the subluxations nor the innate intelligence associated with chiropractic philosophy, because they do not exist." QuackGuru (talk) 03:41, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

• Keep Chapman-Smith quote. I think we should keep the Chapman-Smith quote for the obvious reason that when the second-in-command of the profession states it, it can't be argued against as the mere opinion of skeptics. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:40, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Chapman-Smith is not considered an expert researcher on the topic. The book Trick or Treatment is written by experts on the subject in accordance with MEDRS policy. QuackGuru (talk) 05:02, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Chapman-Smith, as Secretary General for the World Federation of Chiropractic, speaks for that organization and his POV on the subject is a significant chiropractic POV. That's good enough. The only ones who would disagree with him are straight chiropractors and apparently you. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:28, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

The book written by Chapman-Smith is very poorly written by a non-expert. I requested the page number to verify the claim but BullRangifer was unable to provide the exact page number where the exact quotes appear in the book. QuackGuru (talk) 16:15, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

The best source for a statement that you can't see these hypothesised entities by X-ray would be a review published in a mainstream peer-reviewed journal. If you want to cite an additional source from a chiropractic journal agreeing with the main source, that would cover the point even more comprehensively. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:37, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

That's true, but it's pretty hard to prove a negative. The argument of silence is rather compelling in this case. Such evidence that they do exist (especially in practically everybody) is lacking. The WHO statement makes it clear that they are different from real subluxations and aren't necessarily visible on x-ray, and a chiropractic source I added also states there's a difference. The chiropractic concept of subluxation refers to more than anatomy, but to metaphysical concepts that aren't visible on x-ray. The interesting thing about adding significant chiropractic sources like the Chapman-Smith source is that even the most adamant true believers in chiropractic can't then claim that the statement must be some skeptical anti-chiro propaganda. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:12, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I would say just keep the Chapman-Smith version. DigitalC (talk) 03:33, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

We made this change to the chiropractic article. We removed duplication from the lead. We added what Chapman-Smith actually wrote, and we removed the weight violation from History and controversy. QuackGuru (talk) 04:38, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Who is "we"? DigitalC (talk) 13:11, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Right. QG, you need to refactor your comment since you bear the full responsibility for those changes. You know there were objections. -- Brangifer (talk) 13:29, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

"We" = QG. QuackGuru (talk) 17:40, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Then use proper English and write "I". You aren't royalty. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:12, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I must be confused when a person asked me the same question again.[31][32] QuackGuru (talk) 04:46, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I have a question for QG. The CS quote contains what looks like a typo: "...that a limp or headache...". Shouldn't that be "than"? I still object to the complete removal of the Singh case. Its removal leaves a sentence that would imply that this has only happened in 2008 and 2009. Other cases exist. The statement that is left behind needs tweaking, using some form of "although" statement. Here's a suggestion that probably needs work: "Although chiropractic has used lawsuits against its competitors and critics (find a couple refs for other cases), a recent libel case against critic and science writer Simon Singh ended with the British Chiropractic Association withdrawing its suit." -- Brangifer (talk) 13:45, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

It looked like a tpyo. Changed that to than. Another part of sentence was included for the libel case to avoid misunderstanding. QuackGuru (talk) 17:40, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. That looks better. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:13, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure about keeping the word "recent" in the sentence. QuackGuru (talk) 04:46, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

You're right. It's probably best to leave that out. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:42, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Prescribe certain medications

Chiropractors are not licensed to write medical prescriptions or perform major surgery in the U.S "but that recently changed when New Mexico became the first state to allow "advanced practice" trained chiropractors the ability to prescribe certain medications.[33][34]"

After deciding which ref is more reliable, the prescribe certain medications part of the text must be written according to the reference provided. QuackGuru (talk) 05:56, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Plagiarism

{{copyvio link}} Inline tag for a possible copyright violation. For now I suggest we tag the sentence.

This is the exact text from the webpages.: In his book, Mr. Chapman‑Smith categorically stated that subluxations are not structural entities and cannot be detected on x‑ray.[35][36] Both webpages do not claim this is an exact quote from the book becuase it is not in quotations marks.

This is the exact text from Wikipedia.: Attorney David Chapman-Smith, Secretary-General of the World Federation of Chiropractic, has stated that "subluxations are not structural entities and cannot be detected on x‑ray." Wikipedia claims this is an exact quote from the book but the exact quotes were never found in the book. The text was originally lifted from the webpage by BullRangifer.

BullRangifer orginally added the text in quotations marks. BullRangifer was unable to provide the exact page number where the exact quotes appear in the book. There is an unverified opinion in Chiropractic#Vertebral subluxation. Why not just attribute it to the review? Because the review is unreliable and the review's claim that the statement is from the book could not be verified. See Wikipedia's verifiability policy. The text was lifted from the webpage but the text is not a quote from the book. This is putting words in David Chapman-Smith mouth. Both webpages[37][38] do not claim this is a quote from the book because the text from both webpages are not in quotations marks. The webpages seem to be paraphrasing there personal interperation of David Chapman-Smith's book. This is being mis-attributed to David Chapman-Smith when the text could not be found in the book. The text is the interpertation of the webpages not a quote from the book. The claim that this is a direct quote from David Chapman-Smith is incorrect. See WP:PLAGIARISM. QuackGuru (talk) 17:17, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Summary

Main article: Chiropractic controversy and criticism

Per Wikipedia:Summary style, we need to summarise the criticism article here. Thoughts? QuackGuru (talk) 22:17, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes. My thought is that the criticism article is a poorly written WP:POVFORK. Criticism is spread throughtout this article, and should not be tucked away in one section. DigitalC (talk) 02:22, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

QG is correct. The reasons we have a fork article on that subject are twofold: the subject is so large and such a fundamental element of chiropractic's history that it warrants its own article, and also because including so much material would create an undue weight situation here. It would be best to follow proper procedure and create a section that summarizes the criticism article and links to it. That's standard practice. Using the lead from the criticism article might be a good way to accomplish this. The rest of this article needn't be changed at all. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:34, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I fully disagree. If a criticism section is to be created in the article, then all the criticism that is currently in the article should be moved to that section. You can't have it both ways. DigitalC (talk) 14:49, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

It would be nice if editors would discuss the issue here rather than edit warring to achieve their edits. DigitalC (talk) 21:28, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Summary style#Basic technique. QuackGuru (talk) 07:40, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

POV sentence

In the criticism section, the last line of the first paragraph reads, "Many people believe chiropractic had little more than a placebo effect but there has always been satisfied patients." It's quite clear that "but there has always been satisfied patients" is rather blatant POV. The wording should probably be changed, or even removed entirely, since I don't believe a counterpart is necessary to the sentence with the wording of "believe" anyways. Silverseren^C 21:15, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Every POV statement should be balanced. It is clear that "many people believe chiropractic had little more than a placebo effect" is a POV statement. Remember, that per NPOV "It requires that all majority views and significant minority views be presented fairly, in a disinterested tone, and in rough proportion to their prevalence within the source material" By removing the countering POV, wikipedia would be endorsing the view that it is simple placebo. DigitalC (talk) 21:33, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Further, that sentence seems to be a rather poor summary of the effectiveness section. What is in the lead regarding effectiveness comes off as MUCH less POV - "Many studies of treatments used by chiropractors have been conducted, with conflicting results. Collectively, systematic reviews of this research have not demonstrated that spinal manipulation is effective, with the possible exception of treatment of back pain." And even THAT is a POV statement, because it is the view of a major critic of chiropractic, and neglects the fact that other studies have found SM to be effective for the treatment of midback pain, neck pain, and headaches. DigitalC (talk) 21:40, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not talking about the statement being POV as whether it i a viewpoint or not, i'm saying that "always been satisfied patient" is POV in and of itself, no matter where you find the sentence on Wikipedia. The word "always" is wrong in and of itself, since it cannot possibly be true. I'm saying there is a problem with the wording, not the factual accuracy of the statement. Silverseren^C 22:24, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

The sentence can be rewritten. For now I added a tag. QuackGuru (talk) 02:26, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand, the sentence was not a concise summary of the criticism article. So I removed it. QuackGuru (talk) 22:51, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Great chiropractic story

I was working on other stuff when I came across the Karyn Marshall story -- a weightlifter who, while training for competitive weightlifting events, was a patient of chiropractors, and their work helped her get in shape, deal with pain, train, become stronger -- successfully, since she became the womens' weightlifting champion of 1987, and has won numerous awards. Then, because she believed in the efficacy of chiropractic therapy, she became a chiropractor herself, and practices presently. There are numerous references (Sports Illustrated, LA Times, chiropractic journals) on her WP page. Plus I think she still competes in contests. I recommend chiropractors become more familiar with her story and include it in this article. How many chiropractic patients win world championships and then become chiropractors themselves?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 04:08, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually there are other articles of that type here. Franco Columbu is one. Take a look here: Category:American chiropractors. She should be placed in that category, but not in this article. This article isn't about individual chiropractors, with the exception of the Palmers and few others who are mentioned, but have their own articles. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:47, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for pointer to Franco Columbu. I added references there too. I'm neither a chiropractor nor bodybuilder but the whole bodybuilding–chiropractic connection I think deserves fuller treatment, that's all, particularly when both Franco Columbu and Karyn Marshall benefitted from chiropractic therapy, went on to become champions (Mr. Olympia; Marshall = strongest woman in world in 1987) and then chiropractors themselves. Seems like this stuff is good material which will improve your already excellent article here.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:03, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

The additional stuff you want to include in this article is not notable and is a bit promotional. QuackGuru (talk) 22:00, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree that it's "not notable" -- when athletes win world competitions, or star in movies, it's notable -- there are Wikipedia articles on both Karyn Marshall and Franco Columbu -- and when top athletes chose to become chiropractors, I think it's highly notable. Both Karyn and Franco have numerous references in respectable publications. Overall, I think it's interesting that they've chosen these fields, and I think it's important to the discipline of chiropractic; it's a good story. I think if this were a magazine or newspaper, any editor would say, of course, include them in; it's interesting and highly notable.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 01:17, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

There's a difference between "notable" and "significant". Notability is the criterion for a subject to merit its own article. Marshall and Columbu are both considered notable enough to merit an article, and their involvement in chiropractic is considered significant enough to merit mention in those articles, but the fact that a particular person who is well-known for something else uses or practises chiropractic is not particularly significant in the context of an article about chiropractic. It's really no more than an appeal to authority, such as is often used in the promotion of "alternative" therapies. A prominent homoeopath, for example, has written an entire book about famous people who may have used or promoted homoeopathy. Brunton (talk) 11:07, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Again I respectfully disagree. In Marshall's case, chiropractic was tied up with her successes; Marshall underwent chiropractic therapy when in training, which helped her become the strongest woman in the world in 1987. If she hadn't done the chiropractic, she (arguably) wouldn't have won. She believed in chiropractic enough to become a chiropractor. Something similar probably happened to Columbu. For me, as a hobbyist writer, these precious details are like gold in any kind of story, and that people would consider burying these great nuggests suggests there is some kind of anti-chiropractic agenda (POV) at work here.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:04, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately you cannot validly come to a conclusion like that from this sort of anecdotal account, because there is no way of knowing what the results would have been if they hadn't used chiropractic. Perhaps they would have done even better without it; there's simply no way we can know, because we have no information about what would have happened if they hadn't used chiropractic. It might look like a nice narrative, but it has no value as evidence. Wikipedia is about providing a verifiable account of a subject, not "any kind of story". Brunton (talk) 13:26, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I believe chiropractic helped both Karyn Marshall and Franco Columbu become world-class competitors. I think they believe that too. And I think most reasonable people would agree that this wasn't just a coincidence or anecdote, that is, I think the mainstream view would be that these two competitors excelled in part with the help of chiropractic. There is solid evidence to support this position not only in the form of their awards and careers, but with solid secondary sources. Is this a matter of formal Aristotelian beyond-a-doubt logic? Of course not, but very little in Wikipedia is, or even within life, and I think if you applied your own test to everything you do here on Wikipedia, very little of it would withstand such scrutiny. Rather, this is a correlation, but a strong one, and I think it bears inclusion. So my sense is you've come to an understanding of what you think "chiropractic" means, and you're essentially imposing this vision on the community and, as a result, perhaps you're hurting your own article here? And I don't think it's "any kind of story" but a great one which most editors would jump at, and I think you're depriving your readers here of valuable information with which they can use to form their own conclusions. But, this is my opinion; I may be wrong; I'm not perfect; this is all I'm going to write about this topic here and I'm not going to watch this page anymore, having said my say. Good luck.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 16:39, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

The mainstream view certainly isn't that, afaik. If you can find reliable sources to the contrary, by all means show them to us, Wikipedia is based on the principal of verifiability. Jefffire (talk) 17:07, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Here are references. There are plenty more on Marshall's Wikipedia page (NY Times, LA Times, Sports Illustrated, etc) Here goes: Marshall in an interview how chiropractic helped her weightlifting. Marshall said: "As my athletic career winds down, I realize I want to pursue my passion: to help others with their ability to reach their potential. Chiropractic certainly helped me in reaching my athletic potential." Karyn began to see firsthand what chiropractic and a dedicated doctor could accomplish in the athletic and health arenas. "I found my chiropractor to be the most importnat health professional in my athletic career." Source = article "A Lift for Chiropractic" Another quote, this one in the American Chiropractic Journal, June 1992, (see page 36:) "... Ms. Marshall attributes much of her weightlifting success to chiropractic because it steered her away from painkillers and towards drug-free and non-surgical forms of treatment and prevention." Marshall was the first woman in weightlifting history to clean and jerk more than 300 pounds... --Tomwsulcer (talk) 10:52, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

However well referenced it is, we're still just looking at an anecdotal account which demonstrates little if anything beyond the fact that a chiropractor, who is also a weightlifter, believes that chiropractic has value. Brunton (talk) 12:31, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Well put. It doesn't rise to the level of notability for the profession that warrents inclusion here. It's a nice anecdote. That's all. I'm really surprised this thread has continued as long as it has. It's time to start on other subjects. This one's dead in the water as far as this article is concerned. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:50, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

References

GCC position on vertebral subluxation complex

The GCC has issued guidance for chiropractors in the UK stating that the chiropractic vertebral subluxation complex "is not supported by any clinical research evidence that would allow claims to be made that it is the cause of disease or health concerns." This presumably should be incorporated into the "Vertebral subluxation" section of the article. Brunton (talk) 07:07, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Done. QuackGuru (talk) 22:00, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Scope of practice

The examples and perspective in this section deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve Scope of practice and discuss the issue on the talk page if you have any suggetions. QuackGuru (talk) 22:00, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Safety

The article repeats several times the assertion that chiropractic is "generally" safe, and that adverse incidents are "rare". The main source for this seems to be the WHO guidelines document, but this document cannot be regarded as neutral and thus reliable: its authors are overwhelmingly chiropractors.

Other sources such as "Deaths after chiropractic: a review of published cases" (E Ernst, Int J Clinical Practice July 2010, vol 64, issue 8, 1162-1165) consider whether reliable information is available on the safety of chiropractic and conclude that it isn't.

So to say that chiropractic is "generally safe" is not NPOV. The safety of chiropractic is disputed.

212.13.197.229 (talk) 16:57, 18 June 2010 (UTC) Ijackson

--The statement "Following chiropractic spinal manipulation numerous deaths occured; the risks by far surpass its benefit." in the 1st paragraph seems to be inappropriate (that is, not neutral). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.118.165.74 (talk) 14:26, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

"Conclusion: Numerous deaths have occurred after chiropractic manipulations. The risks of this treatment by far outweigh its benefit." The text is faithful to the source and balances the previous sentence. QuackGuru (talk) 17:49, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

"Death has occurred following chiropractic spinal manipulation; the risks by far surpass its benefit."[23] I simplified the sentence. QuackGuru (talk) 18:03, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

The Sustainability of Chiropractic

The Sustainability of Chiropractic By Greg Stanley

This article, from a RS, as far as chiropractic is concerned, has a number of interesting points that could be included in the article. Only 7% of the population is being reached by chiropractic. This is a drop from previous figures. Also "...the student loan default rate in chiropractic is twice as high as all other health care disciplines combined." It also speaks of the future of the profession, and the expected future for individual chiropractors:

I believe the current flow of DCs into the marketplace is unsustainable. In time, we'll see the price of an adjustment fall to levels that won't support free-standing offices. In my consulting practice, we get calls each day from doctors practicing in the living room of their mother's mobile home, wanting to know if we have a consulting program that can save them. Currently, the student loan default rate in chiropractic is twice as high as all other health care disciplines combined.

As I mentioned earlier, something has to give. I see three possible solutions:

1.Greatly limit the number of new DCs being licensed. Control the supply (unpopular with schools). 2.Soften the message and rebuild the image of the profession (hard to enforce). 3.Reposition chiropractic to a secondary position in another business such as massage, anti-aging, etc. (hard to swallow). Statistics indicate we've already hit the displacement point in the profession; that is, we lose a practicing DC for every one we add. Yes, we're only reaching 7 percent of the health care market, but unfortunately, that's all our message appeals to as is now presented. And let's face it, we've had plenty of time to see if this percentage would grow - and it hasn't.

Brangifer (talk) 05:22, 9 July 2010 (UTC)