Recently, a film producer compared the chiropractic profession to someone in an abusive relationship.
To paraphrase, he said, “During the course of the making of my film, I was astounded by how large groups of chiropractors contacted me saying, ‘Please don’t make them mad, Jeff.’ ”
The film producer I’m talking about is Jeff Hays. His movie is entitled “Doctored.” And the “them” he was referring to is Political Medicine. “It’s time for chiropractors to stand up and make their own voices heard,” he said in response to a question regarding why the successes of chiropractic have been suppressed and not gotten out to the public.
I can’t tell you how many times I have taken on a new patient who enters into the office with an aura of skepticism and unbelief — only to realize to their chagrin that the ideas surrounding chiropractic, they held so firmly to for decades, were based on fallacy.
Chiropractors have taken a “beating” in the past, so much so that we cower to placate the medical authority.
In 1963, the American Medical Association (AMA) formed, behind closed doors, a “Committee on Quackery” whose prime goal and objective was to “contain and eliminate the profession of chiropractic” — all under the guise of concern for public safety.
Everything they did was very calculated and clandestine. Medical doctors were prohibited from working with chiropractors in any way, shape, or form — lest they be ostracized and risk losing hospital privileges.
Young, impressionable medical students were given “quack packs” telling them “they were killing their patients if they allowed them to go near a doctor of chiropractic … Chiropractors are like puppies,” they were told to say, “cute — but rabid.”
This is just the tip of the iceberg. These covert maneuverings to posture medicine as the authority, destroy chiropractic, and manipulate the minds of an unperceiving public went on for many years before ending up in a lengthy fourteen-year court battle (Wilk v AMA), falling just one court shy of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The verdict: the AMA and cohorts were found guilty. No matter, though. Generations of false public belief and perception about chiropractic were already set in place. And as far Political Medicine was concerned, they just regrouped and learned from their mistakes — so they wouldn’t get caught next time.
Jeff Hays’ movie uses this incredulous and hushed chiropractic history as a backdrop to answer the question of why we are not being told about the successes of, not only chiropractic, but all natural therapies.
“Now we learn about the ‘influencers’ — the people you never see, but whose job it is to turn you into a compliant, pill popping, revenue generation unit. And at all costs,” his website, doctoredthemovie.com, explains.
“‘Doctored’ reveals the unseen tactics of these ‘influencers’ in an investigation that leads to the highest levels of the AMA and reveals an alarming portrait of deception and criminality. Along the way we wonder: Is much of what we ‘know’ about modern medicine just slick marketing from companies that profit when we’re in pain (or by putting us in pain)?… The answers are almost beyond belief.”
As the public clamors for Health Care Reform, may I humbly exhort that it’s time we wake up to a healthy dose of “Health Care Inform.” Join me as I make my chiropractic voice heard with Poulsbo chiropractor, Ryan Smart, to bring about community awareness surrounding this issue. We have rented The Firehouse Theater and will be screening “Doctored” on June 8, 10 a.m. with a short discussion to follow. Tickets are $5 and will be presold at Anchor Chiropractic in Kingston and Life Force Chiropractic in Poulsbo. Proceeds will benefit the Kingston Food Bank.
— Dr. Thomas R. Lamar is a chiropractor at Anchor Chiropractic in the Health Services Center and hosts the Internet radio program SpinalColumnRadio.com. Contact him at (360) 297-8111.
