Should chiropractic and naturopathy be banned?

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Robin des Bois

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Since these two professions are based on quackery, do you think they should be considered as illegal practice of medicine?

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Why not ban DO on the basis they use "osteopathic" techniques while we are at it. Or how about psychologist because they can't even prescribe medications. Give me a break.
 
Why not ban DO on the basis they use "osteopathic" techniques while we are at it. Or how about psychologist because they can't even prescribe medications. Give me a break.

Health professionals should use a science-based approach.
DOs learn OMM on top of EBM (evidence-based medicine), but I would like to see scientific studies being conducted on OMM.
Psychologists use a sciene-based approach, and where I live, psychiatrists don't have much time for you.
 
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No. The government has no right to pass judgment on what constitutes valid medicine vs. quackery, and empowering it to do so opens the door for be bureaucrats to render decisions based on conflicts of interest rather than good science. There government has already deemed into existence an entire medical specialty whose practices are mostly pseudoscience.
 
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The government shouldn't ban anything two consenting adults want to do...

Remember a round earth was once quackery
 
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Health professionals should use a science-based approach.
DOs learn OMM on top of EBM (evidence-based medicine), but I would like to see scientific studies being conducted on OMM.
Psychologists use a sciene-based approach, and where I live, psychiatrists don't have much time for you.

Psychologists use a statistics-based approach. My psychology professors explained it thus: "We don't have hard science. There are few objective tests to verify our assertions. Rather, we have probabilities and statistical trends. Ours is an art which we justify with numbers, not a science. Send the same patient to ten psychologists for thorough evaluations and get ten different diagnoses and treatment plans."

As for chiropractic and naturopathy... I don't think that they should be banned, but they ought not to be legitimized either. If you outright ban them, their practitioners and the credulous public will be sure that you are trying to keep secrets from them for nefarious reasons. Let them do their thing, but don't refer your patients to them. Educate your patients on the rationale behind your recommendations and on the risks of alternative medicine, and then accept that they have the right to seek out bad advice if they want it.
 
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It's interesting that chiropractic is accused for being based on "quackery"...allopathic medicine was also founded on obscure procedures (blood letting, mercury ingestion, heroin was produced by Bayer who also make aspirin..Bayer used to be named IG Farben who sponsored Nazi camps, etc..) and even today many allopathic practices will be considered absurd in the future. I do acknowledge that chiro history is nothing to be excited about and their are issues still being dealt with today. I am extremely grateful for modern medicine, but lets not pretend that the medical model today is perfection and that there is no quack historical foundation. Other than the curing infectious diseases and acute illnesses(which is awesome)...what has medication cured? Why are we one of the most unhealthy populations in the world? Why is heart disease (very preventable) our number one killer in America?
 
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Since these two professions are based on quackery, do you think they should be considered as illegal practice of medicine?

The government should not have the power to decide what's quackery and what's legitimate. The consequence of empowering it to do so is that it suppresses legitimate practice well as quackery. In order for legitimate practice to flourish, people have to be free to decide for themselves what kind of provider or therapy they want to try.
 
Nothing should be banned for adults...buyer beware, be a grown up and make your own decisions
 
Ban MD, then we only have quack medicine and all the whole foods shoppers will be happy.
 
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