For those of you who think cancel culture is something new, think again. In 1986, I graduated from what was then known as Life Chiropractic College in Marietta, Georgia. I was young and enthusiastic and eager to use my skills with the knowledge of the body’s innate ability to heal to create health in my community. This was despite the fact that the American Medical Association (AMA) had, in 1963, formed a Committee on Quackery focused almost exclusively on chiropractors.
Then, in 1976, Illinois chiropractor Chester Wilk and four other doctors of chiropractic filled a lawsuit against the AMA charging that the AMA’s discrimination against chiropractors hurt their practices. According to the lawsuit documentation:
The Committee worked diligently to eliminate chiropractic. A primary method to achieve this goal was to make it unethical for medical physicians to professionally associate with chiropractors. Under former Principle 3, it was unethical for medical physicians to associate with
What began in 1963 continued until August 27, 1987, when Judge Susan Getzendanner, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division, found the AMA guilty of having conspired to destroy the profession of chiropractic in the United States. In her 101 page opinion, the judge ruled that the AMA and its co-conspirators had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by organizing a national boycott of doctors of chiropractic by medical physicians and hospitals using an ethics ban on inter-professional cooperation.
Evidence presented during the trial showed how the AMA and other defendants actively, but covertly, tried to undermine chiropractic educational institutions; hide evidence of the uses and benefits of chiropractic care; undercut insurance programs for patients of chiropractors; subvert government inquiries into the efficacy of chiropractic care; and participate in a large scale disinformation campaign to discredit the chiropractic profession — So much for the Hippocratic oath.
While Judge Getzendanner’s verdict shone light on the myriad of immoral and illegal actions of the established medical community, clearly showing the lengths to which they were willing to go to maintain control of public health without consideration for the health of the public, the damage had been done.
Inherent bias had already been embedded in the thinking of the medical community. The brunt of this bias has been borne by patients who could have been treated effectively and painlessly without the use of harmful drugs or invasive surgeries. How many people’s lives have been ruined or lost because of their inability to cope with physical conditions that could have been treated with chiropractic care? Think of the opioid crisis.
Fast forward to March 28, 2020, when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security released an advisory memorandum stating that Doctors of Chiropractic are part of the essential critical infrastructure workforce. The document was a guidance, not a mandate, letting the state and local governments know that they recognized the importance of allowing people to have access to their chiropractors during the pandemic.