It s been a splendid week for those who are averse to evidence-based medicine. This week alone, we wrote about a Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, who thinks that cancer is caused by a fungus, and can be cured by baking soda.
This made our job today especially difficult. We were faced with a nearly-impossible task picking the winner of our Worst advice of the week feature. It came down to three choices:
1. Ms. Fiore s incisive thoughts
2. A home security webinar by Charles Manson
3. Vaccine advice from chiropractors
It was neck and neck for awhile, but in the end, we decided that Fiore s comments were crazy enough to not even attract the attention of the doozies who normally go for that sort of thing, and Charlie s influence isn t what it used to be, so we decided to inject ourselves into the chiropractor controversy.
While the chiropractors will never begin to approach the level of Nevada idiocy, they can actually do more damage. As the damage caused by anti-vaxxers continues to add up, the very last thing we need is a lobbying group to derail an effort that appears to be (finally) making some headway.
This was almost inevitable. Because, out of ten chiropractors, roughly eleven of them will be anti-vaccine.
So, it is not surprising that the California Chiropractic Association is subluxing its muscles in the political arena. The group is among several that are lobbying against a new law that would end personal-belief exemptions for vaccines. Shocking!
Fortunately, there is some evidence of sanity surrounding this issue. It comes from state senators Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) and Ben Allen (D-Los Angeles). They are sponsoring the law, which would negate a policy that has allowed parents, for no particular reason, to skirt the vaccine requirements for their children.
This is not Pan s first attempt to deal with this nonsense. He proposed a 2012 law that permitted parents to forego vaccinations for their children, provided they presented a statement that acknowledged that they had received information about the risks and benefits of vaccines from a healthcare provider. Gov. Jerry Brown signed it into law, but carved out an exception for those seeking a waiver due to their religious beliefs a cop out if ever there were one.
Vaccine expert, and ACSH trustee Dr. Paul Offit has deals with this issue regularly. His standard response is to ask: Where in the Old Testament, New Testament or Qu'ran does it say you shouldn't be vaccinated?
Speaking for the the California Chiropractic Association, President Brian Stenzler said, "Chiropractors themselves choose to become chiropractors because they like to live a more natural lifestyle, free of drugs and surgery when possible."
ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom, who has been gulping down Valiums just to get through writing this piece says, I think that this natural lifestyle stuff is a bit overrated. Go back about 10,000 years, and the natural lifestyle meant that, if you were lucky, you lived to age 30, and then something ate you.
He continues, By all means, let s do away with drugs too! Because anyone with half a brain knows that civilization was far better off before polio and smallpox vaccines, antibiotics, and insulin. When you toss in the absence of Pez in the daily diet, it would seem that life back then was one day or misery after another. Sort of like living in California at the moment.