Chiropractors Attacked For Claim On Spinal Manipulation
The Age
Tuesday July 15, 1997
Doctors, physiotherapists and osteopaths yesterday disputed a claim by chiropractors that they were the only profession qualified to perform spinal manipulation.
The president of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Keith Woollard, said general practitioners were likely to learn about the "appropriateness or otherwise" of techniques such as spinal manipulation in postgraduate training.
It was likely that if GPs wanted to develop that component of their medical practice, they would do further training. Only a minority used the technique.
"The important issue is that spinal manipulation, particularly of the neck, does always carry a risk and there is a need to ensure that it's only done where it's genuinely necessary . . .
"We have had to look after some of the disasters created by chiropractors themselves over the years," Dr Woollard said.
The Chiropractors Association of Australia has renewed a call for the State Government to set minimum standards for spinal manipulation, saying GPs, general physiotherapists and masseurs should not be allowed to perform the technique because they were not qualified.
The secretary of the association, Mr Bruce Scott, had said that few GPs had training in spinal manipulation.
A coroner, Mr Iain West, found last week that a neck manipulation by a GP, Dr Robert NcNeil, was the cause of the death of Ms Tina Gibbons, 28, of Box Hill.
Mr West found a vertebral artery had split in three places when Dr McNeil manipulated Ms Gibbons's neck by moving her head in his hands in 1995. Ms Gibbons died of complications from the split artery.
The coroner recommended that doctors have formal supervised training in spinal manipulation with the Australian College of General Practitioners.
A Ringwood manipulative physiotherapist, Mr Greg Collis-Brown, a tutor in the graduate diploma of manipulative physiotherapy at La Trobe University, said physiotherapists, both general and manipulative, were well educated and skilled at spinal manipulation at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
An East St Kilda osteopath, Mr Stephen Sexton, a member of the Osteopaths Association of Australia (Victoria branch), said the chiropractors association was spreading "grossly incorrect" information to the public by saying chiropractors were the only professionals qualified to perform spinal manipulation.
Mr Sexton said the issue of spinal manipulation was important and it was very poor that the association used the issue as a "mild slight" against other medical professions or as a form of advertising.
© 1997 The Age
