Friday 11 February 2011

Osteomancy (or chiropractic and medical imaging)

I think I spend about half my working life worrying about the potential for, and trying to minimise, the exposure of patients and healthcare practitioners to unnecessary radiation, right down to worries about amounts so small that you might conceivably expect to receive more from cosmic rays while on a transatlantic flight. So when some bright spark put up ads for a local chiropractor on all the office noticeboards showing a picture of him holding an x-ray I experienced a minor apoplexy. I was going to write a lengthy blog post about the ALARP principle and the fact the the spine-wizards freely admit that their magical "subluxations" can't be detected by conventional means, and that they're not required to have genuine medical training and so aren't qualified to detect anything that might counter-indicate their manipulations. But while googling for some references I found that Le Canard Noir had got there first. Damn him!

No comments: