Will the Real ACA please stand up?
I have a confession to make.
I was once a member of the ACA.
Yes, I said it and it feels good to get that off my chest.
I still feel dirty from those days and have been actively trying to make amends for years.
One day, with the support of my fellow colleagues, perhaps I will have made up for my sin.
All kidding aside, I was an American Chiropractic Association member. It was presented as the only option and it sounded reasonable as a young student at LACC.
After all, the ACA wanted to “Save Our Subluxation“, not too long ago. You all remember that don’t you? LOL
Fast forward to the present and one is presented with confusing messages from our largest national chiropractic association.
The ACA is for a Drugless Chiropractic. Really?
Then why was the ACA chairman, Michael Simone, recently offering support in his House of Delegates (HOD) address to those that want to expand the scope to include pharmaceuticals?
This coming just months after ACA president, Keith Overland, made the following statement to the Life University students and faculty.
“Let me make it very clear, the ACA is in that middle center. Our master plan has chiropractic as a drug free profession. So for everyone who says and I have heard this over and over that we are pushing drugs in the profession it is, hearing from the president, it is untrue.”
A bit confusing eh?
Not really when you consider that they have both made false statements in the past. Simone made an outright false statement in his address to the HOD when he stated that he had spoken to the leaders of the Movement for Chiropractic Quality and Integrity who had allegedly been supportive of a tiered and “paired down” education for subluxation centered chiropractors.
That statement is wholly and completely false.
Not only have we never communicated with him, but we have NEVER made such a statement. MCQI has repeatedly called for a scientifically rigorous and relevant chiropractic education.
During the NACIQI comment period of Fall 2011, Overland repeatedly put forth that MCQI and others were seeking delisting of the CCE.
Again, another falsehood.
One that he and the ACA used to scare students into believing their student loans were potentially in jeopardy.
Go here for the official response by MCQI to Dr. Simone’s speech.
So will the Real ACA please stand up?
They already have.
They have filed an Amicus Brief in New Mexico in support of pharmaceuticals and injectables.
They have issued misleading and false propaganda-esque statements to students and the profession.
They look and sound like the West Hartford Group (WHG) because their key leadership are members of that anti-subluxation group.
The WHG is a self-described “think tank” whose members publish rubbish such as this, “There can be no unity between the majority of non-surgical spine specialist chiropractic physicians and the minority of chiropractors who espouse metaphysical, pseudoreligious views of spinal subluxations as “silent killers”. The latter minority group needs to be marginalized from the mainstream majority group, and no longer should unrealistic efforts be made toward unification of these disparate factions within the profession.”
The ACA has shown their true colors.
When the profession will take a stand to correct their actions and/or disengage from involvement with them remains to be seen.
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Steve Tullius, D.C., ACP
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