Another View: Chiropractic board does protect patients

The California Chiropractic Association is outraged over The Bee's editorial, which asks patients to boycott the chiropractic profession until the state Board of Chiropractic Examiners is "cleaned up."

For a newspaper to incite fear of a profession, any profession, is reprehensible. This is especially true when volumes of independent studies provide conclusive evidence that chiropractic care leads to better health outcomes, higher patient satisfaction and lower costs compared to traditional health care. Doctors of chiropractic are licensed primary care doctors. They treat patients without the use of drugs or surgeries. They practice a holistic approach to treatment based on prevention, wellness care, nutrition, exercise, rehabilitation and ergonomics. By calling on patients to forgo chiropractic care, it is clear The Bee has no understanding of the dramatic, life-improving impacts it can provide.

Much of The Bee's news coverage has not accurately portrayed the profession or the board. It is outrageously irresponsible for The Bee to use a few isolated cases to call for a boycott of the chiropractic profession without any evidence of widespread problems. The news articles seem to cherry-pick bad examples to reach a predetermined conclusion that the board is lenient when it comes to enforcement. In reality, even if there has been a reduction in enforcement activity, it cannot be attributed to members of the board, as alleged by The Bee, since board members don't determine which cases are prosecuted.

Although mistakes have been made in the past, current members of the board have taken decisive action to create an infrastructure that fulfills its mission to protect the public, which our organization supports. For example, the board:

• Terminated the executive officer who oversaw all board activity, including enforcement.

• Hired a new executive officer, an experienced Department of Consumer Affairs employee.

• Contracted with Consumer Affairs department for legal services comparable to other licensing boards.

• Created a comprehensive administrative procedure manual to ensure the law is applied fairly.

• Announced plans to revise procedures determining which enforcement cases are prosecuted.

Ironically, the Legislature recently cut in half the board's funding, leaving it unable to function at all sometime next year. Instead of asking readers to threaten their doctor of chiropractic, perhaps The Bee should be urging lawmakers to restore funding to the board so that it can do the job it was created to do.

About the writer:

• Dr. Bill Updyke, president of the California Chiropractic Association, is responding to Dec. 6 editorial "Attitude adjustment / Can patients change chiropractic board?"