Well, it shouldn’t. Chiropractic “education” still centers on subluxations http://www.chirocolleges.org/paradigm_scope_practice.html Look at item 4. Also, read their “definition” of subluxation and tell me how it compares to the original definition of a bone out of place. You see, when their original description was shown to be invalid- they simply re-defined it.

Also, a survey by chiros shows that 88% believe in subluxations http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B75KC-4F1H9GS-5&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=754fe88415cd702aa52be6484f7005b8

You might think this is encouraging that 12% do not; but you’d be wrong. Most of them simply use a different term such as dysfunction or lesion (someone has compiled a list of 300 alternatives). In the end, those who realize that the subluxation is a fairy-tale are very few, and much reviled by the others in the business.

That is the chiro way- redefine and rename the 19th century claims and carry on as usual.

So, if you find a chiro who really does not have a subluxation-based practice, what should you expect? Well, they claim to be able to substitute for a PT; but they lack the formal education. How many of them do imagine are competent as such? Sure, they learn “conversational medicine” so they can dance around you with terminology; why not simply go to a PT and take out the guess-work?

In contrast, I can think of few (one) example from CAM where dissent was expressed from within the field. To me that says that everyone in CAM is afraid to throw stones lest their glass houses all come crashing down. The one case that comes to mind is the takedown of subluxations in chiropractic by chiropractors (see http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=3022). This study actual made me more inclined to see a chiropractor.

Medical researchers don’t use double-blind studies because those are the scientific “rules”, dictated from on high by the scientific elite. They use double-blind studies because that eliminates the possibility of bias. If the researcher doesn’t know which patients got which treatment, the researcher can’t use that information to bias their observations, consciously or subconsciously.

You can do “science” without double blind studies, however what ever studies you do that are not double blind, you cannot eliminate the possibility of bias, either on the part of patients or researchers. Your conclusions will always be unable to eliminate the possibility that the effect is due to some sort of bias. You can reduce that possibility by using instrumental measures, blood tests, tests that produce results independent of human subjectivity, but the possibility of some sort of unknown bias, mind-body thing, or even supernatural non-physical healing powers on the part of the researcher, cannot be eliminated.

I am not suggesting that any researchers actually do have supernatural non-physical healing powers, but the possibility that such powers are causing a differential healing effect can be eliminated in a double blind study because the researchers don’t know which individuals to apply those healing powers to.

The purpose of medical research is to produce treatments that are generalizable, that is treatments that essentially any clinician can apply. Unless clinical trials are done under conditions where the interactions of the clinicians are known and controlled, the possibility of the treatment “working” because of supernatural healing powers on the part of the clinician can’t be eliminated. That makes any treatment developed non-generalizable.

CAM promoters want to have it both ways, they want to put the trappings of science on their non-blinded studies and claim that the outcomes are non-magical, but then pretend that the non-blinded clinician played no role in the outcome other than as an inert automaton going through the (magical) motions.