Chiropractors are paid by governments and private insurance plans to provide alternative health care to patients of all ages. Why should they be paid if they oppose public health programs such as vaccination programs to control illness and death?

In Canada, one of the worst clashes with the medical establishment was not half-century ago, but in the last three years. A group called the Chiropractic Awareness Council was formed to oppose mandatory vaccination programs, especially in infants and children. Some of their members have stood outside of their local high schools with signs telling students that they didn't need the shots during a severe outbreak of meningococcal meningitis that had already claimed 2 lives.

Others hosted TV talk shows and tried to promote anti-vacccine guests. Others paid for infomercials where they tried to recruit pregnant mothers who would have to pay for the privelege of watching a very poorly done anti-vaccine video from Australia.

Anti-vax chiros on parade

• CCO proposed Immunization Standards of Practice - S-015 - distributed to all Ontario chiropractors for their comments. This is an Adobe .pdf file. Many anti-vaccine chiropractors are really pissed off about this and have initiated a concerted effort to overturn this proposed change to the chiropractic standards of practice.

• Jason and Danella Whittaker - King City, Ontario - search for vaccine

• Newsletter protests CCO regulation of their right to inform patients about the problems with vaccines

• Brian Nantais already investigated by the CCO invites Whittaker to present anti-vacccine seminar

• Martha Collins doesn't like CCO regulation either - Planet Chiro rant. "I, for one, would rather not practice at all, than practice in a profession that is a limp, fearful, and weak replica of its former self. We must carefully look at all of the ramifications of this proposed change because the health and the lives of our patients are in jeopardy."

  "In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." George Orwell

• Jeff Winchester - 1997- Waterloo anti-vaccine chiropractor picketed local high school during meningitis outbreak and told students that the shot was not really necessary. His own billboard said the same thing. His interviews on TV, radio and in the newspapers helped convince Ontario's chief coroner that the time was ripe to pick up the phone and talk to the head of the College of Chiropractors of Ontario. As a result Jeff Winchester was silenced outside his office for a while anyway.

• Jeff Winchester - 1998

• Wellchiro.com - London, Ontario uses outdated information to scare the public. There are four chiropractors at this office including Robert Eidt, Greg Roberts, Tyler Eidt, and Tyson Eidt. I wonder what kind of understanding of epidemiology and public health any of these licensed healthcare professionals have. Why does the Province of Ontario pay these people to spread misinformation in violation of the CCO policies on immunizations?

• Jeff Needham - Sarnia, Ontario This young chiropractor who moved to a small city in Southwestern, Ontario in September 2001 found it hard to tell the truth about vaccines and other innate subjects. His advertising and promotional campaign was so out of line with acceptable chiropractic regulations by the College of Chiropractor of Ontario that even the local chiropractic society held a special meeting about him. Why do we know this?

  Note below that Jeff used to work in London, Ontario and he's still practicing with this anti-vaccine attitude. What does that say about the enforcement of chiropractic regulations and policies by the CCO?

• Jeffrey Needham - London, Ontario - Redirecting the "Misdirected Faith" - from an article posted to the Planet Chiro Web site on December 6, 2000. Marvel at the "free" flu vaccine everyone is taking, as medicine believes an epidemic is lurking. Marvel that your shots won't strengthen your immune system. Marvel that there is no science to support vaccines. Marvel at the million's likely to battle a flu episode even after receiving the vaccine. Marvel that drugs and vaccines don't prevent or eliminate. Marvel that the vaccines you and your children take contain formaldehyde and mercury, two known cancer-causing agents. Marvel that the vaccines for measles, chickenpox and mumps allow children to still battle these ailments anyway. Marvel that they too contain the same cancer-causing agents just as the flu vaccine.
• Tony Hammer's complaint to the CCO - December 2001

  The web site for Needham Chiropractic was removed from the web on December 14, 2001.

  (The statements made by this Ontario chiropractor are not only grounds for an official complaint to the College of Chiropractors of Ontario, they represent a serious endictment of almost all chiropractic theories. This man doesn't know fact from fiction. He says that you have an 8% chance of being injured or dying at the hands of a hospital employee. He repeats unsubstantiated claims about the medical care system. Is he an evangelical prophet or a dangerous messenger of things to come, where chiropractors and naturopaths armed with their bare hands and Vega machines will usurp the position of surgeons, obstetricians and pediatricians in the new age scheme of things? St. Joseph's Hospital will have to close down and be replaced with a twenty story version of Dr. Needham's Miracle Cure Emporia.)

• ChiroSmart.com links to Tim O'Shay - April 10, 2001 This fellow runs his own web site It's dedicated to what he feels is the truth. I beg to differ.

• Ogi Ressel - Three-Ring Circus in Burlington

• Miche Whitney and Elizabeth Anderson-Peacock win awards Does the CCO support this?

• Elizabeth Anderson-Peacock opinion about skull smashing doctors
  Birth is a normal biological process. It does not require management as a disease, but even a seemingly "uneventful" birth is stressful and traumatic for the mother and neonate. Pregnancy and birth have special significance for the chiropractor, as often the mother and child are exposed to harmful routine practices for which scientific investigation is poorly documented, or often not assessed for long-term effects on the fetus and the mother. With respect to the infant, the longer undetected dysfunction is allowed to continue in the developing nervous system and spine, the greater the potential to affect the patient.

  Subluxations are caused by trauma (micro or macro), chemical stress or toxicity and autosuggestion, it is important to evaluate exposure of the infant in these areas.

  In animal science research, equivalent amounts of ultrasound have been shown to cause frank demyelination in rats, cell growth pattern defects, long-term DNA effects and genetic changes.

  Birth history is significant, as demonstrated in a published report which compared types of suicides to birth trauma stress and postulated the effect due to imprinting. Of the adult suicides studied, those individuals who experienced suffocation deaths had a history of birth asphyxiation; those who died through violent mechanical death experienced mechanical birth trauma; and those who experienced drug addiction were associated with mothers who had opiate or barbiturate administration during labor.

  (What in the world is this all about? Autosuggestion, imprinting, violent mechanical deaths? All this caused by the mother, by the doctor, and by the baby? None of it is caused by chiropractors? Hmmm, I wonder how Elizabeth came to this earth? Was she plucked from the sky? Did her parents wish her to be borne? Give me a break folks, this is the 21st Century and these folks are talking about theories of medicine and metaphysisics that went out with the last Salem witch trial, or was it the last Oprah or Larry King show? Beam me up Scotty, I've got to remember to unsquash my head.)

• Colette Szalay - Peterborough, ON - Columnist
  Peterborough This Week column called Health Matters offers advice in this regular column in this community newspaper.
  • Educate yourself before agreeing to vaccination - November 1, 2000
    Measles is a mild disease
    Perhaps it's not wise to vaccinate children
    Vaccines cause SIDS
    Hepatitis B vaccines cause diabetes
    If I had kids they would not be immunized

  • Who's leading who on flu shot's need, effectiveness - February 11, 2004
    This was published after the widely publicized CCO Standard of Practice S-015 was passed that told chiropractors that they might be in trouble if they spoke out about vaccines. How much truth was there in Szalay's remarks?

  • Facts point to a simple truth: Vaccines save lives - February 25, 2004 - rebuttal by columnist George Mitchell.

• Kim Kinat - CAC member from Guelph believes siamese twins can't both catch measles. I think that Kim is ready for the C-Files.

• Mark C. Mitchell - The Record - Kitchener-Waterloo - He's got a million questions, but no answers. The CAC can't get him out of this one.

• Colin Elkin - former Rogers-TV host of Healthline

• Jeffrey Beleutz vs. Patricia Marchuk small-town war zoneThis one you don't want to miss. There are more links to chiropractic sites that will convince you all to move to Quebec where they don't pay for chiropractors at all.

• Katrina Kulhay - infomercial queen
  Brownwyn Hancock's video

• Gerry Bohemier - Winnipeg chiropractor runs the Eagle Foundation
  Chiropractor's campaign raises complaints from doctors, govt. - Medical Post

  Both the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba and the province's ministry of health have sent letters of complaint to the Manitoba Chiropractors Association (MCA) regarding a Winnipeg chiropractor and his campaign against vaccinations for children.

  "We are asking the MCA to investigate Dr. Gerald Bohemier on the grounds that he is practising outside the scope of chiropractic and that he is circulating an anti-vaccination book that contains numerous falsehoods," said Dr. Digby Horne of Manitoba Health. "To us, that constitutes professional misconduct."

  College registrar Dr. Ken Brown said the reaction among doctors to Dr. Bohemier's statements range from disbelief to alarm.

  "He relies heavily on a book by an Australian Dr. Viera Scheibner," Dr. Brown said. "She uses the title 'principal research scientist.' The only mention we can find of her is in relation to research on the effects of caffeine on rats. Her book is not credible."

  The MCA's view, as outlined by executive director Dr. Gerry Clement, is that Dr. Bohemier is expressing his personal opinion based on his own research.

  While the Canadian Chiropractors Association accepts vaccination as an effective and clinically efficient public health prevention procedure for certain viral and microbial diseases, its position is that parents have the right to make informed decisions concerning their children's vaccinations.

  In addition, the MCA passed a resolution in 1991 supporting individuals' rights to select their own health care as long as they are aware of the possible adverse effects of their choices.

  In the meantime, the college and Manitoba Health have begun distributing written information to Manitoba doctors to help them answer patients' questions about vaccinations and potential side effects.

  "We can't ignore Dr. Bohemier just because his claims are incredible," said Dr. Brown.

  (Ed. A search for the Eagle Foundation web site came up with nothing on December 10, 2000. Perhaps the message has gotten through to Bohemier)

  Did Gerald Bohemier use his patient's records for political purposes? - Manitoba Ombudsmen In April 1999, the print media reported that three Winnipeg chiropractors had used personal health information of their patients to send a letter seeking support for a political nominee. The Manitoba Ombudsman's Office commenced an investigation into the matter that these chiropractors may have used and disclosed patients' personal health information contrary to The Personal Health Information Act. This is their report.

  Gerry may sue the government of Manitoba because they don't defend his position on pediatric chiropractic.

  The Fight is On in the Canadian Prairies!

  The Manitoba Chiropractors Association has had all it can stands and it can't stands no more! (Especially nostalgic comment for those of us who grew up with Popeye and Olive, if not just bad grammar). Seems our quiet and reserved colleagues to the north aren't taking any guff from the Manitoba College of Physicians and Surgeons any more.

  According to the Winnipeg Free Press, the suit is "for defamation for articles it says wrongly imply chiropractors overcharge and needlessly extend treatment." The defamation stems from an article published in a College of Physicians and Surgeons journal that was also posted on the Internet that implied "there were a significant number of chiropractors who were incompetent or did not follow competent practices."

  Of particular concern is a comment in a recent report entitled Pediatric Death Review. The review was related to every pediatric death in Manitoba in 1994. While not a single child who died had been under chiropractic care, the second recommendation of the report involved limiting access of children to chiropractic care in Manitoba! MCA spokesman, Dr. Gilbert Bohemier was quoted in the Free Press as saying, "We're just getting fed up with all this stuff. Over 15 percent of the population of Manitoba utilizes chiropractic care...we can't get any where with them in a gentlemanly fashion, so we're going to sue them."

  How in the world did they elect him president of the Manitoba Chiropractic Association?

CMCC move to York U.? Meningitis deaths Ontario chiros Colin Elkin fired Doggie chiro Radio chiro Helpd Tyrell Dueck Chelation racket GHB-GBL deaths Ecstasy deaths St. John's OTC ban GroBust busted Sk cartilage Elk velvet antler Imedeen Triax Dangers Metabolife 20/20 Cellasene Phantasy CCRG losses Len Horowitz exposed Hulda Clark zapped Hyparic Oxy death Another dough boy dies

Major reviews of anti-vaccine chiropractors

• Chiropractors and vaccination - a historical prospective - 8 page .pdf file from Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics - April 2000

Anti-vaccine chiropractors are dangerous

• Is Brad Burke of Arizona City a danger to public health? - Or is he just trying to build his practice? In my opinion his rant against vaccines to a small audience is a prime examples of the delusional belief system of many chiropractors. In this smalltown newspaper, it would seem to me that the editor must also be living under the same delusion. This is one of the worst examples of journalism and of chiropractic anti-vax promotions that I have ever seen.

• Some chiropractic reasons for child abuse in 2010 - Theresa Warner's point of view
  Failure to have a newborn checked for subluxation at birth.
  Children not receiving regular chiropractic check-ups.
  Vaccination.
• Lines drawn over vaccine issue - WCA 1998 For years, chiropractors have been on the side of health care. They knew the best way to boost the human immune system was through subluxation correction. They were champions for the public's right to refuse to let themselves and their families be subjected to unwanted vaccine drugs.
• Vaccinations and Freedom of Choice in Health Care - WCA Position Paper
  Medical and scientific research, as well as overwhelming clinical reports, have clearly demonstrated the potential for risk posed by many commonly administered vaccines. These same reports have indicated that the effectiveness of many of these vaccines has not been adequately proven. Based on such evidence, doctors of chiropractic have been joined by progressive medical doctors and public health administrators in questioning public policy regarding mandatory vaccines.

  No health care practitioner, consumer or health care advocate, or patient, should be discriminated against, harassed, pressured, or prosecuted for refusing to receive vaccines, or for advocating the ban on vaccines or mandatory vaccine programs. This applies as well to parents or guardians when making health care decisions for children.

  (Their main reason for being is to battle drug companies. There is not one shred of truth in anything they say, or do. But, what they say and do is destructive to the public's health and to the treasuries of our Provincial government)

• Netk Tackles Immunization Fears Health Scout Study shows one in four parents have misconceptions about vaccine safety

  A new study shows that, despite standard vaccination schedules and an abundance of information, many parents still hold misconceptions about the safety of vaccines.

• Shots won't hurt at all - National Post - March 22, 2001 No correlation can be found between autism and getting a measles shot
  In their misguided battle against childhood vaccinations, opponents not only fail to save children from autism, they also increase the risk of outbreaks of deadly diseases.

• Misconcions about immunizations - Quackwatch Large percentages of chiropractors and naturopaths advise parents not to immunize their children. These actions are irresponsible and can cause serious harm both to patients and to our society as a whole.

• Childhood Vaccinations What Every Parent Should Know - Readers Digest - Richard Goldbloom, MD People who oppose them have little science on their side

  Dr. Gerry Bohemier, a Winnipeg chiropractor, is an outspoken immunization opponent. He claims it's "a personal choice, a matter of freedom" for parents. None of his four children, now 13 to 21 years old, has been immunized. His nonprofit Eagle Foundation raises money to help families with alleged vaccination injuries seek compensation from the courts.

  It has supported two such cases so far, neither of which has yet to come to trial.

  Bohemier's views conflict with those of virtually the entire medical scientific community. When challenged, for example, with the fact that paralytic polio has almost disappeared from the face of the earth since the advent of polio vaccine, he makes the bizarre claim that "the definition of polio has been changed."

  Bohemier often quotes an anti-vaccination book by Viera Scheibner, an Australian who calls herself a medical researcher. Vaccination: 100 Years of Orthodox Research Shows that Vaccines Represent a Medical Assault on the Immune System reportedly was paid for and distributed by Scheibner herself. I could find no record of her publications in peer-reviewed scientific literature of the past eight years. One of Scheibner's distinctions is to have won the Bent Spoon Award from the Australian Skeptics society, presented annually to the "perpetrator of the most preposterous piece of pseudoscientific piffle." Still, about 10,000 North Americans buy her book each year.

  The net result of the harangues of antivaccination activists is that some children are denied the protection they need and deserve.

• The question of measles - Medical Officer of Health Garry Humphreys Speaks Out -

  Humphrey takes direct aim at chiropractor Szalay's wayward ship and blows multiple holes in her sails. This is only the first letter that he intends to send the editor or Peterborough This Week.

• Lon Morgan, D.C. debunks almost all of Viera Scheibner's claims - This is an excellent summary of what's wrong with crackpots who are promoted by the press. The press is as much to blame as those chiropractors who support this nonsense.

• Chiropractic Issues on Immunizations - A Pro-Immunization web site

• Anti-immunization scare: The inconvenient facts
  Dr. Steve Basser - Skeptics Australia Dr Viera Scheibner describes herself as a retired principal research scientist. She has a PhD in micropaleontology and in 1993 published a book - Vaccination 100 Years of Orthodox Research shows that Vaccines Represent a Medical Assault on the Immune System.

  My primary concern is as follows: Are parents who base their decision not to immunise their child on reading Dr Scheibner's book making a truly informed choice? Has Dr Scheibner presented her material in a scientifically balanced way? Is she telling the whole story?

• Is the cure worth it? - Brad Everson - National Post In the 20th century, vaccines all but eliminated many childhood ailments. But a vocal minority questions whether the side effects are worse than the diseases. Few Canadians have seen the horrors of diphtheria, rubella or polio because of routine childhood immunization. Yet each year, roughly 34,000 children under the age of four do not get vaccinated. Some parents object to vaccination on religious or philosophical grounds. Others are swayed by claims that the cure is worse than the disease.

  For example, visitors to Canada caused outbreaks of measles recently in religious communities in Alberta and Quebec. In Manitoba, a rubella (German measles) outbreak occurred in 1997, with cases rising to 3,991 from 237 in 1996.

  Measles fading, but not completely gone -Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. Dec. 11, 2000

  U.S. cases now are mostly imported from overseas, but public health experts stress that the highly contagious disease has not yet been eradicated.

• Critics off-base - doctors - The Halifax Herald Polio is no longer crippling Canadian kids. Diphtheria is no longer killing them. Smallpox has been wiped off the face of the globe. Yet despite what many accept as solid proof that mass immunization programs can and do work, a small but vocal segment of the population view vaccinations as at best unnecessary and at worst a serious threat to the health of the children who receive them.

  "It's only a theory," Winnipeg chiropractor Gerry Bohemier says of the idea that immunizations work. "There is no information to indicate that these vaccinations are safe, that these vaccinations are necessary or that these vaccinations are the only thing that they could do to improve people's protection from some of these diseases."

• What would happen if we stopped vaccinations? - CDC In the U.S., widespread use of measles vaccine has led to a greater than 99% reduction in measles compared with the pre-vaccine era. If we stopped immunization, measles would increase to pre-vaccine levels.

• Measles Outbreak ---- Netherlands, April 1999 -- January 2000
  A Christian fundamentalist school and community was horribly affected by measles because they refused vaccination. Thousands were infected, and three died. This report summarizes the investigation of the measles outbreak in the Netherlands, which indicated that measles can be a severe disease among unvaccinated populations in the Netherlands. Measles vaccine is a highly effective method for preventing this disease, and lack of vaccination resulted in this outbreak. Similar to the outbreak of poliomyelitis among religious communities in 1992, measles spread from the Netherlands to Canada through visiting relatives. The resulting outbreak in Canada was limited to 17 cases within the religious community possibly because stringent control measures were taken.

• The State of Ohio had no cases of measles in 1997 - that means that no one died, no one was deaf, retarded, or blinded because they caught measles in the wild state. This was in sharp contrast to a massive epidemic at Kent State University just a few years before.

• Update - Vaccine side effects - CDC - A very complete discussion of almost all vaccines.

This recently graduated chiropractor has the bloody nerve to talk about measles being a mild disease. I lived in Ohio when there was a massive epidemic of measles at Kent State University. I don't know about what she means by "mild", but 1:1000 people who contract measles have grave complications. She also repeated her statements about SIDS in Japan which are totally false. She asks readers to contact her to collect more "misinformation" and recommends Viera Scheibner's scandalous book.

She ends this letter by saying:

I challenge Szalay to define what the word "educate" means. If her definition of "educate" also includes brainwash, hoodwink, and lie to the public about the facts about immunizations, then she has done the community a great disservice. If she actually believes the rubbish put forth by anti-vaccine writers, without checking her facts, then she is not a very good journalist.

I can't comment on her ability to express her thoughts to her own patients, nor do I have anything to say about her ability to practice her profession. I just want her to retract her misstatements in the press and for her statements to be reviewed by the Minister of Health, the local Medical Officer of Health and by the College of Chiropractors of Ontario.

Peterborough resident's options

If you feel that a complaint is warranted because a chiropractor promotes anti-vaccine rhetoric you may file an official complaint against them by contacting: