The efforts of the Australian Medical Association (AMA) to restrict chiropractic in Australia was reviewed in the ACCC Journal,1 the official publication of the Australia Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), the Australian counterpart of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The article, "The AMA and chiropractic: a trade practices viewpoint," chronicles the struggle of medicine and chiropractic to co-exist, both down under and in the United States. Until the passage of the State and Territory Competitive Policy Reform Acts of 1995, the Australian Medical Association was free to set whatever policies it wished against their members associating with doctors of chiropractic. For example, in 1977, the federal assembly of the Australian Medical Association passed this resolution:
"The Australian Medical Association does not recognize any exclusive dogma such as homeopathy, osteopathy, chiropractic and naturopathy. It is unethical for doctors to associate professionally with practitioners of such dogmas."
In 1981, the resolution was updated with the "s" word:
"The Australian Medical Association does not recognize any exclusive dogma such as homeopathy, osteopathy, chiropractic and naturopathy or any other practices which are not based on sound scientific principles.
Gone was the admonition that it was "unethical" to associate with the chiropractic profession on a professional level. Still, the AMA had not designed to recognize chiropractic et al. The professions of "exclusive dogma" were still the black sheep and herded far out to pasture. And AMA members weren't about to venture that far afield.
What the Australian Medical Association did was to affect a secondary boycott. A secondary boycott is where one party in concert with a second party takes action to restrict the supply of goods or services by a third party to a fourth party. In this case, the AMA worked in concert to restrict the ability of chiropractors to serve the people of Australia.
In September 1992, the AMA felt compelled to publish the little booklet Chiropractic in Australia. They reiterated their policy statement:
"The AMA maintains that a medical practitioner should at all time practice methods of treatment based on sound scientific principle, and accordingly does not recognize any exclusive dogma such as ... chiropractic..."
Today, the ACCC still receives many complaints about the "boycott" of chiropractors by the AMA. These complaints allege that the AMA policy still discourages MDs who are members of the AMA from:
The ACCC has already let it be known that AMA members are free to associate with chiropractors. The AMA will be required to publish an ACCC-produced statement to that effect in their journal to better inform their members. Should the AMA refuse, they will most likely be taken to court, not by the Australian chiropractors, but by the Australia Competition & Consumer Commission.
References
Many relevant diagnostic signs are not performed deliberately by the examiner or by the patient at the examiner’s direction. They are observed as the patient reacts to their condition. Fortin’s finger sign, Minor’s sign, and Vanzetti’s sign are three examples of this principle.
On Feb. 1, 2024, two more legislators – John R. Carter (R-Texas) and Robert “Bob” Good (R-Va.) – co-sponsored the Chiropractic Medicare Coverage Modernization Act of 2023, bringing the co-sponsor total to 155, two more than the total achieved over the entire two-year congressional cycle in which identical legislation last appeared (2021-22).
While working at the Lovelace Medical Center in Albuquerque, N.M., one of the primary care physicians stated that imaging every patient prior to receiving chiropractic was not medically necessary. It was at that point I reconsidered the need for the imaging of every patient to avoid malpractice.
