Charles,

I would not consider the airing of views as being a "rift". It is a practical lesson of today's health care that if you do not have evidence to support your claims you lose political, socioeconomic and ethical grounds for what you do. In fact, there is good precedent to say that you can lose jurisdictional control for what you do.

I have spent most of my career either funding my own research or finding ways to support it. This week I will spend $14K for equipment that I need to ask the next questions about spinal manipulation. Earlier this year I spent $30K on salaries before I found a way to have funding for them. It's tough but so is life.

The fact is that it is your responsiblity to provide evidence for what you claim; not mine and not medicine's or the insurance company's. We have too long used the "poor me" excuse. I did not get my work done by saying "I don't know how." but rather "How do I find out?".

A perfect example of technique related research funded by the boot straps of the people who use it is Activator. Dr. Fuhr has raised money, sought and obtained grants, hired researchers, founded a research foundation and opened areas of funding even to non-tehnique related but worthy chiropractic research.

You and your organization's members can do the same if they are as committed to what they claim to do as they say. The average contribution from chiropractors to FCER is less than $20 per year each. The average from orthopedic spine surgeons is in the thousands. Go figure.


John Triano, DC, PhD

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