chiropractic ierano and Atlas Orthogonal Chiropractic Australia

Comment and Opinion

Atlas Orthogonal Chiropractic Australia
and
Chiropractic Ierano – Dr Joseph Ierano, Doctor of Chiropractic

These sites were a joint winners of an Encouragement Award in the 2009 Millenium Awards. The award citation read:

These sites get an Encouragement award because of the bizarre antics of their owner. Not content with being an Atlas Chiropractor, the sort that makes normal chiropractors look almost reputable by comparison, Joe Ierano decided to report the Australian Skeptics to the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission for reproducing an article from a British newspaper. What Joe didn't notice (or didn't care about) was that he was a candidate for HCCC attention himself because of some ludicrous claims on his web site. Try harder next time, Joe, and at least read your own published material before you start pointing your very strong thumbs at anyone else.

Dear Mr Ierano,

Congratulations. Your two web sites won a collective Encouragement Award in the 2009 Millenium Awards presented by The Millenium Project. The judges felt that you needed some encouragement after your dismal failure to get the Health Care Complaints Commission to take your complaint against Australian Skeptics seriously in 2009 . The award citation read:

[see above]

Please feel free to publicise your award and display the award logo on your web site. If you wish to collect the physical prize (a tube of haemorrhoid cream and a wire brush applicator) you can do so at your own expense, but please give me sufficient notice so that I can organise the location for the public application of the cream and the accompanying media coverage.

You can see the other award winners at https://ratbags.com/rsoles/history/2009/2009awards.htm

A chiroquactor quacks (3/10/2009)
Speaking of the HCCC, a chiropractor has lodged a complaint to the organisation about Australian Skeptics. Before going any further about the nature of the complaint I should point out that this is an Atlas chiropractor. That means that he apparently believes that it isn't the whole spine that causes and cures all dis-ease but just the ball-joint where the spine connects to the skull. It seems that adjusting this joint is all that is necessary to fix everything that ails you. It is worth noting that a really skilled hangman can't break this joint, no matter how carefully he constructs the knot and calculates the drop for the executee. Somehow, however, a chiropractor can get his fingers and thumbs in there. Put another way, Atlas chiropractors are on the fringe of the fringe. This one also likes to be called "Dr" as if this will make him into a real medical practitioner.

The complaint is apparently founded on the idea that Australian Skeptics are offering medical advice, The basis for this is that Simon Singh's article from The Guardian is reproduced on their web site. (It's here too!) This is the article that had the British Chiropractic Association reaching for lawyers when the "science" behind their treatments was questioned. Think about the mental processes behind the complaint to HCCC – someone reproduces a newspaper article critical of some form of quackery and this is seen as offering medical advice. If I didn't already suspect (from the chiropractor's advocacy of the Atlas idiocy) that the complainant had a poor grasp on reality then the wording of the complaint would convince me.

I will leave it up to the committee of Australian Skeptics to respond to the chiropractor and the HCCC, but here is my Kind and Gentle email to him:

Dear Mr Ierano,

I have been informed that you have lodged a complaint with the Health Care Complaints Commission over Australian Skeptics republishing Simon Singh's article from The Guardian about the lack of a scientific basis for chiropractic, although why you would think that the words of a British journalist published in a British newspaper would be of any interest to the HCCC eludes me.

I have also republished the article, and you can read it at https://ratbags.com/rsoles/history/2009/07july.htm#28chiro. I assume that you will want to file a complaint with the HCCC about me as well, and I would appreciate it if you could tell me when this is likely to happen so that I can block out the time needed to write my response. I will be busy over the next few weeks so advance notice would be appreciated. One of the things that I will probably be doing to keep me busy is lodging a complaint to the HCCC about a chiropractor who has the clear and ludicrous implication on his web site that chiropractic can be useful in the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis. Oh, that's right – that would be you.

As is my normal policy this email and any response from you will be displayed on my web site at https://ratbags.com/rsoles/, where, by coincidence, both of your web sites have been listed since 2001.