WCA member sees Israeli group as obstacle to licensure

World Chiropractic Alliance (WCA) Board of Governor Dr. Asher Nadler, President of the Israel Doctors of Chiropractic, lashed out at an "open letter" published by the Israeli Chiropractic Society (ICS), which virtually repudiated the concept of subluxation.

Dr. Nadler, of Jerusalem, denounced the ICS's apparent acceptance of the positions taken in the letter. Although presented as a personal opinion by the writer, Nadler said it "obviously is the position of the ICS (and its backstage directors) as an organization. They would never have allowed such a radical opinion to be printed had they not taken this position."

As further evidence of the ICS' medical leanings, Nadler pointed to the ICS's list of accepted research and guidelines. "Everything medical oriented, nothing subluxation oriented," he noted.

"If you adjust a client in any part of the spine not related to a specific previously diagnosed musculoskeletal condition, the ICS would be determined to run you out of town," he warned. "The ICS will police your practice and have you fined or your practice closed by the Israeli health authorities if, for example, you are caught adjusting a child, who typically caries heavy backpacks to school, as a preventative measure before the child actually gets back pain."

Chiropractic is not yet a licensed profession in Israel, and the WCA is working to educate health care leaders there about the unique role chiropractic plays in subluxation correction. "Dr. Nadler has been aggressive in his efforts to make sure the true identity of chiropractic is not lost in Israel, and that citizens of that area have the right to receive subluxation correction care from a chiropractor," stated Terry A. Rondberg, D.C., WCA president.

Many observers have expressed surprise that the Israeli government has not yet recognized chiropractic as a profession and developed licensing regulations, as it has for acupuncture.

Nadler thinks the reason may be in the medical leanings demonstrated by the ICS. "It seems that the health authorities perceive the chiropractic profession in Israel as a group of individuals attempting to control areas outside of their domain, promoting the prestige of chiropractors, not chiropractic as a profession," Nadler explained.

Nadler said the government might move more quickly if the ICS acknowledged the subluxation as the main focus of chiropractic.

"By embracing chiropractic as a separate and distinct health discipline, which offers the unique, non-duplicating service of analyzing and adjusting vertebral subluxations -– not as a subset of medicine or as a competitive with medicine -- the health authorities in Israel would be more receptive to chiropractic," he explained. "In fact, M.D.s would be supportive of our subluxation-based practice objective, knowing that we are not the chiropractors that want to sneak in the back door of medicine, by performing full-body diagnosis or duplicating their services."

There are about 60 D.C.s practicing in Israel, although many non-chiropractors purport to offer chiropractic or chiropractic-like services, since the profession is unregulated. Although some of the D.C.s have been incorporated into Israeli hospitals and have even been allowed to care for Israeli soldiers under a pilot program, they are normally restricted to "pain relief" efforts or, at most, treatment of musculoskeletal conditions.