An Australian chiropractor is under fire after a video was posted showing him holding a two-week old bay upside down then using a tool called an “activator” in part of a weird chiropractic ritual.
Content warning: below there are pictures and video that some of you may find a bit disturbing. So, you know, keep scrolling if you’re cool with that, or you can watch this 10 hour loop of He-Man singing What’s Up by 4 Non Blondes if you’re not. (Or you can be like me and have it playing in another tab while writing this [and yes I am being completely serious].)
I wasn’t sure what exactly to refer to this video as. Referring to it as a “procedure” lends it credibility that it is undeserving of. Getting a suspicious mole removed is a procedure. Hanging a newborn upside down then tapping its neck is not. So, I decided that “ritual” is the best descriptor.
After all, the entire field of Chiropractic is based in magic (no, seriously – its creator was a “magnetic healer”), so why wouldn’t we refer to the things they do as rituals?
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And because chiropractic is its own special religion – it’s based on the pseudoscience of “subluxations”, slight misalignments of the spine that chiros pretend cause diseases in human people (mind you, this is *not* a real thing) – many parents will take their kids go get initiated into it.
I’m sure many of you remember a few years ago when an Australian chiro “adjusted” a premature newborn:
Now another chiro is getting himself in hot water for posting a video of himself “adjusting” another newborn infant.
Cranbourne Family Chiropractic
According to the Daily Mail, Andrew Arnold (note: he is not a doctor) of Cranbourne Family Chiropractic in Melbourne, Australia is shown in the video below manipulating a two week old newborn, hanging the child upside down, tapping on its neck, all as part of their chiropractic ritual. I can only assume they sacrificed the child to the sun god Ra when they were finished.
Arnold folds the infant until he feels a “click”, you know, as one does with an infant. He then picks the baby up by its ankles and dangles the child upside down for a moment.
Do you understand why I referred to this as a ritual?
After dangling the kiddo upside down for a bit, he grabs an “activator” – a chiropractic instrument that doesn’t do much of anything other than make the baby upset.
I mean, apply a basic level of skepticism here. How terrifying would it be if our bones – even and infant’s – moved so easily that they could be significantly altered by hanging upside down or having an expensive toy popping you in the side of the neck. You’d be constantly moving bones out of place and we’d all be dead at the ripe old age of 5. It just doesn’t make any sense.
But this wasn’t where it ended, according to the Daily Mail:
A series of tests later, Dr Arnold goes on to check the bones in the baby’s head.
This time he presses down on the child’s head with both hands, the child visibly distressed.
The video has gone on to fan debate into the legitimacy of the infant chiropractic treatment.
While the techniques in the video are not illegal, their effectiveness are a divisive issue.
In a bit of good news, the Daily Mail also reported that the matter is being looked into:
It’s understood the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency and the Chiropractic Board have kickstarted a confidential investigation into the matter, the Herald Sun reported.
A spokesperson said regulators could not comment on individual cases.
Watch the video below:
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