Like pieces on a chessboard, the Department of Veterans Affairs administrators of the chiropractic veterans' benefit have set up the chiropractic advisory committee and are ready to "play." While normally a two-person game, this event will feature various people with predictable movements working against each other. Like expendable pawns, they were chosen with divisiveness, not success, in mind.
To ensure conflict, the orchestrators have chosen Charles DuVall Jr. as their chief proponent. While this reveals their antagonism for chiropractic in general, it almost guarantees a dissenting voice whenever they need one. Adding the National Association of Chiropractic Medicine/National Council Against Health Fraud to the committee is like bringing a terrorist to a family picnic. You know there will be plenty of destruction, and you won't have to wait long to see it.
Chiropractic's weakness is obvious to all, and is strategically being used against us. Sadly, the next two years will likely be filled with the usual finger pointing when things go wrong and exaggerated claims of empty victories when something is finally accomplished. Rather than look at all we could accomplish, our best strategy may be to see what we can salvage.
This may sound a bit pessimistic, but that's the way I see it.
If Charles DuVall is left on the advisory committee, the chiropractic benefit for the veterans of our country has been effectively sabotaged. Even if the rest of the DCs on the committee can agree on most points (a big "if"), they are still outnumbered 6-5.
Our only real hope of accomplishing anything is to get DuVall off the committee. His appointment is totally unacceptable ,and the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) needs to hear it.
Because this information was only released a day or two before our press date, there is not yet an action plan: only that each organization in this profession (for once) make a commitment to do whatever it takes to convince the DVA that selecting DuVall is completely out of line and contrary to the best interests of the men and women they are supposed to be serving.
The members of the chiropractic advisory committee may have been chosen with divisiveness in mind, but there is one thing we all agree on:
Get DuVall Out!
This is my commitment from now until December 31, 2004, when this committee is scheduled to be dissolved. Let's see if our profession can find some unity, with this campaign as our starting point.
Donald M. Petersen Jr.,BS,HCD(hc),FICC(h)
Editor/Publisher of Dynamic Chiropractic
don@mpamedia.com
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