When the American Medical Association's 434-member House of Delegates met June 21-25 in Chicago for their 141st biannual meeting, a slew of resolutions were proposed for review among nine committees.
Louis Alfano, M.D., a delegate representing the American Society of Abdominal Surgery, offered the following resolution:
Resolution 537: Request that the National Institutes of Health conduct a study of the efficacy of chiropractic in the treatment of hypertension and other human ailments. Whereas, many (but not all) chiropractors engage in the treatment of hypertension, cancer, heart disease, kidney and liver ailments, infectious diseases, and other human ailments of a like nature; therefore be it
RESOLVED, that the American Medical Association requests Louis Sullivan, MD, Secretary of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health to conduct a comprehensive study of the efficacy and safety of chiropractic in the treatment of human ailments such as hypertension cancer, heart disease, kidney and liver ailments, and infectious diseases.
To no ones surprise, the AMA's House of Delegates did not pass the resolution.
While Dr. Alfano's motivation for presenting such a resolution is at this time unknown, the mere fact of such a resolution being presented before the AMA's democratic body is noteworthy.
Richard Miller, ACA's Director of Governmental Relations, indicates that despite the resolution not passing, that individual MDs had contacted Senators' offices about the resolution, apparently making sure that legislators didn't get the idea that the AMA is prompting Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan to finance chiropractic research!
Resolution 537 was one of many listed in the June 15, 1992 article of the American Medical News reporting on the upcoming House of Delegate's shindig. To those MDs who bothered to read all the resolutions, number 537 must have caused a few double takes!
