Looking Back: 1984

As we celebrate our 25^th anniversary as the definitive news and information source for the chiropractic profession, we look back at the important events as reported in DC since 1983, while also looking forward to the future. Throughout 2008, we will feature a review of the top headlines in chiropractic for a given year, along with an article on the future of chiropractic authored by an influential member of the profession.

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April 1984: Three New Chiropractic College President

A total of three new chiropractic college presidential appointments were announced in the first three months of 1984. I.D. Coulter, PhD, had been the interim president of the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College for quite some time. The board made his appointment as the president official shortly after the first of the year. Dr. Coulter, as you will remember, was one of the researchers responsible for the book Chiropractors: Do They Help? which each member of the profession should be distributing constantly.

National Chiropractic College had been searching and the board recently announced that Lee E. Arnold, DC, of St. Petersburg, Florida, a 1949 National graduate, is that college's new president. Dr. Arnold has been a post-graduate faculty member of National College for over 22 years. He has appeared in every state in the USA and in 14 foreign countries, representing his alma mater.

Northwestern College of Chiropractic in Minnesota marked the end of a 10-month search for a new president to succeed Dr. John B. Wolfe, who held the position since 1941. The Northwestern Board announced the second president in the college's history to be Donald M. Cassata, PhD. Dr. Cassata earned his doctorate in communications and social psychology from the University of Minnesota and has served since 1978 as the director of behavioral medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.

DC joins the profession in wishing these new presidents well.

May 1984: Dr. Leroy Perry Jr. Named Los Angeles "Headliner of the Year"

Dr. Leroy R. Perry Jr., was honored by the Greater Los Angeles Press Club as the "Headliner of the Year" for his outstanding contributions to the field of health care. The event took place Wednesday night, May 2, 1984, at a formal, black-tie banquet at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California.

Each year, the Greater LA Press Club (the largest press club in the USA) honors prominent people. The year of the presidential election, the only person honored as the "Headliner of the Year" is the president of the United States. In the year of the gubernatorial election, the governor of California is the only honoree.

In addition to Dr. Perry, others honored were Marcus Allen of the L.A. Raiders football team for sports; actress Joan Collins for entertainment; Robert McIntrye, president of the Southern California Gas Company for business; Los Angeles City Councilman Gilbert Lindsay for Politics; and Caroline Ahmanson for Arts & Civics.

This award to Dr. Perry is a great victory for the chiropractic profession. Never before has anyone in the health care field been given this prestigious honor. To have the first doctor so honored be a doctor of chiropractic is a giant stride forward. Time and time again the profession has Leroy R. Perry Jr., DC, to thank for projecting chiropractic in a positive, responsible light. To have a doctor of chiropractic honored by members of the press for contributions in this area shows promise of acceptance of chiropractic as a serious means of health care.

The format of the "Headliner of the Year" awards ceremonies is a "Roast." The event was emceed by longtime Hollywood host Johnny Grant and Pat Buttram. The "roasters" included former Detroit Lion professional football player and now motion picture and television actor Alex Karras (who specifically roasted Dr. Perry); Art Linkletter; Todd Christenson of the L.A. Raiders football team; Eddie Albert; L.A. county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn; and producer Aaron Spelling.

Thanks to Dr. Leroy Perry Jr. and his years of contributions for the benefit of chiropractic, the members of the press of greater Los Angeles have a new respect for chiropractic. You will have a new respect for Dr. Perry and his work, particularly with Olympic Athletes, and be able to "right off" a week in Hawaii if you make plans now to attend Dr. Perry's Second Annual Pacific Sports Medicine week-long conference in Maui, Hawaii. This seminar starts one week after the close of the Olympics. I-STAR (the Institute for Sports Therapy & Rehabilitation) and F.A.R.E. are joint sponsors of Dr. Perry's seminar. They will be bringing several of the key athletes Dr. Perry cared for during the Olympics in Los Angeles, and allowing those present to review a complete case workup, all the way from examination, through diagnosis and all the various therapeutic programs developed to keep each athlete a full Olympic participant.

Dr. Perry's seminar runs from 8 a.m. to noon, Monday through Friday, August 20-24, 1984. There will be a "Motion Palpation of the Spine" seminar in Honolulu two days prior to the start of the weeklong seminar in Maui, for those who want to spend some time on both islands. This is exactly what you have been waiting for. You can take the entire family to Hawaii for a great summer vacation, learn a great deal working with Dr. Perry on some of his famous Olympic Athletes, spend the afternoons enjoying the fun in the sun in Hawaii - and for U.S. citizens, at least, it is tax-deductible.

I-STAR has arranged a complete package, including your flight to and from Maui, Hawaii from your hometown, and including a rental car, your hotel and baggage handling, plus seminar registration for you and your spouse/guest, with a special banquet Thursday night, August 23. Seating is reserved in the order registrations are made and a $100 deposit is received. To reserve your space with your VISA or Mastercard, simply call I-STAR any weekday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., California time, or fill out and mail the coupon connected with this story. You will be sent a complete breakdown of the entire program, including a quotation of all costs. Not to worry - you can cancel your registration as late as August 1, 1984 for a complete refund. A certificate, showing 20 hours of postgraduate study in sports medicine will be issued to everyone who attends this week-long seminar in Maui, Hawaii.

Don't worry about leaving your practice for a week. Once your patients know you are going to study with Dr. Perry, the famous sports medicine chiropractor, they will be pleased to know you will be coming back to them with important new knowledge. Call or mail the coupon, but either way, don't let this opportunity slip by without at least getting all the details. Dr. Perry is bringing all of his children - you should, too.

May 1984: New President at Parker College

Anthony Guassian, DC (Palmer '67) of San Diego, California, the current chairman of the board of trustees of Parker College of Chiropractic, announced that effective March 31, 1984, the college had a brand-new president. James W. Parker, DC, PhC, the former chairman and member of the college board of trustees has resigned both as a member and board chairman dot accept his election by the board as the college's new president.

In addition to Chairman Gaussion, (pronounce Go-Swan) the Parker College board consists of Vice Chairman Robert J. Czopoth, DC (National), Mt. Bethel, Pennsylvania; Secretary Louis Brighi, DC (Palmer), Greely, Colorado; Treasurer W.S. Horne, Jr. (former vice president Interfirst Bank), Ft. Worth, Texas; and members Charles Peele, DC (Palmer), Ft. Lauderdale, Florida; Richard Yenni, DC (Cleveland, KC), Kansas City, Missouri; Robert B. Mawhinney, DC (Logan), New Berlin, Wisconsin; J.C. Johnson, DC (Cleveland, LA), Muskogee, Oklahoma; and Jack Donovan, DC (Palmer), Carroll, Iowa.

Board Chairman Gaussian announced, "The board was unanimous in its selection of Dr. Parker to become president of the college bearing his name. Based on his proven ability, not only to motivate members of the profession but his determination to provide the latest in chiropractic educational material, the board was convinced that with Dr. Parker as president, the future growth and development of the college and ultimate full approval of CCE would be assured."

Texas attorney Rodney Phelps has been appointed Assistant to the President and is available at all times to assist anyone interested in further information. Call or write Parker College of Chiropractic, 300 East Irving Blvd., Irving, Texas 75060, (214) 439-9355.

Dr. Ron Chastain of Hurst, Texas, highly skilled in the diagnostic procedure of Motion Palpation and an MPI Red Shirt, has agreed to take time from his busy practice to teach Motion Palpation to the students at Parker College. Dr. Chastain has been a dedicated student of Dr. Fay and other members of the MPI faculty. He will be using the library of 14 motion palpation videotapes and the brand new issues of the Belgian Chiropractic ReacherNotes, which includes the special student training section added to Dr. Gillet's work, as required ready and a teaching tool for his classes.

June 1984: Canada Appoints Dr. L. John Faye as Olympic Team Chiropractor

On Tuesday May 8, 1984, Mr. Don Fletcher, executive director of the CTFA (Canadian Track & Field Association) confirmed that Ottawa chiropractor, L. John Faye, DC, FCCSS(C), the chairman of the nonprofit Motion Palpation Institute, had been appointed as Canada's Team Chiropractor for the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Dr. Faye's Olympic duties will officially begin on July 22, 1984, when he joins the Canadian athletes at their training camp in Southern California as they begin final preparation for the games.

Dr. Faye's appointment marks the first time in Canadian history that their Olympic athletes will obtain chiropractic care from an official member of their nation's personal health staff right in their training camp and on the field while the games are underway. Dr. Faye will live in the Canadian Olympic village right with the athletes while they are in Southern California.

The December 1983 issue of Dynamic Chiropractic carried a reprint of a positional paper presented by Dr. Fay at a recent conference of the CTFA (Canadian Track & Field Association), entitled, "Joint Dysfunction: Its Significance in Athletic Performance." Dr. Faye's invitation to submit this paper at the CTFA Conference in 1983 was another first for chiropractic, in that Dr. Faye was the first chiropractor ever invited to present a paper to the association. His paper, along with those presented by MDs and PhDs, were printed in a book of conference proceedings and mailed to each and every coach, team manager and trainer throughout Canada.

A reprint of Dr. Faye's paper is available free of charge to anyone desiring a copy that writes MPI, P.O. Box 6100, Huntington Beach, CA 92615 USA and requests "JOINT DYSFUNCTION" by Dr. Faye.

Doctors and students who have completed MPI's "Motion Palpation & Manipulation of the Extremities" course will fully appreciate the significant of Dr. Faye's appointment as Canada's Olympic Team Chiropractor. Joint dysfunction palpation and its restoration to normal by manipulation is the content of MPI's "Extremity" course.

Dr. Faye stated, "The role of a chiropractor to the elite athlete is unique. More and more athletes are seeking our help. It is vital that we fulfill our role rationally and with professional expertise and adjustive skills."

"Motion Palpation & Manipulation of the Extremities" is one of MPI's advanced courses, which means that doctors and/or students interested in taking this seminar must first have attended at least one of MPI's "Motion Palpation of the Spine" seminars. See the back page of this issue for the dates and places these seminars are being offered.

The staff of Motion Palpation Institute joins the chiropractic profession in congratulating Dr. Faye on his outstanding achievement in being selected as the doctor of chiropractic on Canada's Olympic Team. Dr. Faye has promised a full pictorial report of his activities with Canadian Olympic athletes in the September issue of DC.

December 1984: U.S. Congressional Bills to Outlaw All "Unproven Medical Remedies"

If there were ever a reason for all segments of the chiropractic profession to put aside their petty differences and come together as one profession, Congressman Claude Pepper and the American Medical Association have provided several in the form of bills introduced in the 98^th Congress, which if the chiropractic profession doesn't go to work, are likely to be passed.

Some call them "Pepper's Cure for Quackery" and they are packaged in such a way that unless each and every congressman is made to "see the light," it will be difficult, if not impossible, NOT to vote for the bills. Congressman Pepper had 37 other congressmen anxious to co-sponsor the bill, and when it is introduced in the next congress, he expects double or triple the co-sponsors. The bill is considered a "sexy" item for Congressman Pepper, champion of the elderly. Congressman Pepper thinks that elderly Americans are being ripped off nearly 10 billion dollars per year by unscrupulous health practitioners and unlicensed charlatans dispensing unapproved medical treatments and outright quackery. In his role as champion of the elderly, Congressman Pepper wants this legislation passed to delicense quacks and close down all the "ripoff" artists who take advantage of the elderly's health ills.

Three sections empower the potential law with more police powers than any previous anti-quack legislation at a federal or state level. The first portion allows the AMA and its affiliate state organizations and county medical societies to adjudicate acceptable standards of medical practice and treatment. Any diagnosis or therapy lying outside those standards would be prohibited by law. Those practitioners who continued to practice "non-accepted techniques" would be considered to be practicing fraudulently and would be subject to criminal felonies and delicensure.

The second part authorizes a widespread bureaucratic education of the public (a clearing house) to deceminate information of unscrupulous health professionals and quack medicine. Unaccepted forms of medical diagnosis and treatment would be labeled as "frank quackery." Nutritional supplementation with vitamins and minerals may be restricted to prescription only by licensed medical doctors and osteopathic physicians. Health food stores may be prohibited from over-the-counter sale of megavitamins.

The final segment of the bill would give the federal government full and unlimited authority to police flagrant violators. Agents of the Justice Department, the Food& Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission will systematically investigate "health professionals" and unlicensed individuals to determine if the statute's intent has been transgressed. The law will also empower state investigatory agencies to assist the Feds in arresting miscreants. Judges will be asking to provide routine search warrants for doctors suspected of practicing medicine unorthodoxly.

Quackery is normally defined as the actions taken by an untrained person who pretends to have medical knowledge that they do not actually have. The old hawker of quack medicines and nostrums used to attract customers with stories, jokes and tricks. In any sense of the work, quack denoted out-and-out deception and fraud. The Pepper Committee wants to expand the definition of quackery grossly: "As used in this report, a quack is anyone who promotes medical schemes or remedies known to be false or which are unproven for a profit." If the legal language of this bill maintains "unproven" equated with "quackery," every physician utilizing intravenous or oral megavitamins, herb treatments and homeopathic prescriptions could be defined as a quack. Every health practitioner employing electrical diagnostic techniques, naturopathic enema therapy, visualization counseling, acupuncture and even a great many "things" doctors of chiropractic do for and with their patients would be a patent quack. The catch-22 is "unproven for profit." Where does everything the chiropractic profession uses in the diagnosis and treatment for its patients stand in this respect?

Hearings have already been conducted on Congressman Pepper's bill with the lobbyist from the AMA, the American Cancer Society, American Arthritis Foundation and others pushing for its passage. Many who wanted to present their case were not give official voice at the hearing. The Cable Television News Network (CNN) broadcast only the AMA-sponsored speakers.

On Capitol Hill, this bill is considered a "honey" item because it pits the unscrupulous quack against the unsuspecting older individual. Every politician wants to boost their image with the elderly and thus without a great deal of lobbying, few lawmakers are inclined to voice disagreements with this bill. If everything goes as forecast, the AMA hopes to get this bill through the next congressional session.

You can obtain a complete breakdown of Congressman Pepper's entire efforts for only $6 from the U.S. Government Printing Office. The easy way is to call (202) 275-3030 and use your VISA or Mastercard to order Document Number 98262. Or you can make a check payable for $6 to: Supt. of Documents, Washington, D.C. 20402, for stock #05207100679-6.

If enough members of the chiropractic profession learn the full details of what the AMA is planning with the help of Congressman Pepper, and they join forces to protect the entire chiropractic profession, then perhaps the AMA cannot get even for the gains chiropractic has been making both legally and professionally.