AMA: Nixes Meeting with American Chiropractic Association
The animosity between the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) is heating up again, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. After ACA expressed a desire to meet with the AMA to "focus on those issues [they] have in common," AMA Chair D. Ted Lewers wrote that the "AMA has a different view and no desire for such a meeting." Lewers said that "ACA had made irresponsible comments about the AMA in the media and in court documents," adding, "Spurious charges of this kind provide no basis for beginning a dialogue." ACA Executive Vice President Garret Cuneo said that ACA "thought that by having the AMA and ACA meet, we could form exploratory committees on education, research and professional development that could speed cooperation." ACA has been trying for more than two years to meet with the AMA, including one meeting that was scheduled for Nov. 17, but was canceled by the AMA because of "pressing business." In the past, the AMA has called chiropractic medicine an "unscientific cult." The contentious relationship made it to the courts, as former U.S. District Court Judge Susan Getzendanner ruled in 1987 that until 1980, the AMA "had led a conspiracy to destroy chiropractic medicine, such as by trying to prevent chiropractors from receiving Medicare payments." After that ruling, the AMA revised its policies in 1991 to make it ethical for doctors to refer their patients to chiropractors (Wolinsky, 3/24).
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