Historical Origins of the AMA?

Question

Do you think by examining the first half of an organizations history it allows you to better understand the context of its current actions?

A friend sent me this and it was quite eye opening; I was actually completely unaware the AMA misbehaved this much from inception.

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/81659?page=entire

Answer 1

I read the article, very interesting....

....It sounds about right.

I'm a UK trained osteopath (now practicing in New Zealand which is very similar to the Uk model of practice). Andrew Taylor Still (the founder of Osteopathy) was a very enlightened man who aprenticed as a physician from his father who was a a physician and methodist minister. In the later part of the 19th century many physicians apprenticed into it and didn't undergo formal medical training.

Consequently, because of the poor level of training and knowledge medicine was just as likely to kill you as cure you.

A.T. Still devised a drug free form of medicine based on helping the body heal itself primarily based on

- Stucture governing function.

- The rule of the Artery being supreme.

- The body having its own medicine Chest.

There are 8 prinicples in all which were revised in the 50's for example Stucture Governs function has been revised to Stucture and Function are receprically related.

Andrew Still say how corrupt and ineffective medicine was and saw 3 of his children die from meningitis.

Is it any wonder that he and many clever people like him decided to form more effective treatments for illness and disease?

Did you know, In the Early part of the 20th century writen exams to register practising physicians were abandoned because it was established that aprox 1/2 of practicing physicians were illiterate?

Osteopathy in the US disapeared into the Allopathic model in the 1950's. This is now being seriously questioned as most US trained osteopaths can't even name any osteopathic principles and don't practice any manual medicine at all!

The rest ofm the english speaking world held onto Osteopathy and didn't let it disapear into allopathy. I am so glad I had the opportunity to learn it in the UK. It has become watered down since stills time but no where near what it has in the US.

Answer 2

Yes it does!

The mischief did not stop where the interesting article ended. In the early 50's the AMA formed a committee "against quackery" whose sole purpose was to wipe out the chiropractic profession in the US. Well trained speakers attended city, county, state medical association meetings and med schools referring to DCs as "mad dogs, and cultists". It was in the "Code of Ethics" of the AMA that MDs were not allowed to accept referrals from or refer to DCs.

AMA, AHA, Amer Soc of Radiologist and others were sued in federal court (case went 14 years). All were found guilty of anti-trust violations and others. Suit was brought by 3 Chicago area DCs, Wilkes is the name of one of the DCs.

Decision was handed down in 1986 and upheld on appeal in 1987.

the objective of the AMA is to have total control of health care in this country. fortunately, the percentage of MDs who belong to the organization is rather small.