Shut Your Mouth, by Richard Gringeri D.C.

In Oregon, Chiropractors can deliver babies, set broken bones and do minor surgery. When I first began practicing, in the State of California Chiropractors could deliver babies. No kidding! Still, most Chiropractors would never have considered delivering a baby in the Bay Area where family incomes are unusually high and there are many Ob/Gyns available to deal with the difficulties which may accompany childbirth. But in the inner cities, where many low-income Moms-to-be did not have health insurance and did not have the money to pay for hospital births, there were a few Chiropractors who stepped up to help.

Chiropractors are primary-care physicians in California. As a primary-care physician, patients can come to us instead of going to another practitioner for treatment and advice. They don’t have to be referred by an MD to receive our services. Since our fees are considerably less than those of our medical colleagues, many of our patients see us for their health concerns and never see a medical doctor. Doctors of Chiropractic take an oath that everything we do for our patient is aimed at improving and optimizing their health and well-being just like medical doctors.

When I was a relatively new Doctor of Chiropractic, the California Medical Association successfully worked to have our right to deliver babies revoked. They threatened to have our primary-care status taken away from us. Evidently, this was because some Doctors of Chiropractic had been open with opinion the safety of vaccines for children noting that over the previous few years, the number of vaccines that our children received before they could go to school had increased dramatically. Unfortunately, during the same time frame, the number of children who were diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum had increased exponentially as well. What was causing this problem and what could be done to reverse it was obviously a conversation worth having. Instead of significant amounts of research done with the consideration of the severity of this issue, anyone with a different, or just questioning viewpoint was silenced.

We Chiropractors promote the idea that the body, when working properly, has the ability to fight off illness and to heal itself. Still, many Chiropractors felt that vaccines were absolutely necessary for the health of their patients. Some felt that they were not. The problem was that we were told that if we promoted any negative views about vaccines, we would surely lose our primary-care status. It was no longer safe to share our viewpoints about vaccines with our patients if our views did not agree with the status quo.

This silencing of other viewpoints on almost any hot topic is epidemic in the USA today, and the silencing about differing health views continues as well. Recently I attended a post-graduate seminar on ethics and California law. We were instructed not to talk about Covid 19 with our patients and not to tell our patients whether or not we were vaccinated. It was a Catch-22 for some Chiropractors. If you told your patient you were not vaccinated, the patient may decide not to get vaccinated themselves. Then, if they got Covid, they could sue the Chiropractor for bad medical advice. Even if you did not advise them against the vaccine, as a primary health care provider when you tell someone you did not get a vaccine, the patient will likely follow your lead as they consider you an authority figure on health and wellness. You are what is referred to as an “opinion leader.” If you do tell them to get the vaccine and then they have a bad reaction to the “jab,” they can sue you for giving them bad medical advice because vaccines are considered a medical issue and so are beyond a Chiropractor’s scope of practice. As such, we were told that if we were sued it was questionable whether or not our malpractice companies would defend us. It could cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend ourselves in court and as such, the best advice to us was to “keep your mouth shut.” Don’t dare share your viewpoint regarding whether or not to get the vaccine and don’t dare share your vaccine status.

I became a Chiropractor because I had some chronic health problems as a young person. These were not back-pain related as you might expect, but I did go to a Chiropractor for help after a knee injury I received while playing basketball. My Chiropractor began treatment for my knee and in the three-month process of handling the knee pain and rehabbing, the other health problems with which I had been dealing for many years cleared up and didn’t come back. I was blown away. All the medical care that consisted exclusively of treatment with toxic medications didn’t work, and this simple, wonderful, eclectic treatment approach did. I felt that people really needed to know about how much non-drug health treatment could help them and possibly even relieve the health problems that they had been living with for many, many years. This was my main reason for pursuing my profession. Simply, I wanted to help people live longer and healthier lives.

“More years in their life and more life in their years.”

Educating my patients about the benefits of natural health care seemed to be the best way to achieve my dreams.

Now, I am concerned that our environment is becoming dangerous because of people’s intolerance of other's points of view. Helping people to live a long, healthy life may have nothing to do with Chiropractic care, nutrition, exercise, etc., but may have more to do with escaping the ever-worsening, toxic environment related to freedom of speech and other violations of The US Constitution.

The preamble* of the Constitution states:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Expressing my opinion with my patients as a primary-care physician regarding the Covid 19 epidemic should be my constitutional right. But given the current environment regarding Freedom of Speech, establishing justice, promoting the general welfare and securing the blessings of liberty for myself and my posterity, regarding the Covid-19 epidemic, I will just shut my mouth.

Enough said for now. I may have more to share later.

In health,

Rich F.Gringeri, DC

The Human Engine Clinic

I am interested in hearing your reactions and thoughts regarding this post. Please feel free to drop them in the comments or email us directly at FrontDesk@Gringeri.com