SOUTH SHORE FAMILY CHIROPRACTIC
Monthly News - March 2006

Have You Nothing To Say!
One would have expected a deafening outcry when the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) released their clinical practice guidelines on the diagnosis and management of cough in the January 2006 issue of Chest.  But oddly enough, there was nothing to hear but an overwhelming silence.  The ACCP determined that over the-counter cough medicines do little, if anything, to actually relieve coughs.  In essence, they are a sham with side-effects.  Had such an announcement been made about a Chiropractic Adjustment, consumer activists and political health organizations would have been stumbling over each other in an effort to demand that the public be protected from such practices.  But instead, we heard nothing… Why is that? Sadly, the answer probably comes down to money.  Let’s do some math.  There are approximately 30 million teenagers in the U.S. Approximately 9 percent of those teenagers are abusing some kind of over-the-counter drug to get “high”.  One of the most popular drugs is dextromethorphan or DXM.  It effects are similar to those of PCP.  It is one of the primary ingredients in most cough medicines.  But in order to get high, you pretty much have to drink the whole bottle. Assuming that the average teenage drug abuser gets high at least once a month, that could mean substantial sales to the drug companies: 30,000,000 teenagers x 9 percent x 1 bottle per month = 32.4 million bottles sold per year to abusers. So, let’s recap.  The ACCP has determined that the cough medicines being sold have no value in relieving coughs.  The makers of these drugs admit that they do have serious side-effects.  And one of their primary ingredients is shown to be a source for drug abuse by an estimated 2.7 million teenagers.  The obvious reaction from conscientious health officials, health care providers, consumer advocates and retail establishments would be to immediately release policies demanding that the sale and use of cough medicines be discontinued in the interest of public safety.  But virtually none of these organizations has made a peep.  Perhaps nothing is done because sickness feeds the machine.  Chiropractic care promotes health, which starves the machine.  Health unfortunately is not the goal in mind.

-Dr. Bill