My name is Clem Martin. As of April 4, 2010, I entered my 52^nd year in practice, and I am a second generation doctor of chiropractic. My father had his practice in a very high second floor office next door to then Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Sam Rayburn. I often reflect on that tall turning stair case and how few lower back pain cases could possibly have made that climb. In those years, chiropractic care survived upon success where other treatment methods failed.

Many mornings my father would leave for his office not knowing if he would get to return home that same evening. He might have been arrested for practicing medicine. In the 1930’s, Morris Fishbein, a journalist, was executive director of the American Medical Assn. Fishbein and his cronies conjured a plan to monopolize health care by eliminating all competition. Osteopaths surrendered their legacy in the mid-1950’s and are now a party to opposition of this Board’s proposed Scope definition on Vestibular testing. The AMA plan to seize American health care was continuous until replaced with the AMA Committee on Quackery in the early 1960’s. My father was, as I have been, stigmatized by the Allopathic community as quacks, cultists, religious freaks, unscientific and other colorful metaphors.

The organized assault on chiropractic continued for over a half century until the Sherman Anti-Trust case titled AMA v Wilk reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991. The assault did not end with the Wilk decision. It became covert taking the form of bureaucratic rules making by Medicare/Medicaid panels, Managed care guidelines, Current Procedural Therapy Coding, discriminatory reimbursements and legislative lobbying,

NOW, twenty years after the Wilk decision, the AMA has resurrected the old Fishbein plan of global health care dominance. The new title is RESOLUTION 814 and SCOPE OF PRACTICE PARTNERSHIP. Resolution 814 basically asserts a self deluded image that the allopathic community is the guardian of public health and the only academically enlightened healing art.

Scope of Practice Partnership is composed of the American Medical Assn., six national specialty societies including the Academy of Otolaryngology, and six of fifty State medical associations. One of the six, is the Texas Medical Assn. Primary Goal of Scope of Practice Partnership is and I quote:

“it is necessary to concentrate the resources of organized medicine to oppose scope of practice expansions by allied health professionals that threaten the health and safety of the public”

The question to the Texas Board of Chiropractic Examiners:

“Is vestibular assessment including videonystagmography, electronystagmography and /or electronic balance screening to evaluate posture/ joint position controls within Scope of Chiropractic in the State of Texas? If not, are the listed diagnostic evaluations within Scope of Board Certified Chiropractic Neurologist and similarly trained Chiropractors in the State of Texas?”

Vestibular tests are OBJECTIVE and provide pre and post objective evidenced based outcomes. Second only to the cerebellum, vestibular nuclear function is the most significant to chiropractic evaluation, application and scientific validation of treatment outcomes. The vestibular apparatus controls systemic joint positioning including the spine, segmentally and regionally, head positioning and plays a critical role in body movement and maintaining upright biped posture.

Doctors of chiropractic are mandated by Texas Law to identify and diagnose through both objective and subjective means the aberrancies, diseases and malfunctions in the human neuromusculoskeletal systems no differently than any other entry level provider.

For those unfamiliar, the Occupations Code Chapter 201.002(b) (1) and (2) defines the practice of chiropractic as:

“ (1) Uses objective and subjective means to analyze, examine or evaluate the biomechanical condition of the spine and themusculoskeletal system”.

“(2) Performs nonsurgical, noninvasive procedures including adjustment and manipulation, to improve the subluxation complex or the biomechanics of the musculoskeletal system.”

To fully understand the Scope of Chiropractic, we must refer to Section 104,001 of the Occupations Code titled Healing Art Identification Act.  Chiropractic is defined in paragraph (e) as a person licensed by the Board and the names used to identify ourselves.

Section 104,002 defines Healing art as, and I quote:

“The healing art (chiropractic) includes any system, treatment, operation, DIAGNOSIS, prescription, or practice to ascertain, cure, relieve, adjust, or correct human disease, injury, or unhealthy or abnormal physical or mental condition.”

Globally, the Texas Occupations Code says that a Texas Doctor of Chiropractic may analyze, examine, ascertain, DIAGNOSE, and treat, adjust, manipulate, correct human disease, injury, or unhealthy or abnormal physical or mental condition, or improve the subluxation complex and function of the muscular and skeletal systems.

Let us analyze some terms.

BIOMECHANICAL – the term is a compound word composed of "Biology" which means, the study of LIFE, including origin, history, physical characteristics, processes, form, function, etc. "Mechanical" is defined as having to do with machinery, or habitual, or unthinking. Definition of mechanical seems degrading to the majesty and complexity of human expression.

Biomechanical by definition assigns enormous scope and duty to the doctor of chiropractic.

"MUSCULOSKELETAL" is also a compound word indicating the muscle system and the osseous, or bone, system. This contractive word also includes joints. These systems unfurl colossal scope.

Muscle, and this is spectacular, means any body organ consisting of bundles of cells and fibers that can be contracted or relaxed to produce movement. A second definition is the tissue making up an organ.

Skeleton means bones and joints of the human or animal, or forming the framework of the body.

Where might we find these contractile tissues identified as muscle? Skeletal muscle of course provides posture, form, motion and function to the human. Muscle, smooth and striated, can be found in the heart, the lungs, the mouth and digestive tract, the genitourinary tract, and the reproductive organs. And we cannot omit the muscles of the eyes which have projections to the vestibulo-spinal apparatus for position, posture, balance and locomotion of the entire body and links to autonomic controls.

The Texas Occupations Code, Chapters 201 and 104, gives certainty and authority to the exceptionally broad scope of practice application for the Doctor of Chiropractic licensed in Texas.

In closing, the Texas Medical Assn. and Scope of Practice Partnership would have us believe they have omnipotent authority over all health care professionals in Texas. These organizations arrogantly assert that the Allopathic physician is the sole possessor of Intelligence. The Texas Occupations Code grants the Texas Medical Board power to license and govern the Allopathic and Osteopathic community only. The Texas Chiropractic Board is legislatively empowered to license and govern the practice of chiropractic. There exists no marriage giving the Texas Medical Board, et. al,. parental authority over Chiropractic as a wayward step-child.

Throughout my life, I have known nothing but degradation and insult from organized medicine. Hope gleaned that the greed driven attacks would subside with the U. S. Supreme Court permanent injunction in AMA v Wilk. The pettiness that has brought us here today, AMA Resolution 814/Scope of Practice Partnership, confirms no lesson was learned from the Wilk decision.

In 1895, a remarkable event occurred when D.D. Palmer administered what he called a spinal adjustment that restored hearing to Harvey Lillard. We can only speculate what scientific hypothesis led Palmer to introduce energy to Lillard’s spine in an amplitude and vector that mediated function of the acoustic nerve, a nerve that does not exit the skull.

For a century, from the time Palmer first used a physical modality to restore hearing right up through AMA v Wilk, the chiropractic profession had encountered an insurmountable hurdle. Ironically, chiropractic survived humiliation by organized medicine. Science of that time period could not explain how our application worked. Favorable treatment outcomes were sufficient for sustainability.

The decade of the 1990’s, also known as the decade of the brain, had an unforeseen chiropractic benefit. Finally, after these many decades, brain research substantiated the chiropractic intervention.

Those individuals, or organizations, who might wish to eradicate or dominate the chiropractic profession through litigation, or legislation, be advised that we now possess the academic base to validate our intervention with the purest science of the times. Doctors of chiropractic are capable of presenting science confirming chiropractic scope and efficacy before the Bar, and the World.