Another Attempt At Using the Courts To Suppress an Online Review

gandhi_2 writes with this excerpt from the SF Chronicle: "A San Francisco chiropractor has sued a local artist over negative reviews published on Yelp, the popular Web site that rates businesses. Christopher Norberg, 26, of San Francisco posted the first review in November 2007 after visiting Steven Biegel at the Advanced Chiropractic Center on Valencia Street. In the six-paragraph write-up, Norberg criticized Biegel's billing practices and said the chiropractor was being dishonest with insurance companies. ...The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a local nonprofit that supports free speech online, is considering helping with Norberg's defense. Matt Zimmerman, an attorney with the group, said Biegel will get far more negative publicity from filing the lawsuit than from a bad review on Yelp. He said the foundation is seeing more and more cases of people trying to use the courts because they're unhappy with postings on the Internet."

Comments

Re:Chiropractors are quacks anyway

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

For non-back related things, I'll admit they're frauds. But for someone with back problems, the treatment feels pretty good. I don't know if it's doing anything long term or if it's just a massage paid for by my insurance, but it helps with the pain.

Re:Chiropractors are quacks anyway

[gbulmash]

Quacks or not, the issue isn't with criticism of the chiro's services, but with his billing rates and practices.

But quackery is relevant here, because the doctor should have used a PR person to help him rebut the detractor's claims and used the threat of libel to make Yelp append the rebuttal directly to the criticism so they had to be viewed together. It would have been less costly all around. Better to defuse your detractor as a crackpot/quack than to sue him and give him legitimacy.

Is the doctor within his rights? If the claims made by Norberg actually are false, then he is. Was this the best way to handle things? Nope.

Re:Chiropractors are quacks anyway

[fahrbot-bot]

I'm not a doctor, but if you have chronic back pain you might want to see a Physiatrist instead:

Physiatrists, or rehabilitation physicians, are medical doctors who are nerve, muscle, and bone experts who treat injuries or illnesses that affect how you move. Rehabilitation physicians have completed training in the medical specialty physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R).

They are medical doctors, so your insurance should cover them, and have chiropractor training so they can do more than either alone. The other difference seems to be the approach.

Case in point. My wife injured her neck many years ago. A chiropractor recommended treatment and a "maintenance" plan to keep things "aligned". She declined both. The physiatrist asked for X-rays and medical history a week in advance of the appointment, then examined her for an hour, testing and explaining what was wrong, and then fixed her with one manipulation and an injection. No repeat visits required, unless "you injure yourself again". My wife went back once two years later after she slipped rock climbing.

If you're in the Virginia Beach, VA area I recommend Dr. Lisa Barr.

Disclaimer: Your mileage may vary.

Re:this was modded +5 insightful?????

[GizmoToy]

This is basically spot-on. My mother worked for a variety of chiropractors in the area as a receptionist, because she had experience with them. She also suffers from pretty severe asthma. Each one wanted her to come off her meds and rely on adjustments to help with the asthma. They "prohibited" their workers from getting flu shots (which are important for asthma sufferers), insisting they be replaced by adjustments. They routinely recommend parents avoid vaccinating their children in any way.

Eventually she got fed up and took a job at a different type of medical facility. The take-away for me was that the majority of chiropractors appear to have little knowledge of medicine, and should not be trusted for anything beyond glorified massages.

Re:this was modded +5 insightful?????

[AliasMarlowe]

Do not equate it as rigorously tested science or medicine though.

Actually, chiropractics has been tested for a number of complaints. The medical consensus is that it "may be a useful approach in alleviating pain for a very limited set of disorders associated with the back or spine". It is known to be utterly useless for a great many others, such as arthritis, high blood pressure, or ear infections.

Nevertheless, chiropractors routinely claim to be able to treat such conditions. For example, 75% of those approached in one survey claimed to be able to treat arthritis and/or high blood pressure. In another survey, 80% of chiropractors claimed to be able to treat ear infections in children.
http://www.csicop.org/si/2008-01/thyer.html

This is quite disturbing, as it suggests that only 20-25% of chiropractors were aware of the limits of their therapies. The vast majority were willing to misapply chiropractics in potentially harmful ways.