Chiropractic Clinic Kept Veterans Spinning Over PTSD

Oversight for vet research project raises questions
Chiropractors defend work but critics say it fell short
The Dallas Morning News
By Sue Ambrose | Staff Writer and Scott Gordon | NBC5
Published September 23, 2015

“Poor studies are funded when you subvert the peer review process,” said Carl Castro, a retired Army colonel and psychologist at the University of Southern California.

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry urged Dr. Kyle Janek, the man he picked to head the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, to look into the Carrick Brain Centers' PTSD treatment for veterans.
(AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Government agencies typically fund a research proposal only after experts have concluded it has merit — and that the researchers have the training to carry it out. But Dr. Kyle Janek turned that process upside down when he headed the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.

Janek decided to fund an Irving chiropractic clinic that wanted to treat veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder with a spinning chair.

The contract, signed in December 2013, called for “research and analysis.” Ultimately, Carrick Brain Centers’ Irving clinic treated 140 veterans, and the state paid out more than $2 million. But experts say the results fell far short of what a medical research project is expected to produce.

Janek, presented with those criticisms, recently described the clinic’s work as a “pilot project” — something that is typically less ambitious in scope, involves fewer patients and costs significantly less than a full-blown research project.

If the clinic’s work was just a pilot project, one expert said, the state spent too much money and got precious little for it.

The clinic won an $800,000 contract in December 2013 to test its PTSD treatment. That included time in the chair, a procedure the clinic said could activate the brain’s balance system and relieve veterans’ PTSD symptoms.
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