Manitoba chiropractor questions 'differential treatment' of colleague's side business after facing inquiry
Chiropractor Dan Therrien runs a Winnipeg clinic that claims to help with symptoms of ADHD and other issues
A Manitoba chiropractor is questioning why she faced discipline for posting a pro-vaccine news story when the fellow chiropractor investigating her operates a side business that claims to help with symptoms related to ADHD.
Carolyn Weiss, a 37-year-old chiropractor based in Selkirk, Man., was the subject of an inquiry held by the Manitoba Chiropractors Association after she posted a New York Times article called "Underselling the vaccine" to her personal Facebook page in January 2021.
The inquiry — held over several days in May and September 2022 — looked at whether Weiss violated the association's code of conduct standards by speaking to the issue of vaccination, which is out of the scope of chiropractic care.
The investigation into Weiss was led by fellow chiropractor Dan Therrien, who is also the association's vice president.
Therrien also runs a neurofeedback centre called BrainCore Winnipeg that claims to help patients by repatterning its clients' brainwaves.
"Why is this different?" Weiss told CBC News.
"And it was never really answered. And so that was one of the ways that I started to feel like why is there this differential treatment that's occurring?"
Weiss's lawyer, Kevin Toyne, argued at the inquiry that if Therrien can operate a neurofeedback centre in his spare time, he can't see why Weiss isn't allowed to post a news article on her personal social media page.
"Dr. Therrien does something similar — if not goes beyond — what my client is accused of," Toyne told the inquiry panel at Weiss's code of conduct hearing last year.
"Because if that's [BrainCore] not offside, I can't fathom how what my client is accused of could possibly be offside."
BrainCore therapy
BrainCore neurofeedback is a U.S.-based company that advertises itself as a non-invasive therapy that measures brainwaves and works with people to repattern their brains to help with an array of things including mental stress, substance abuse and sleep issues.
Therrien's Winnipeg chiropractic office is listed as a BrainCore provider on the website.
It is a "drugless, non-invasive approach to symptoms related to ADD/ADHD, migraine, memory loss, learning disorders, insomnia, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome," according to a poster advertisement for BrainCore Inc: Winnipeg Neurofeedback.
BrainCore Winnipeg is located in the same building as Therrien's chiropractic office, Prairie Chiropractic and Wellness Centre.
WATCH | A video from BrainCore Winnipeg's Facebook featuring Dan Therrien:
Therrien declined an interview with CBC News about the matter, but in a written statement he said when he is operating as a chiropractor, he complies with "all required regulations and expectations."
As the chief investigator for the association, Therrien become involved in Weiss's case after she was reported to him by the registrar, Audrey Toth. The association regulates all chiropractors in Manitoba.
He was tapped to look further into Weiss after the association's registrar reported that Weiss hadn't complied with the request to remove the posts.
Eventually, the issue went to a public inquiry.
A five-person panel of fellow chiropractors made up the inquiry committee, which was tasked to see if Weiss was in violation of four counts of professional misconduct.
On Nov. 23, 2022 — a year-and-a-half after Weiss first posted the article — the panel cleared her of any wrongdoing.
'A separate business'
During the inquiry, Therrien said his neurofeedback work is not "within the chiropractic realm," but while doing the work, he is wearing a different hat.
"When I'm in this state, I'm Dan Therrien, a BrainCore neurofeedback specialist," he told the panel.
"It is a separate business."
A one-hour webinar in 2018 posted to YouTube featured Therrien and spoke of how he used BrainCore to create a "seven-figure" chiropractic clinic.
In the webinar, Therrien is identified as a Winnipeg chiropractor and said BrainCore helped him generate $1 million in revenue for his practice.
"We brought in BrainCore a couple of years back ... and that's really changed our clinic, helping people adapt better to their environment and that generally increased my revenue tremendously and continues to increase," he said at the webinar.
WATCH | Dan Therrien speaks at a webinar about BrainCore:
The host, sitting beside Therrien, pointed specifically to targeting potential clients concerned with ADHD symptoms.
"It is because it is the moms and dads that have kids with ADHD and they want to know that their kid is going to be okay," said the host.
"You need to talk about how BrainCore might alleviate the symptoms."
Tim Caulfield, a University of Alberta professor and a Canada research chair in health law and policy, said the difference between how Weiss was treated versus Therrien is concerning.
"There's an open question there. Does that [BrainCore] fall within their scope of practice, especially in the context of evidence-based, science-based chiropractic care?" he said.
"So it is interesting to see a practitioner then making claims about another colleague going outside their scope of practice."
List of things out of scope
A 2019 directive by the association outlined over two dozen topics and conditions they considered "out of scope" for chiropractors to communicate about or advertise.
The list included ADD/ADHD, autism, flu/cold and vaccines. Included in a directive was a reminder that it's considered professional misconduct to exceed the scope of practice.
At the inquiry, Toyne questioned the association's registrar about Therrien's side business.
She said they are aspects of neurofeedback that do fall under the scope of chiropractic care and she noted that Therrien has gone to get lengths to separate his chiropractic and neurofeedback work.
She said if BrainCore was on a chiropractor's website, it would "automatically trigger" the webscraper used by the association and he would be told to remove it — but in this case, it is a separate office with a separate entrance, and not chiropractic.
The association declined to do an interview with CBC News. Terry Shaw, the association's president, told CBC News that the "regulatory process" is applied equally to every member.
He said chiropractors may utilize a number of tools to evaluate a patient, including x-rays and neurofeedback, but this could only be when diagnosing a patient for things that fall under the scope of chiropractic care.
He said that if a chiropractor does not identify themselves during their side activities, the association has no regulatory authority.
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