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Dr. Trust Me BroDr. Trust Me BroIndependent data journalism · wry humor
Patterns

Targeting parents

A recurring pattern in the scans: the condition menu of a non-physician doctor filling up with the entries a published registry classes under infants and children, on a page written for the adult who does the searching, the booking and the paying.

The pattern in plain language
Read enough practice pages and the menu starts to repeat itself. Colic. Reflux. Ear infections. Bedwetting. Torticollis. Behavioral regression. ADHD. Autism. Not one of those is a thing an adult books for themselves. Every one of them is a thing an adult books for somebody small, which means every word on the page is written for a reader who is not the patient.
Why this is worth a second look
Nobody books a colic appointment for themselves. A parent does, and a parent will do anything. That is the whole reason this list is worth pulling out of the pile: the persuasion does not have to be very good, because the person reading it is already frightened and already willing. We are not measuring what anyone intended. We are counting which conditions appear on the menu, and a published registry, not us, decides which of those it classes under infants and children.

What the scans show

Read against the registry classification, across the subjects currently on the Wall of Fame.

27%
23 of 86 Doc Bros on the Wall of Fame
List a condition classed under infants and children
Their own published menu, read against the registry classification.
17%
15 of 86 Doc Bros on the Wall of Fame
Named on one of those conditions
Cleared the conditions hub naming bar, with a receipt attached.
100%
10 of 10 children's conditions in the registry
Children's conditions seen in the corpus
Of the entries the registry classes under infants and children.
100%
8 of 8 conditions only a very young patient has
Of those, ones only a very young patient has
Colic, reflux, torticollis, bedwetting and the rest of that group.
9%
46 of 525 listings counted across every condition
Listings counted under those conditions
One row per advertised condition per person, receipts and all.
50%
7 of 14 states in the corpus
States these listings were read in
Each one checked against that state's own published rule text.

Counted from published menus and our own scope review, not from any adjudicated finding.

Why children come first in this ranking

The order is not our opinion about who matters most. It is a published classification with its sources attached. In a 2017 clinical report the American Academy of Pediatrics said high-quality evidence for spinal manipulation on non-musculoskeletal problems is lacking, especially in infants and children, and that for them the risk of adverse events may be the highest because the spine is not yet stable. Australia's national chiropractic regulator has advised chiropractors not to use spinal manipulation on children under two since March 2019, advice replaced in November 2023 and reinstated in June 2024 at the request of that country's health ministers. British Columbia's chiropractic regulator has told registrants since October 2018 that they must not represent chiropractic as helping childhood conditions such as ADHD and autism spectrum disorders. That is the classification this page counts against. Classifications reflect our review, not an adjudicated finding.

What a chiropractic or naturopathic license does cover for a child
Read this page for what it says, not for what it does not. Taking a child to a chiropractor is not the pattern. Musculoskeletal care, a sore back, a stiff neck, a sports injury, is the in-scope baseline of a chiropractic license, which is exactly why the registry has no musculoskeletal entry at all. Naturopathic licenses differ by state and several of them cover nutrition counselling, wellness advice and routine care for young patients. None of that is counted here. What is counted is a menu that names a medical condition the registry classes under infants and children, beside an offer to address it. The distinction is the entire point: the objection is to the listing, not to the age of the patient.
The reader is not the patient

Put the pieces together and the audience is obvious. A page about back pain is written for the person with the back. A page about colic, reflux, bedwetting or developmental regression is written for somebody else entirely: the adult holding a phone at two in the morning, who has already seen a pediatrician, who has been told to wait and watch, and who is now reading a page that promises a root cause. Every persuasion tactic catalogued on the rest of this site works harder on that reader, because the cost of being wrong is not theirs to carry. So we describe what a page advertises and who it addresses, in the seller's own words, and we stop there.

Where this care belongs

Every condition the registry classes under infants and children, and the clinician who handles it. Nothing on this list is a comment on any practice.

ConditionWhere this care belongs
AutismA developmental behavioral pediatrician or child neurologist
ADHDA pediatrician, child psychiatrist or licensed psychologist
PANS and PANDASA pediatric neurologist or pediatric infectious disease specialist
Infant colic and refluxA pediatrician
Ear infectionsA pediatrician or an ear, nose and throat specialist
Torticollis and infant developmentA pediatrician or a pediatric physical therapist
BedwettingA pediatrician or a pediatric urologist
Chronic childhood illnessA pediatrician or a pediatric subspecialist
Developmental and behavioral regressionA developmental behavioral pediatrician or child neurologist
Childhood OCD and ticsA child psychiatrist or a pediatric neurologist

Seen in the wild

Only people who reached the naming bar used on the conditions hub: a federal registry match with a license number, a scope review at high or medium confidence, an active Wall of Fame entry, and at least one advertised activity the review placed outside the cited rule text.

Conditions only a very young patient has

These are conditions of early childhood, so the person reading the page is rarely the patient.

Ear infections (4)

  • Julie Gurbacki

    Public content appears to address Pediatric concerns (chronic ear infections, constipation, food sensitivities), which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Nebraska.

  • Scott P Burtis

    Public content appears to address Ear Infections, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Minnesota.

  • Dennis Ray Scharenberg

    Public content appears to address Ear Infection, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Kansas.

  • Sarah Drake

    Public content appears to address Frequent ear infections, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Kansas.

Infant colic and reflux (4)

  • Shannon McCarty

    Public content appears to address Neonatal (colic, reflux, constipation, gas, irritability), which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Minnesota.

  • Dennis Ray Scharenberg

    Public content appears to address Colic Treatment, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Kansas.

  • Scott P Burtis

    Public content appears to address Colic, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Minnesota.

  • Sarah Drake

    Public content appears to address Colic or excessive fussiness, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Kansas.

PANS and PANDAS (4)

  • Brian Lum

    Public content appears to address PANS & PANDAS, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Kansas.

  • Jaban M Moore

    Public content appears to address PANS, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Missouri.

  • Jill Crista

    Public content appears to address PANDAS Network, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Naturopathic Doctor scope in Wisconsin.

  • Martin Hart

    Public content appears to address PANS/PANDAS, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Tennessee.

Torticollis and infant development (2)

  • Shannon McCarty

    Public content appears to address Birth trauma, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Minnesota.

  • Sarah Drake

    Public content appears to address Plagiocephaly (flat head), which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Kansas.

Bedwetting (1)

  • Shannon McCarty

    Public content appears to address Adolescent transitions (hormone changes, bed wetting, growth spurts), which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Minnesota.

Childhood OCD and tics (1)

  • Jaban M Moore

    Public content appears to address Childhood OCD & Tics, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Missouri.

Chronic childhood illness (1)

  • Jaban M Moore

    Public content appears to address Children's chronic illness, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Missouri.

Developmental and behavioral regression (1)

  • Jaban M Moore

    Public content appears to address Behavioral Regression, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Missouri.

Conditions with a grown-up market too

Plain note, because the grouping above would otherwise overstate things: autism and ADHD are lifelong diagnoses, and there is a large adult market for both. A listing here is not by itself evidence that the page was written for a parent. It counts because the registry classes both under infants and children, and because they turn up beside colic and bedwetting on the same menus.

Autism (5)

  • Eric James Johnson

    Public content appears to address treat autism behavior issues, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Wisconsin.

  • Sarah Drake

    Public content appears to address On the autism spectrum, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Kansas.

  • Timothy Thomas Bertsch

    Public content appears to address Autism, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Minnesota.

  • Bradley Michael Woodle

    Public content appears to address Autism Spectrum, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Kansas.

  • Richard L. Mayfield

    Public content appears to address Autism Spectrum Disorder, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Minnesota.

ADHD (4)

  • Scott P Burtis

    Public content appears to address ADD/ADHD, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Minnesota.

  • Nicole Cain

    Public content appears to address ADHD/ADD, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Naturopathic Doctor scope in Arizona.

  • John W Larson

    Public content appears to address ADHD, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Minnesota.

  • Timothy Thomas Bertsch

    Public content appears to address ADHD, which the cited rule text suggests may fall outside the Chiropractor scope in Minnesota.