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In this week’s eSkeptic, J. D. Haines, MD reminds us that chiropractic is a dangerous threat to public health. In an age where phenomenal medical discoveries have improved the health and extended average longevity to almost 80 years, chiropractic remains a holdover from the days of the snake oil salesmen.
J. D. Haines, MD has over 20 years experience in family and emergency medicine. He is a Fellow of American College of Sports Medicine, and Clinical Associate Professor of Family Practice at the University of Oklahoma.
engraving of a spinal column from Henry Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body, 1918.
Fatal Adjustments
How Chiropractic Kills
by J. D. Haines, MD
When Kristi Bedenbaugh wanted relief from a bad sinus headache, the 24 year-old former beauty queen and medical office administrator made the mistake of consulting a chiropractor. An autopsy performed on Kristi revealed that the manipulation of her neck had split the inner walls of both vertebral arteries, resulting in a fatal stroke.
The chiropractor’s violent twisting of her neck caused the torn arterial walls to balloon and block the blood supply to the posterior portion of her brain. Studies confirmed that the blood clots formed on the two days she received her neck adjustments.
Kristi died in1993. Four years later, South Carolina’s State Board of Chiropractic Examiners fined the chiropractor $1000 and sentenced him to 12 hours of continuing medical education in the area of neurological disorders and emergency response.
item of interest…
The Borderlands of Science
Where does valid science leave off and borderland science begin? This book and lecture examines the theories, the people and the history involved in areas of controversy where sense is in danger of turning into nonsense.
Supporters of chiropractic are quick to claim that cases like this are rare. Try telling that to Kristi’s family — no matter how great the odds, the outcome was 100% fatal for her. The real problem is that there are no valid statistics concerning the risk of stroke after neck manipulation. Aside from anecdotal reports like Kristi’s and a few surveys, little clinical research has addressed this problem.
Two recent studies reveal the tip of the iceberg. In 1992, researchers at the Stanford Stroke Center surveyed 486 California neurologists regarding how many patients they had seen within the previous two years who had suffered a stroke within 24 hours of neck manipulation. One hundred seventy-seven neurologists responded, reporting 55 patients between the ages of 21 and 60. One patient died and 48 were left with permanent neurological impairment.
A review of 116 journal articles published between 1925 and 1997 reported 177 cases of neck injury caused by manipulation. Sixty percent of these cases resulted from injury inflicted by chiropractors.
The real tragedy is that cervical spine manipulation is totally worthless in treating problems like Kristi Bedenbaugh’s. So, however rare the incidence of adverse outcome, the risk always outweighs any perceived benefit. There is no medically proven benefit whatsoever to chiropractic manipulation of the cervical spine.
While it may be argued that chiropractic is helpful for some cases of low back pain, the claims that over 90 different medical illnesses may be successfully treated by spinal manipulation is without any scientific evidence. The Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics stated on May 27, 2002, “For neck and low back pain, trials have not demonstrated an unequivocal benefit of chiropractic spinal manipulation over physical therapy and education.” The report continues: “Repeated reports of arterial dissection and stroke associated with cervical spine manipulation and cauda equina syndrome associated with manipulation of the lower back suggest a cause and effect relationship.”
The report concludes, “Spinal manipulation can cause life-threatening complications. Manipulation of the cervical spine, which has been associated with dissection of the vertebral artery, appears to be especially dangerous.”
The major problem with chiropractic is that it was founded upon the false premise that correction of vertebral subluxations will restore and maintain health. Chiropractic philosophy maintains that disease or abnormal function is caused by interference with nerve transmission due to pressure, strain, or tension upon the spinal nerves due to deviation or subluxation within the vertebral column.
Daniel David Palmer, a tradesman who posed as a magnetic healer, discovered chiropractic in 1895. Palmer’s first patient was a deaf janitor who had his hearing restored after Palmer adjusted a bump on his spine. According to Dr. Edmund Crelin, “Magnetic healing was a popular form of quackery in the 19th century in which the healers believed that their personal magnetism was so great that it gave them the power to cure diseases.” Palmer summarized his new science:
I am the originator, the Fountain Head of the essential principle that disease is the result of too much or not enough funtionating [sic]. I created the art of adjusting vertebrae, using the spinous and transverse processes as levers, and named the mental act of accumulating knowledge, the cumulative function, corresponding to the vegetative function — growth of intellectual and physical-together, with the science, art and philosophy — Chiropractic. It was I who combined the science and art and developed the principles thereof. I have answered the question — what is life?
Palmer’s egotistical and ridiculous claims are familiar to those who have studied leaders of religious cults. Incredibly, Palmer’s philosophy remains the basis of modern-day chiropractic thinking. Palmer’s claim that chiropractic answers the question, “What is life?” would be laughable if not for a gullible public who readily accept quackery.
The public is led to believe that physicians disparage chiropractors out of some sort of professional jealousy. Yet there is only one reason that physicians judge chiropractors so harshly. Medicine is scientifically based, whereas chiropractic is not supported by a single legitimate scientific study.
In the first experimental study of the basis of chiropractic’s subluxation theory, Dr. Edmund S. Crelin, then an anatomy professor at Yale University, demonstrated that chiropractic theory was erroneous. As retired chiropractor Samuel Homola writes, “Using dissected spines with ligaments attached and the spinal nerves exposed, he used a drill press to bend and twist the spine. Using an ohm meter to record any contact between wired spinal nerves and the foraminal openings, he found that vertebrae could not be displaced enough to stretch or impinge a spinal nerve unless the force was great enough to break the spine. Crelin concluded, ‘This experimental study demonstrates conclusively that the subluxation of a vertebrae as defined by chiropractic — the exertion of pressure on a spinal nerve which by interfering with the planned expression of Innate Intelligence produces pathology — does not occur.’”
Physicians have long recognized that spinal nerves are commonly pinched by bony spurs and herniated discs, resulting in musculoskeletal symptoms, without any effect on visceral function, as claimed by chiropractic. Chiropractic theory ignores that the autonomic nervous system maintains the function of the body’s organs, even in spinal cord lesions.
item of interest…
The SKEPTIC Encyclopedia
of Pseudoscience
Two volumes full of case studies, historical documents, and a pro/con debate section. Read more…
Chiropractors are notorious for performing unnecessary X-rays and so-called maintenance care that often corresponds to the duration of the patient’s insurance coverage. The greatest threat of chiropractic, however, may be to infants and children. As Homola explains, “Parents are lured by claims that spinal adjustments at an early age can prevent the development of disease and that vaccination may not be necessary.” There remains no medical or scientific basis for the treatment of infants and children. A more subtle danger represented by chiropractic is the campaign for public acceptance as primary care providers. The clinical training received by chiropractic students is greatly inferior to that of medical students and residents.
In today’s climate of government-sanctioned alternative therapies, the ignorant consumer may be fooled by slick marketing to believe that chiropractors are qualified to treat a broad range of diseases. As alternative medicine gains wider acceptance, public health will surely suffer. Stephen Barrett, MD, has written that the real enemy of chiropractors is themselves:
Your basic enemy is yourself. Your colleagues engaged in unscientific practices, economic rip-offs, cheating insurance companies, selling unnecessary supplements and generally overselling themselves. Most chiropractors would like to believe that the number of such colleagues is small. I think it is large and may even be a majority.
As far back as 1924 essayist H. L. Mencken recognized chiropractors as quacks:
Today the backwoods swarm with chiropractors, and in most States they have been able to exert enough pressure on the rural politicians to get themselves licensed. Any lout with strong hands and arms is perfectly equipped to become a chiropractor. No education beyond the elements is necessary. The takings are often high, and so the profession has attracted thousands of recruits — retired baseball players, work-weary plumbers, truck-drivers, longshoremen, bogus dentists, dubious preachers, cashiered school superintendents. Now and then a quack of some other school — say homeopathy — plunges into it. Hundreds of promising students come from the intellectual ranks of hospital orderlies.
As practiced today, chiropractic is a threat to public health. In an age where phenomenal medical discoveries have improved the health and extended average longevity to almost 80 years, chiropractic remains a holdover from the days of the snake oil salesmen. Every year trusting and naïve Americans suffer needless injury and death due to dangerous cervical spine manipulation. The investigation of the true frequency of complications from chiropractic is a duty that public health officials have long neglected and should undertake at once.
Mr. Deity and the Science Advisor
The science advisor (played by PZ Myers of Pharyngula fame) informs Mr. Deity that his design for the humans leaves something to be desired.
Don’t Be Such a Scientist!
This week on Skepticality, Swoopy catches up with biologist-turned-filmmaker Dr. Randy Olson, whose latest book, Don’t Be Such A Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style deals with the image and communication issues facing scientists in the new media era.
Some of the book’s key messages (don’t be so cerebral; don’t be so literal-minded; don’t be such a poor story teller; don’t be so unlikable) are also on display in Dr. Olson’s newest feature film, Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy. The new movie, a mockumentary that humorously relates just how hard it is to get a film about science made in style-conscious Hollywood, is the closing film at the Imagine: Science Film Festival in New York this week.
Stewart Brand will be speaking on
Monday, October 26, 2009 at 7:00 pm
upcoming lectures…
Whole Earth Discipline
An Ecopragmatist Manifesto
with Stewart Brand
NOTE SPECIAL DAY/TIME FOR THIS LECTURE:
Monday, Oct. 26, 2009, 7 pm
Baxter Lecture Hall, Caltech
According to Stewart Brand, a lifelong environmentalist (and creator of the Whole Earth Catalog) who sees everything in terms of solvable design problems, three profound transformations are under way on Earth right now. Climate change is real and is pushing us toward managing the planet as a whole. Urbanization — half the world’s population now lives in cities, and 80% will by midcentury — is altering humanity’s land impact and wealth. And biotechnology is becoming the world’s dominant engineering tool. In light of these changes, Brand suggests that environmentalists are going to have to reverse some long held opinions and embrace tools that they have traditionally distrusted…
READ MORE about this lecture >
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followed by…
Carl Zimmer will lecture on
Sunday, November 1, 2009 at 2:00 pm
The Tangled Bank
An Introduction to Evolution
with Carl Zimmer
Sunday, Nov. 1, 2009, 2 pm
Baxter Lecture Hall, Caltech
Zimmer, an award-winning science writer (New York Times, Discover), takes readers on a fascinating journey into the latest discoveries about evolution. In the Canadian Arctic, paleontologists unearth fossils documenting the move of our ancestors from sea to land. In the outback of Australia, a zoologist tracks some of the world’s deadliest snakes to decipher the 100-million-year evolution of venom molecules. In Africa, geneticists are gathering DNA to probe the origin of our species. In clear, non-technical language, Zimmer explains the central concepts essential for understanding new advances in evolution, including natural selection, genetic drift, and sexual selection. He demonstrates how vital evolution is to all branches of modern biology — from the fight against deadly antibiotic-resistant bacteria to the analysis of the human genome.
READ MORE about this lecture >
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Important ticket information
Tickets are first come first served at the door. Sorry, no advance ticket sales. Seating is limited. $8 Skeptics Society members & Caltech/JPL Community; $10 General Public.
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Much enjoyed Dr. Haines’ article re Chiropractic. Where can I get the references he mentioned but didn’t cite?
When I was in Albuquerque in the AF in 1970, I became aware of the Spears Chiropractic Clinic in Denver that had a Cerebral Palsy Clinic, where they manipulated patient free of hope and wallets all the time! I was on their mailing list and suddenly the mailings stopped-probably found out I was a feared allopath!
Dick Goldhahn
After suffering a childhood sports injury, my back and neck were in constant pain. I started going to chiropractic in my early twenties for a total of seven years of spinal manipulation. My back and neck was worse than ever. By age thirty I had arthritis in my spine no doubt caused by the injuries and chiropractic.
The chiropractic adjustments felt good at first but within a day or two my bones would snap back into their former position leaving me in worse pain than before the adjustments. It becomes addictive, much like kids cracking their knuckles.
Today, at age fifty, I do yoga stretching and have an inversion traction table which I hang upside down on several times a day and am better than ever. No more bone crunching! My back is getting stronger and my posture is becoming much better. Posture is key. Stretching and exercise work! Don’t fall for the chiropractor scams. Thanks so much for this very insightful article. I hope people take notice.
Interesting article on Chiropractic…
Never thought I would say this myself, but…although the article states that there is no evidence that chiropractic works, I am one of those individuals who visits a chiropractor semi-regularly (at least, when I have pain) and I must say that the pain goes away instantly when I have the manipulation performed. Is this just all in my mind?? I get a numb tingling in my left arm which I assume is due to my poor posture, motorcycle riding habits and constant video gaming…and the second the manipulation is performed, the tingling sensation goes away and will not reappear for about two weeks to a month…
I consider myself a skeptic and am pretty self aware, but I cant believe that I am fooling myself and that this $40/visit I spend is a waste of money AND a risk to my health! SAY IT AINT SO!!!
Thank goodness we have the md’s to protect us against unneeded lab tests, surgeries, procedures and drugs!(insert laugh tract here). They also tried to eliminate those quasi-mds the infamous DO’s. Say hows that working out for you? Spend more time getting rid of the thousands of incompetent drug pushing murderous md’s. Then see what happens to the health of the country, not to mention your malpractice insurance rates. In the spirit of fairness, I’m sure we will next see an article on all the patients md’s tried to cripple or drug, who have been helped by DC’s. Lets hope we don’t need to insert another laugh tract after this statement.
Hello Everyone,
It’s always interesting to me that medical doctors who bad mouth chiropractic use “Doctor” Stephen Barrett as a resource. Go to quackpotwatch.org to learn more about this “doctor”.
I am a chiropractor. Michael Shermer uses chiropractic care, as he needs it. I know, because I have conversed with him through emails. Mr. Shermer and I agree that their are chiropractors that make claims regarding chiropractic that are not realistic. Chiropractic care cannot cure every condition under the sun. So how does chiropractic work? By keeping the joints your body in the proper position, weather it be your spine, your wrist, or any other joint, they stay in better shape and last longer. Do the tires on your car last longer if they are in alignment? Same principle. Now imagine an office building or factory, filled with computers and complicated machinery. For this office or factory to work properly and maintain function, it is critical to maintain the lines of communication, otherwise things don’t work the way they are supposed to. That is the same principle as our brain sending and receiving the necessary information to monitor and control every organ and cell in our bodies. Our nervous system is that line of communication. Chiropractic is about keeping our bodies running as best as they are able. How? By keeping the lines of communication open, and keeping the structure that supports our bodies in a position to do so. It’s that simple.
It is truely a tragedy when something when something happens, like what happened to Kristi Bedenbaugh. There is a risk to every medical or chiropractic procedure. Chiropractors have patients sign Informed Consent forms, just as you would before receiving medical treatment. In rare cases, and I am not saying this is what happened to Miss Bedenbaugh, people are born with congenitally weak and fragile vertibral arteries. There is no common or simple test for this condition, and almost nobody who has it, is aware of it. Why? Because it will usually be uncovered during an autopsy. People with this condition can die from a whiplash trauma, and in some cases, high blood pressure. A fall, or bump to the head, could rupture those weak and fragile arteries. That the case Dr. Haines mentions is from 1993, should let the reader know how rare these episodes are. The following is a quote from Dr. Haines article:
A review of 116 journal articles published between 1925 and 1997 reported 177 cases of neck injury caused by manipulation. Sixty percent of these cases resulted from injury inflicted by chiropractors.
Let’s do the math. Sixty percent of 177 is about 106 people. That means that, medical doctors or osteopaths, I assume, were responsible for the other 71. I am being very conservative here; let’s say that at least one million chiropractic neck adjustments were performed over that 72 year period. That means the death rate for a procedure that actually helped hundreds of thousands of people, is less than a tenth of one percent! Name any medical procedure for the conditions these people suffered from that has that kind of safety record. There isn’t any. My malpractice insurance costs pennies to the dollar what a medical doctor pays. Do you know why? Because chiropractic care is safe and effective. It works. Premiums for malpractice insurance are determined by actuaries, and insurance companies based on claims made, not by chiropractors. Based on that, insurance companies think medical treatment is far more dangerous to you than chiropractic care.
There is not enough space here to address this biased and erroneous article. You realize Dr. Haines, and I am talking in the present, not 1925 or 1993 that the single most preventable cause of death in this country are medical mistakes. You know what they say about people who live in glass houses.
Hello Everyone,
I guess I didn’t understand that chiropractic care held all the answers. I believe that Dr. Haines was addressing a specific fatal complication of cervical maniuplation and not attacking the main stream physical therapy procedures that they perform.
My personal problem with chiropractors is that they are allowed to be called doctors when they have obviously not earned a legitimate medical or doctoral degree. Being a scientist and a chiropractor is impossible because there is no science in chiropractic.
All of these lengthy angry responses are obviously emotional rather than rational. Dr. Haines’ observations were based on scientific fact and yes, possibly bias, due to his practice of real medicine.
Dayna RN
I am a scientist and a chiropractor and work hard to provide evidence-based and quality care to my patients. I like many of my colleagues, work closely with physiotherapists, medical doctors, orthopaedic specialists, and kinesiologists.
Although we are no longer in the 1950’s, it appears that the “skeptics” are still drinking of the kool-aid of economic and political opponents of chiropractors, and would rather sling mud based on anecdote and “arguments from authority” rather than work together to improve the health of patients. Perhaps an exposé of medicine, iatrogenic patient mortality and morbidity rates, and actually examining how evidence-based medical practise REALLY is, would alter some of the so-called “open minded” skeptics, instead of merely head bobbing and hand wringing when it comes to discussing subjects they disapprove of. There is a plethora of evidence showing that even the most vigorous forms of chiropractic are as safe as normal neck movement. There are blood flow studies and cadavar studies dating back almost 10 years which have studied these subjects. Some of the better work is being done at the Kinesiology Dept of University of Calgary, Canada, where W. Herzog PhD actually took the time to study the mechanics of neck movement and vertebral artery flow. Wow novel concept! Research to support a theory!
“Therefore, we conclude from our preliminary results on
the mechanics of the vertebral artery, that stresses and
strains of the vertebral artery during neck manipulation
are well within the normal range experienced during
everyday movements.” Herzog, 2002
Notice he did not say “risk free” he said it was “comparable to normal neck movements.” Therefore, I can have a stroke from getting a hair cut, watching movies, sneezing, etc, if I am susceptible to that kind of phenomena. If I happened to have the misfortune of having a stroke, and if by coincidence I went to the chiropractor sometime in the last year, it will be VERY likely that the “normal activity” that the attending doctor pins as the cause of the stroke, will be the neck adjustment. This will further cause opponents of the profession (like the author) to arm themselves with this as further “proof” that neck manipulation is dangerous. Don’t get me started on MD’s over-reporting/under-reporting adverse effects in hospitals. It is an arcane art that has little semblance to reality, in spite of some improvements recently.
I encounter many bizarre and unscientific medical practises in my own work, and a lot of the doctors have the lofty MD after their name, some have other training. In spite of this, I do not waste time writing newsletters, or evangelising about the evils of allopathic medicine, since people would think I am a biased buffoon, who has it in for medicine. I do not. Medicine has things it does very well, and there are many things I can think of going to a medical doctor for.
I used to be puzzled by the phenomena of scientists and clinicians who normally are quite unbiased, but will froth at the mouth when it comes to beating up on a subject they know little about. Now I find it mainly irritating and fatiguing, so I am pulling the plug on your newsletter.
The days of the boogey-men are over, and it is time to try to work on our own professions and improve quality of care standards, improve collaboration and cooperation, and not stopping to throw stones, based on unfounded beliefs that should have died in the middle of the last century.
Thank you for your time,
TRJ BSc, MSc, DC
Canada
Chiropractor – 2 years or education past a high school diploma
Physical Therapist – 4 years to get a BS, 3 more years of specialized physical therapy school, 1.5 years of Clinic duty under experienced therapists.
Who would you trust?
I don’t know where Will gets his information, but he really should do some homework before shooting off some foolish comments about chiropractic education. A minimum of 3 years of undergraduate education are required for admission (including an extensive science curriculum), and chiropractic school is five academic years.
At New York Chiropractic College, where I teach, it’s a demanding 4,620 hour program including anatomy with human dissection, physiology, pathology, and extensive education in whole-body physical diagnosis and diagnostic imaging. Our students are trained in a wide range of therapeutic procedures including manual therapies, exercise therapy and passive modalities. The program also includes a 1.5 year long internship that includes 1,320 hours of supervised clinical experience. Many of our interns serve in multidisciplinary settings including Bethesda Naval Hospital, three VA hospitals, university health clinics and local community hospitals. See
http://www.nycc.edu/AcademicPrograms_DCprogram.htm
for more details.
Bill Lauretti, DC
Associate Professor of Chiropractic Clinical Sciences
New York Chiropractic College
Seneca Falls, NY
As a neurosurgeon, I read this article with great interest. It struck me as a reasoned, well-written article. The comments, however, not surprisingly, show more bias. The reports of vertebral artery (VA) and cauda equila (CE) injury come as no surprise. I’m sure the vast majority of neurologists and neurosurgeons have seen this and recognize its pathophysiology. VA dissection may also occur from mechanisms other than chiropractic manipulation, such as wrestling, choke holds, and others. This is not news, but the exact incidence of VA injury with chiropractic manipulation is unknown. It’s probably low, as one commenter pointed out, if expressed in statistical units such as number of injuries per 100,000 manipulations. But the point is that it happens, and is well known to happen.
The other side of the issue is whether this small risk is worth the potential benefit. Several commenters bash the medical system as causing more harm to patients than do chiropractors. Certainly surgical procedures carry risk, sometimes very substantial, as do medications. But these treatments have some proven efficacy for the condition they are intended to treat, and the overall frequency or magnitude of the risks of treatment should be less than that of the disease. These are decisions we have to make every day, with every patient.
What is the value of chiropractic manipulation of the cervical spine, and does this value justify the small but real risk of serious injury or death? I can’t go into the science here, which was alluded to in the article. I can only shake my head and wonder at the lack of scientific basis of an entire field of practice.
It is particulary distressing when an alleged skeptic, i.e., the chiropractor basher, provides research on the history of chiropractic to dis the practice, but has no real concept of the benefits. Many people, including me and several of the other people who have posted on this site, can personally attest to the benefits of chiropractic. However, this argument is not proof of the benefit of chiropractic for everybody. Nor is it possible for all members of any practice to be 100% correct all of the time. Aspirin has different effects on different people. It is merely one variable to state that aspirin can block pain receptors, for instance. However, aspirin causes vertigo with some people, sinus congestion, not to mention other reported symptoms. There is no such thing as a universal effect with any drug or any manipulation of the spine, nerves, tissues or any other body part. The most responsible surgeon in the world can have a person die on the table when performing a cardiac procedure. What a classic argumentum ad hominem … to point to one chiropractor who caused a person to die because of an alleged malpractice, and from this example, to draw the conclusion that all chiropractors are charlatans. This type of reasoning is not skepicism; it’s a form of bashing without factual or statistical information to rule out the potential benefits of chiropractic. Most chiropractors, at least those totaling over two dozen which I have personally interviewed, practice muscular-skeletal manipulation, and use x-rays to interpret misalignments or other observations that indicate points of tension or stress. Most chiropractors admit that a single adjustment will not “cure” a problem with stress and discomfort, and most will not be absurd enough to claim that chiropractic works 100% of the time. Chiropractors in general (again, based on the ones I’ve interviewed) will also use x-rays to pass the client onto an orthopedic surgeon or practitioner of another medical discipline if he or she believes the problem cannot be treated by musculoskeletal manipulation.
Dr. Haines accusations that chiropractic is dangerous are unfounded. There is little evidence that chiropractic manipulations of the neck are the cause of strokes as Haines claims. In the article entitled “Risk of vertebrobasilar stroke and chiropractic care: results of a population-based case-control and case-crossover study” in the 2009 Feb issue from the Journal of Manipulative Physiological Therapeutics (32(2 Suppl):S201-8) found that “the increased risks of VBA (vertebral basilar artery) stroke associated with chiropractic and PCP (primary care physician) visits is likely due to patients with headache and neck pain from VBA dissection seeking care before their stroke,” (Cassidy). This and many other studies found a correlation between patients seeking care for specific types of head aches (not asymptomatic patients) are more likely to suffer strokes weather they seek treatment from a medical doctor or a chiropractor. There is not any evidence of patients with out specific symptoms suffering strokes simply due to neck manipulations from a chiropractor. Sadly, there is little evidence that specific orthopedic tests can rule in or out a patient who is at risk of stroke.
Dr. Haines statement that “Medicine is scientifically based, whereas chiropractic is not supported by a single legitimate scientific study,” is baseless. Much research has been done on the effectiveness of spinal manipulation. Dr. Haines assertion that “There is no medically proven benefit whatsoever to chiropractic manipulation of the cervical spine,” is simply not true. Resolution or dramatic decreases in perceived pain have been reported throughout the scientific literature. The journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association has noted this in the 2009 Aug issue (53(3):173-85 ), in an article entitled “Neck pain and disability outcome following chiropractic upper cervical care: a retrospective case series”.
Chiropractic education is very rigorous. After the undergraduate requirements of a bachelors degree or three years of basic science classes, chiropractors have five academic years in specific scientific training on anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology as medical students do. In addition, the curriculum includes chiropractic technique education, this includes an extensive internship program where students practice chiropractic under strict supervision prior to graduation. On the National Chiropractic Board of Examiners website (https://www.nbce.org) there are links to all eighteen accredited chiropractic colleges in the United States, each of the schools will list their curriculum and entrance requirements. Comparing these curriculum’s to that of medical schools will prove that Dr. Haines claim that “The clinical training received by chiropractic students is greatly inferior to that of medical students and residents,” is baseless.
It may benefit Dr. Haines to do some investigative research into any profession he wishes to slander in the future. Or, at the very least, stick to proven and valid facts.
I have been going to a Chiropractor for about 5 years and had my neck adjusted at each visit. I am still alive.
Chiropractor Tom said some things that I frankly don’t understand.
He said:
<>
Tom…what does this mean? Do the joints in the body somehow get into the wrong position? Where is the evidence for this? And then, where is the evidence that shows by manipulating these joints somehow makes us healthier?
I know that chiros use the term “subluxation”. I’ve read from several sources that the definition of a subluxation is a chiropractic one and doesn’t exist is the lexicon of neurologists, radiologists and neurosurgeons. Is this true? Please explain what you mean by subluxation. Would a board-certified radiologist be in accord with your definition?
I’ve also read that one of the main criticisms of chiropractic is the complete lack of solid scienfific evidence for what they do. Where is the solid scientific body of literature – good literature, not some fly-by-nightj journal – that backs the chiropractic profession.
Tom then goes on to make analogies to tires being out of alignment and factories working better by maintaining lines of communication. He said that chiropractic is about keeping our bodies running as best as they are able. How? By keeping the lines of communication open, and keeping the structure that supports our bodies in a position to do so. What is he talking about???
Please explain
chet
Perhaps we should ask Dr. Haines how many people died under his care? Im pretty sure more then all chiropractors combined. I do not support DCs but they are “boy scouts” in comparisons to MDs as far as malpractice, dubious treatment and billing is concerned. Just another self serving article. MDs are drug pushers for big pharma nothing more.