Chiropractic Safety
Chiropractic is among the safest of the healing arts. As proof one merely has to
compare malpractice rates between chiropractors and other healthcare professionals.
Chiropractors' malpractice premiums are a small fraction of those for medical doctors,
especially orthopedists and surgeons. Doctors of chiropractic have the most extensive
education and practical experience of all doctors in performing spinal adjustments.
Chiropractors receive an average of 563 total hours of formal education on how to
make an exact adjustment. Medical Doctors and physical therapists receive no formal
training in spinal adjustments.
Chiropractic's Safety Confirmed
By Dr. Matthew McCoy Editor - Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research
Over the past year research reports and stories in the press and media have appeared
about the issue of chiropractic neck adjustments causing strokes. A recent study
published in the Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research Vol. 4 No. 3 adds further
evidence that, despite what some biased researchers purport, chiropractic is indeed
very safe.
The study titled Stroke and Chiropractic: A Review of the Literature was written
by Ari Cohn B.S., D.C. a private practitioner from New Jersey and a graduate of
the University of Bridgeport College of Chiropractic. According to Dr. Cohn there
were a number of flaws in the literature relative to the supposed dangers of neck
adjustments. These included clumping all manipulation together and calling it chiropractic.
According to Dr. Cohn: "In the literature there is a lack of distinction between
professions and different styles and techniques of manual procedures, adjusting
and manipulating. Medical doctors, osteopaths, physical therapists and chiropractors
have different levels of expertise and levels of training in the area of spinal
manipulation and adjustment. Although chiropractors perform approximately 94% of
all spinal adjustments it is misrepresentation to include statistics of injuries
caused by other professionals, and even non-professionals and refer to the procedures
as chiropractic in nature when clearly they are not."
Other issues involve blaming the cause of a stroke on chiropractic based on the
temporal relationship to an adjustment. "Just because a person had an adjustment
a day or two before their stroke does not mean the adjustment caused the stroke.
I bet those people also drank water the day before the stroke but no one is going
to say the water caused the stroke" stated Dr. Cohn.
Interestingly Dr. Cohn reviewed the statistics regarding stroke in the general population
versus in the chiropractic patient population and showed that the incidence is actually
lower in those people under chiropractic care. He pointed out "the statistics might
indicate that perhaps we are actually preventing strokes in our patients as opposed
to the other way around." Dr. Cohn's review also compares the risk of common medical
procedures to the risk of stroke from cervical adjustment and says "medicine should
clean up its own backyard before looking at ours." Dr. Cohn pointed out that "medical
procedures have an inherent risk that the public for some strange reason seems to
accept without any question. Even a simple venipuncture is many times more dangerous
than the risk of stroke from a chiropractic adjustment. These are obvious flaws
in logic that people are just not seeing."
"Clearly there are political forces and issues that create a problem where none
really exists. You are more likely to get hit and killed by lightening than suffer
an adverse event from a neck adjustment. And while the chiropractic profession certainly
needs to research its safety and efficacy, I think there are more pressing aspects
of health care delivery to worry about. Considering that medicine kills more people
every six months than died in the Vietnam War should cause people to question whether
the pot is calling the kettle black" stated Dr. Matthew McCoy Editor of the Journal
of Vertebral Subluxation Research.
Copyright © 2000-2003 by the Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research (JVSR).
Used by permission.
As the largest existing analysis of scientific literature on low back pain, the
1993 Ontario Ministry of Health commissioned study drew international attention
when it recommended the management of low back pain be moved from medical doctors
to chiropractic doctors. They recommended: "Chiropractic manipulation is safer than
medical management of low back pain. Chiropractic management is greatly superior
to medical management in terms of scientific validity, safety, cost effectiveness
and patient satisfaction."
(The Effectiveness and Cost Effectiveness of Chiropractic Management of Low Back
Pain. Pran Manga and Associates. University of Ottawa, Canada - 1993)
The Agency for Health Care Policy and Research of the US Department of Health and
Human Services released Clinical Practice Guidelines for the management of acute
low back pain. The guidelines were developed after extensive study. Their findings
included: Conservative treatment such as spinal manipulation should be pursued in
most cases before considering surgical intervention. Prescription drugs such as
oral steroids, antidepressants and colchicine are not recommended for acute low
back problems.
(Acute Low Back Problems in Adults. Clinical Practice Guidelines. Bigos S. et al.
Agency for Health Care Policy and Research Publication No. 950642 (1994)- US Department
of Health and Human Services)
The government of New Zealand published a 377 page report which assessed the efficacy
and safety of chiropractic care. Their findings included: "Chiropractors are the
only health practitioners who are necessarily equipped by their education and training
to carry out spinal manual therapy (spinal adjustments)." "Chiropractors carry out
spinal diagnosis and therapy at a sophisticated and refined level. Serious complications
from lumbar spinal manipulation is rare." "Spinal manual therapy in the hands of
a registered chiropractor is safe." "The duration and training of a registered chiropractor
are sufficient to enable him/her to determine whether there are contraindications
to spinal manual therapy in a particular case, and whether that patient should have
medical care instead of, or, as well as, chiropractic care."
(New Zealand Report. Hasselberg PD. Government Printer Wellington-1979)