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Chiropractic celebrated its 118th birthday this week, observing the first chiropractic adjustment when Harvey Lillard received an adjustment from Dr. D.D. Palmer in Davenport, Iowa. 118 years old sounds like a lot, but in health care it’s actually one of the newest ideas to come along. Back in 1895 physicians knew very little about health and Harvey had been deaf for 17 years. He had already sought help from many medical doctors, but they all failed him. Then one day D.D. Palmer examined Harvey’s neck, found a vertebra out of position, corrected it and Harvey’s hearing returned. That adjustment started the chiropractic profession. Since then it has grown into a separate and distinct science and art, which should definitely not be thought of as a part of the medical profession. In fact there is a long history of ideological conflict between medicine and chiropractic. Chiropractors had to fight for the legal right to practice while physicians fought them every step of the way. Medical attacks on chiropractic have largely diminished or gone underground since a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court 1991. The Court upheld the finding that the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, the Arthritis Foundation along with other accomplices was guilty of illegally conspiring to boycott and eliminate the competitive science of chiropractic.
Much of the persecution and hostility has been forgotten, but occasionally bits of it still rear its ugly head. This happened today when The Telegraph, a magazine published in the UK featured an attack by medical correspondent, Stephen Adams against all non-medical health care systems. Among the allegations raised in the article was, “…But too often claims were poorly substantiated and adverse effects ignored…” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/alternativemedicine/9261019/Alternative-medicines-potentially-unsafe.html I found this part of the attack interesting because it flies in the face of current research. In a recent peer reviewed article about research studying adverse effects in a large group of persons receiving chiropractic care (http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2474/12/219/abstract/) the findings were that the adverse effects following upper cervical (precise) chiropractic are actually rare.

Whether the article was aimed at deflecting attention away from the growing numbers of families fearing the adverse effects of medical care (approximately 200,000 deaths annually in the U.S. alone due to medical errors), or simply a misguided journalist, this kind of publication creates worry in the minds of parents who should be encouraged to have their kids checked regularly by chiropractors. Although the article incorrectly lumped chiropractic in with fringe therapies as “alternative treatment,” it is essential to realize that chiropractic is not an alternative to medical care or anything else. Actually everyone should see their chiropractor to improve their performance whether or not they have pain. Chiropractic improves quality of life and it’s not just an alternative for people worried about being harmed by medicine. Your decision to provide chiropractic care for your family is a down-to-earth choice for healthy good hygiene.