While opponents of chiropractic appear to relish finding any possible "weakness" in the profession and using it as excuse to launch an attack, they are often forced to over-reach when trying to grab onto something to criticize. When they do, the World Chiropractic Alliance (WCA) is quick to send them toppling, rebuffing their desperate and misguided assault.

One of the more aggravating criticisms leveled against chiropractic is that high-volume practices are little more than "patient mills."

William Jarvis, president of the National Council Against Health Fraud, has frequently maligned D.C.s whose goal is to provide care to as many people as possible.

"Most chiropractic practice-builders emphasize high-volume practices, and teach D.C.s to train assistants to line up patients so the 'doctor' can go down the line 'adjusting' spines," he stated in an article, "Alternative Medicine: A Public Health Perspective," posted on his "Quackwatch" website. "Some high-volume practitioners have reported 'adjusting' over 300 patients a day." In another online article, he says the attitude is one of, "Just pop those spines and move on to the next patient."

Recently, the WCA countered this fallacious argument, and used sound medical research to support its conclusion that high-volume practices might actually provide superior care. The paper was approved by the WCA Board of Directors.

The "Position Paper on High Volume Practices" includes references to several medical research studies showing that quality of care is often closely linked to the number of procedures performed by the practitioner. The studies were published in medical journals such as Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association, The New England Journal of Medicine, and the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"Although the chiropractic community has not yet conducted scientific research on this issue, we feel confident that the conclusions reached by the medical profession would apply to chiropractic as well," stated WCA President Terry A. Rondberg, D.C. "We support the concept of high-volume practices as a means of bringing subluxation-corrective care to as many people as possible. Every patient we adjust brings us one step closer to the WCA goal of a subluxation-free world."

The position paper is available at the WCA website. Doctors who offer high-volume practices should print a copy of it and share the information with their patients.

"Developing this position paper on high volume practice is one more action the World Chiropractic Alliance has taken to protect and promote doctors of chiropractic," said Dr. Rondberg. "We believe in taking stands on every important issue and letting the profession and the world know where we stand."