When National College of Chiropractic changed its name to National University, some thought the move signaled a desire to distance the school from the chiropractic profession.

The recent announcement that the college was discontinuing its Journal of Chiropractic Technique in favor of a new publication, The Journal of Chiropractic Medicine, met with a similar reaction.

The school is collaborating with the American Chiropractic Association's Council on Family Practice and the American Association of Chiropractic Physicians (AACP) to publish the medical journal.

"Papers in the new journal will be devoted to a discussion of cases in which the diagnosis and management of viscerally-related conditions as well as musculoskeletal conditions are described; a review of literature regarding the primary care basis of chiropractic (including a wide range of topics such as adjustments, botanicals, phytopharmaceuticals, sensitivity and specificity of diagnostic tests); as well as commentaries and original data reports."

The school added that the journal was the result of the "recognition that the modern-day chiropractor is playing an increasingly important role in the primary care of ailing and hurting patients. While chiropractic expertise in the case of back and other pain conditions has long been established, in other conditions there is less awareness of the role that chiropractic can play in managing common organic conditions."

No mention was made of vertebral subluxation in the announcement or in articles about the new journal posted on the National website.

The absence of the word "subluxation" appears to be in keeping with National's general "philosophy" of chiropractic, as posted on its website (http://www.nuhs.edu/philosophy.html). Its description of chiropractic contains statements such as:

"As a central component of practice, the application of a diversity of spinal and other articular adjustments and manipulations for the treatment, correction, and prevention of neurologic, skeletal or soft tissue dysfunction and for the production of beneficial neurologic and other physiologic effects" and...

"The use of other conservative means in the promotion of optimal health including, but not limited to, nutritional counseling, physiologic therapeutics, meridian therapy/acupuncture, trigger point therapy, exercise, life-style counseling, botanical medicine, homeopathic remedies, emotional support, and stress management."

Another portion of the "Philosophy" statement concerns massage therapy. However, the word subluxation does not appear anywhere in the statement.

This is somewhat puzzling since the presidents of all college presidents -- including National -- signed the Association of Chiropractic Colleges (ACC) Position Paper No. 1 (more commonly known as the ACC Paradigm), which clearly specifies that "Chiropractic is concerned with the preservation and restoration of health, and focuses particular attention on the subluxation."

Not surprisingly, the American Academy of Chiropractic Physicians, a small organization that represents the most medically oriented D.C.s, also appears to disavow any connection to the concept of subluxation. The word does not appear anywhere on its website, nor in its lengthy list of "Purposes and Tenets."

Instead, those purposes indicate an ambitious agenda that includes providing "independent review of chiropractic training and experience, for the purpose of credentialing and certifying individual chiropractic physicians within the Guidelines of the Academy."

The website also provides a long list of links to other Internet resources, including the Merck drug manual, the American Medical Association, and numerous medical publications and organizations. The only chiropractic guidelines referenced on the page is the Mercy Guidelines. Under the category for "Pediatrics," no chiropractic pediatrics sites are listed. Instead, there are links to Society for Adolescent Medicine and other medical groups.

Matthew McCoy, D.C., editor of the Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research, (JVSR) stated, "The need for a truly chiropractic research publication has never been more obvious. JVSR will continue to serve that function and provide papers of relevance and importance to the chiropractic community."