March 2004

Canadian inquest ends; verdict is 'accident'

Chiropractic lawyer calls finding 'massive miscarriage of justice'

Despite months of hearing scientific evidence from chiropractors and medical doctors that strokes liked to chiropractic care are exceedingly rare, a jury delivered a verdict that the death of Lana Lewis, 45, was "accidental," in effect linking the cause of her stroke to trauma, which may have included neck adjustment.

The jury in the much‑publicized Canadian inquest returned its verdict on January 23, 2004, more than three years after being ordered to look into the 1996 death of the Ontario woman.

Lewis suffered a stroke six days after receiving an upper‑neck manipulation by her chiropractor. She died from a second stroke shortly afterwards. According to inquest evidence, Lewis was overweight, suffered from various health problems including high blood pressure and severe headaches and was a heavy drinker and smoker. Still, her family argued that the stroke was caused by a dissection of the left artery due to the chiropractic care.

The finding of "accident" neither exonerated nor directly blamed the chiropractic care she had received several weeks before her death, but Tim Danson, one of the lawyers representing the chiropractic profession, complained that it "represents a massive miscarriage of justice."

The inquest has focused the spotlight on the supposed link between chiropractic and strokes, and also on the continuing efforts of the medical profession to destroy chiropractic.

One of the most vocal critics of chiropractic, Dr. John Norris, a Canadian neurologist from the Canadian Stroke Consortium, was forced to retract many of the statements he made under oath.

Under cross examination by Danson and the other attorneys defending chiropractic, Norris admitted that the Consortium's SPONTADS study, used as evidence against chiropractic, was "speculation," "sheer guesswork," "way‑off," and "irrelevant" to the inquest.

He also retracted statements he had made on national television and radio that exaggerated the risk of stroke associated with neck adjustment and confessed that he used results to spread fear and misinformation in the media.

When asked to explain to the jury why he had lied to the media he responded, "I can't explain that to the jury. I'm sorry."

The jury also heard from Dr. Walter Herzog, professor and Associate Dean of Research in the faculty of Kinesiology at the University of Calgary, who stated clearly that chiropractic did not cause strokes.

He said that during every day activities, the vertebral artery is stretched more ‑‑ often twice as much ‑‑ as it is during a neck manipulation. The quarter‑billion neck adjustments that are performed each year in North America are within the natural range of motion and are safe because our bodies are built to move this way, he testified.