March 2005

It works ... and here's the proof by

Dr. Terry A. Rondberg

What would you think about a medical doctor who prescribed drugs that haven't been properly researched? What about an orthopedic surgeon who performed an unproven procedure on a patient?

Considering recent scandals concerning conflict of interest, we are justified in having doubts as to the legitimacy of much medical research. But we still couldn't imagine a drug or procedure being offered without a substantial body of scientific research to validate its relative effectiveness and safety. Even in the fairly benign areas of nutritional supplements and diet, we want to see evidence that garlic or Echinacea have beneficial effects on the immune system, or that eating carrots really does improve our eyesight. We don't just accept such claims without some kind of proof.

Yet, every day in our chiropractic offices, we adjust patients on the premise that subluxations can have a negative affect on the state of their health and adjusting them can decrease that impact.

You and I know this is true and we have tons of first‑hand experience to back up our claims. We can print out reams of true‑life stories going back more than century. If anecdotal evidence was enough to convince a skeptical public of the efficacy of chiropractic, chiropractic would be mandatory for everyone!

But it's not enough by far. The only thing that will convince the public (as well as government officials and public authorities who make health care policy in this world) is solid scientific research that a) definitely links subluxation to specific health conditions or to an overall decrease in wellness, and b) demonstrates the beneficial outcomes possible with chiropractic adjustments.

Recently, three close friends and colleagues ‑‑ Drs. David Jackson, Robert Blanks, and Matthew McCoy ‑‑ formed a new company, Research & Clinical Scientific (RCS). They approached me before they began the arduous task of designing the software needed to compile information from thousands of doctors of chiropractic around the world for the purpose of performing the most ambitious research project ever undertaken by our profession. They already knew, from their own network of contacts in the research community, that the program would be welcomed with open arms by chiropractic researchers. But they wanted to know if I thought field doctors would be willing to participate and support the program.

I reviewed their detailed plans and goals and responded with an enthusiastic "YES!" This is exactly the kind of research all practicing DCs need to be able to show their patients, the kind of research that will have patients flocking to chiropractic offices.

Can you imagine if you could hand patients a brochure explaining that, in a global study of hundreds of thousands of people under chiropractic care, 80% said they experienced a far reduced incidence of colds and flu each year? Or that bedwetting and ear infections were nearly eliminated in the vast majority of children under chiropractic care? Or that there was a strong link between chiropractic care and one's perception of wellness and quality of life?

I'm not talking about anecdotal evidence or testimonials from other patients. I'm talking about valid research published in reputable scientific, peer‑reviewed journals.

Knowing the tremendous shot in the arm such research would mean to our profession, I assured my three friends that doctors around the world would line up to join RCS, even though they have to pay a fee to do so. After all, doctors pay thousands of dollars for various practice management programs (some worth it, many not) to grow their practices and they've donated millions of dollars for lawsuits and lobbying efforts to help the profession. They're savvy enough to know that the money they spend on the RCS program will have both short‑term and long‑term benefits for their practice as well as for chiropractic in general.

I'm so excited about what RCS can accomplish that I've become its greatest booster. I can't wait for the day when 20,000 DCs around the globe are involved in the program, each one adding to the mountain of research data to be analyzed by the RCS International Scientific Advisory Panel.

By the way, if you want to be impressed, read through the list of people who are on that panel (you can learn more about their credentials at the RCS website at www.rcsprogram.com). It includes PhD college professors and medical doctors, as well as Christopher Kent, DC, one of our most respected chiropractic researchers. With these people standing behind RCS, the research will have the benefit of an automatic level of credibility.

Once the research is published in major scientific journals, RCS will make sure the public learns about it. Chiropractic will become synonymous with scientific, evidence‑based care and our critics will be forced to abandon their tactic of calling us an "unproven" health care approach.

There will be another significant benefit that I don't think can be overstated. We'll no longer be confined to low‑back‑pain therapy. Our enemies have tried to trap us in that confining box for years ‑‑ and even tried to convince us we could prosper there. But very few of us ever believed that lie. We never lost our desire to be something bigger and better than glorified aspirins with hands. We knew that chiropractic is capable of so much more than that, despite a "dearth of research" to back us up.

For all those reasons, and so many more, I jumped on the RCS bandwagon and I'm doing everything I can to talk others into doing so as well. Despite the naysayers (and, of course there will be those who criticize RCS, just as they criticize just about everything) that bandwagon is heading into the future of chiropractic, a future made brighter thanks to research.