January 2006

see also: WCA response to Family Circle

WCA responds to Family Circle

A brief item in the October 18, 2005 issue of Family Circle enraged chiropractors and spurred a swift response from the World Chiropractic Alliance.

In the "behealthy" item on back pain, author Christine Brophy quoted a medical researcher as saying: "If your back is giving you a problem, seek an early referral to a physical therapist or an osteopathic physician to see if spinal manipulation is right for you."

Terry A. Rondberg, DC, president of the WCA, was justifiably irate. "To have included such an absurd quote is inexcusable," he stated. "If general interest magazines like Family Circle are going to offer credible health care advice, they need to be more careful about quoting uninformed or biased sources."

The WCA responded immediately to the article, urging the magazine's editors to print a clarification and overwhelming evidence of chiropractic's benefits for all people with musculoskeletal problems.

The WCA letter, signed by Dr. Rondberg, took the opportunity to educate the editors about the true role of chiropractic in health care. After citing several research papers indicating that chiropractic was effective in addressing back and neck pain, he explained that "chiropractic care is not a medical 'treatment' for back pain. Instead, doctors of chiropractic use a variety of methods to detect and correct vertebral subluxations, which are misalignments in the spinal bones. These misalignments have been shown to cause a number of musculoskeletal and neurological disturbances which can have serious impact on all aspects of health. By eliminating the interference to normal nerve flow, they allow the body to 'treat' and heal itself, as it was designed to do."

Whenever it is called to respond to negative press coverage of chiropractic, the WCA takes the opportunity to explain the concept of vertebral subluxation and emphasize that chiropractic is not limited to any one condition, disease, or segment of the population.

In the past, chiropractic critics have attempted to steer the public toward the medical profession by claiming that subluxations did not exist or that adjustments were ineffective. Today, there is a shift in tactics and chiropractic opponents are trying to position MDs as capable of spinal manipulation, or as gatekeepers to PTs and osteopaths. This is seen as the only way the medical establishment can retain control of patient traffic after the release of scientific proof of the impact of vertebral subluxations and the necessity for spinal adjustments.

"We need to constantly reinforce the fact that DCs are the only health care providers trained and proficient in the correction of subluxation, and to raise awareness as to what that can mean for general health," Rondberg noted.