article archive
January 2006
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.