When the Foundation for Vertebral Subluxation (FVS) was founded it realized that the profession desperately needed chiropractic researchers who embraced the concept of vertebral subluxation. In addition to actually conducting research the FVS also supports a team of researchers through its scholarship program with 20 Fellowships having been granted. The FVS, through its Advancing Futures program, seeks to provide scholarships to individuals who assist in carrying out the Research Agenda of the organization.

CLICK HERE for more about the Agenda

Several of these Fellowships have been awarded to students at Sherman College of Chiropractic and recently four of those Fellows, who are now DC's, were honored with the Foundation's Young Researcher Award for their outstanding contribution and dedication to chiropractic research focused on vertebral subluxation.

They include:

• Christopher Long DC
• Suzzanne Candelaria Perez DC
• Justin Bedrosian DC
• Hui Zhen Lim DC

"As these young researchers will tell you, the work involved in research is not all glory. While that may come eventually, what is really involved is tedious work that often goes without recognition from the profession" stated Matthew McCoy DC, MPH Vice President of the FVS. McCoy continued "If anything, the profession is obsessed with the end product of research and the celebrity researchers that end up on all the stages being praised. If people knew what these students did they would be shocked."

The Fellows receiving the awards focused their time on two major projects for the Foundation. One involving the role of chiropractic in immune function and the other involving the development of Best Practices guidelines.

These students were originally brought on to focus on the Best Practices initiative that the FVS is engaged in.

CLICK HERE for more on that

And then COVID hit along with the attacks on chiropractic's role in immune function from within the profession itself.

CLICK HERE for more on that

The Fellows were pulled off the Best Practices project and in some cases did double duty in order to help the Foundation respond to those attacks.

The resulting response was nothing like the profession has ever seen as dozens of organizations, trade groups, technique organizations and businesses within chiropractic issued a resounding rejection of the false statements on immunity and chiropractic made by these groups.

Those events led the FVS to add the role of immunity in chiropractic clinical practice to its Research Agenda which resulted in a series of research papers being published including a Best Practices document supporting the positive effects of chiropractic in the functioning of the immune system.

CLICK HERE for more on that.

"As chiropractors around the world were hauled before their regulatory boards due to the position statements put out by these anti-subluxation organizations, that work literally saved those doctors from persecution by their regulatory boards" remarked McCoy, who also runs a chiropractic malpractice insurance program.

"The tedious nature of research and the grunt work involved that typically goes on behind the scenes is generally never seen or appreciated by the profession" remarked Christopher Kent DC, JD President of the Foundation for Vertebral Subluxation and Director of Scholarly Activity at Sherman College. "This is a small attempt at recognizing and honoring their efforts" Kent continued.

ABOUT Foundation for Vertebral Subluxation

The mission of the Foundation is to advocate for and advance the founding principles and tenets of the chiropractic profession in the area of vertebral subluxation through research, education, policy and service.