ChiroFutures Responds to Media Attack

Addresses Media Inaccuracies and Clarifies Safety & Efficacy of Neck Adjustments

Recently the New York Times and the Washington Post reported on alleged risks of chiropractic care from adjustments to the neck.

CLICK HERE FOR WASHINGTON POST ARTICLE

CLICK HERE FOR NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE

ChiroFutures Malpractice Program takes these types of sensational media attacks very seriously and has issued a Press Release that addresses the media inaccuracies and clarifies the safety of neck adjustments.

Chiropractic Adjustments Are Safe and Effective

ATLANTA, Georgia – January 7, 2014

Recently the New York Times and the Washington Post reported on alleged risks of chiropractic care from adjustments to the neck.

There is no human experimental evidence that chiropractic adjustments or neck manipulations are causally related to strokes. The claims and statements that have been made and that have been interpreted by plaintiff attorneys, plaintiff experts and uneducated journalists that contend a link are based largely on very small case controlled studies.

A multitude of systematic distortions (biases) may effect the results and conclusions drawn from case-control studies. Other criteria must be used to determine whether an association is actually causative because an association, no matter how strong, does not prove causation. At this point in time due to the rarity with which neck dissections occur, experimental evidence in humans and prospective cohort studies examining the hypothesis that chiropractic adjustments cause stroke - do not exist. If such studies were to be carried out they would take a number of years to complete and would require thousandsof subjects because of the rarity of the occurrence.

Regarding advising on risks - a risk should be disclosed if a reasonable patient in what the doctor knows or should know to be the patient’s position, would be likely to attach significance to the risk or cluster of risks in deciding whether to forego the proposed therapy. Patients and doctors must make this decision based upon appropriate information. Since there is no human experimental evidence that chiropractic adjustments or neck manipulations are causally related to strokes, suggesting  that such a risk exists is poor public health practice.

In addition, the same risk of stroke has been shown to be associated with visits to medical doctors as well. This research indicates that patients may be consulting medical doctors and chiropractors when they are in the early stages of a dissection or stroke, perhaps because of headaches or neck pain. In essence, there is a stroke already in process.

We encourage and support a shared decision making process between doctors and patients regarding health needs. As a part of that process patients have a right to be informed about the state of their health as well as the risks, benefits and alternatives related to care. Chiropractors are thoroughly trained to recognize when a patient’s symptoms are from an ominous cause such as dissection and are well trained to make the appropriate referral to a medical specialist.

CLICK HERE FOR A PDF VERSION OF THE PRESS RELEASE

CLICK HERE FOR THE PRESS RELEASE ON PR.LOG

Contact Information:
Matthew McCoy DC, MPH
CEO & Co-Founder – ChiroFutures Malpractice Program
http://www.chirofutures.org
matthewmccoy@comcast.net
404.247.2550

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