You have a lot of chiropractors who are fairly simple and straightforward: if it hurts here, that’s where you adjust it. With me, if it hurts here, yes, the problem may be here, but let’s just see if it’s here or if it’s coming from someplace else: because, if it’s here, [it's] easy [to correct]; if it’s coming from someplace else and I just adjust here because you say it hurts, I’m going to create another problem. And I’m not going to do that.

To really take care of somebody, chiropractically, do it right. It’s actually a very specific science. …

What chiropractic really is doing is trying to help keep the nervous system free and clear. So the spine … is where you start from. But [as] muscles move bones, you have to worry about the muscles: Are they too strong or too weak or what?

If you’re feeding nutrition into the body … that nutrition breaks down and it goes into muscles, tendons and ligaments. If you’re putting junk into the system, you’re putting junk into tendons and ligaments and muscles.

“So I gather you’re a mixer,” I said.

“You’re probably better off calling me a straight mixer,” Crescione responded.

He claimed he had detected neurological “weaknesses.” When I asked if he attributed them to backbone pressure on my nerves, he replied, “Yes. Some of it’s [by the] spinal bone; some of it’s by soft tissue.”

When I asked Crescione whether he performed cranial balancing, he said it was a must. He concluded that I had a sprained sacroiliac joint and was “falling apart.” He stated that I should resume weightlifting to prevent low-back pain — even though I had told him that the symptom had disappeared after I’d quit weightlifting. He added that the (alleged) sacroiliac-joint sprain was causing digestive problems involving the pancreas. He told me:

The mid-thoracic area is one of the places that supply the pancreas. So if you get stuck ["subluxated"] in the mid-thoracic area, you get a change in nerve flow from that nerve out to the pancreas. So what does the pancreas do? Sugar metabolism. That’s your energy. So a lot of those afternoon yawns may be coming from that thoracic [area] being stuck.

He advised me to get an X-ray, for $50, at his other office.

The chiropractor enumerated my options: I could do nothing; I could seek a second opinion from a physical therapist or exercise physiologist; I could submit to chiropractic treatment of “spinal misalignments or spinal subluxations”; or I could avail myself of his counseling services concerning nutrition and exercise “to get as much change into the nervous system as possible.” However, he warned me: “I’ll tell you now: This low-back pain … will recur again, and it will get progressively worse to the point where you’re not going to be able to get up, and then you’ll be out.”

“But it hasn’t gotten worse,” I countered.

“It will,” he asserted. “You may not have a big problem there until you’re in your 40s or 50s [I was 39], and then it’s going to come in a form of a disc that they want to take out. That’s your choice.”

When I inquired about fees, Crescione said I needed dietary counseling, spinal “adjusting,” and possibly applied Kinesiology — “the icing on the cake” — just to treat one of my “different problems”: my tendency to yawn in the afternoon, which he termed “a digestive thing.” He estimated that at least two sessions per week for six to 12 weeks would be sufficient to correct my alleged problems. The quoted cost per session was $40.

Not long after my visit, Crescione’s office made expiration-dated “certificates” available elsewhere in the health spa entitling bearers to a free exam. I also overheard an employee of the health spa tell a potential member, “When you join, you can get a free spinal analysis.”

The Bottom Line
National Council Against Health Fraud president William T. Jarvis, Ph.D., has noted that physiotherapists, athletic trainers and various medical specialists sometimes use manipulation to treat certain musculoskeletal problems. Jarvis explains:

The fact that most of their schools are accredited reflects the failure of the U.S. Office of Education to require that health professions whose accrediting agencies they recognize be scientifically valid.

In the July 1991 issue of “Philosophical Constructs for the Chiropractic Profession,” William Bachop, Ph.D., professor of anatomy at National College of Chiropractic, provided a sobering critique of chiropractic’s theoretical basis. In an article titled “The Warfare of Science with Philosophy in Contemporary Chiropractic,” Bachop stated:

What is called “Chiropractic Philosophy” turns out to be a creed, and what is pointed to as philosophical discourse is more like a sermon preached to the converted. …

The defenders of the chiropractic faith are not true philosophers: they are true believers. They denounce change as apostasy. They call upon the faithful to resist heresy. The principal heresy is any science that flies in the face of their doctrines or, better said, dogmas. When science happens to agree with some doctrine of theirs, no one is allowed to forget that science is in agreement with them. But when science disagrees, one is sanctimoniously told that science is a limited way of knowing and that chiropractic philosophy is a way of knowing that transcends the limitations of science. … So science becomes a buffet from which one selects those scientific tidbits that satisfy one’s taste.

These comments are germane to other forms of “alternative” healthcare.

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If the Doctor holds in his mind a picture of what he wants that [patient's] body to do and be, he will then give the instructions to the Innate of that body as to what it is to do. If that person has perfect faith in the Doctor, the composite personality has been established — the two have become one in healing — then the mind of that patient, his conscious mind, accepts your image and your adjustment, and immediately the “trapdoor” to the Innate is opened. That image which you have given, along with the physical adjustment, activates the Innate Intelligence within the patient so that it will manifest exactly what you desire it to do.

An institute flyer illustrates the relationship between the “diagnostic” and “therapeutic” phases of concept therapy:

Improper eating habits cause … [the digestive] zone to be out of order in the majority of cases and it is most often in a state of subluxation. With Suggestive Therapy the Doctor, through the Chiropractic adjustment and proper suggestion, can impress the Innate Mind of the patient with the concept of perfect digestive health and the expression of health will result in the patient’s body. …

In treating circulatory disorders, which may be functional, there is more involved than merely moving a bone. The Doctor, having diagnosed the cause, must create an image to accompany the adjustment. Then … this image of Perfect Circulatory Health is transferred to the Innate Mind of the patient which will begin the expression of bodily health.

Concept therapy is thus a “winning” combination of fundamentalist chiropractic, creative visualization, faith healing, food combining, psychic healing and self-healing. If this isn’t religion, what is?

My First Chiropractic Exam
Chiropractor John Crescione and a colleague operate the BQE Chiropractic Wellness Center in Woodside, N.Y. Their facility is located inside a health spa called the BQE Racquetball and Fitness Center, of which I have been a member. An information sheet from Crescione’s office states that he has a B.S. degree in nutrition and a strong background in exercise physiology. Over several years, I have collected flyers from the office that include the following assertions:

Food preservatives and additives add considerable stress to the body.

The death of a loved one, separation from a spouse or any other emotionally charged trauma often creates physical difficulties. … Pain will occur where it never did before. This is often the sign of an emotionally induced subluxation.

A chiropractic spinal adjustment is one of the best things that could happen to a child (or adult) suffering from ear infection.

If drugs truly corrected health problems, then they would only have to be taken once. … Drugs lie to you.

Tiredness, fatigue and exhaustion are one of the early signs of vertebral subluxations.

Healing is indeed one of nature’s miracles. It is as miraculous and mysterious as the miracle of birth.

One of the flyers states that a chiropractic examination is “essential” if a child has asthma, bronchitis, colic, constipation, a cough, a sore throat, frequent colds, a sinus problem, a fever, an ear infection, a hearing impairment, an eye problem, hypertension, numbness, poor posture, scoliosis, a skin disorder, or a pain in the arm, hand, leg, foot, head, neck, shoulder, hip, stomach or a joint.

During the summer of 1993, a sign in the window of the BQE Chiropractic Wellness Center offered a free spinal exam and consultation. I made an appointment for Aug. 10. Shortly after my arrival, the receptionist asked me to complete a case-history form that included the question, “How long has it been since you really felt good?” As I did so, the portly chiropractor gave dietary advice to a trim passerby he knew:

It’s not what you’re eating [that's important]; it’s the quantity. If you’re working out heavy, there needs to be a constant supply of nutrition in the body so that your cells … will be able to constantly give you nutrition for healing and growth. It’s not having two other meals somewhere in the course of your day [that's important]; there has to be a meal — not a full-course meal, because you won’t be able to sit down and eat five times a day, but enough of a meal where you’re getting enough protein, carbs, and, you know, blah, blah, blah. All right. Now, that’s the dietary change you make. Get used to eating more, so that you have more fuel. … [Telling you] to eat this but not eat this and eat this [is] too complicated. Right now, get used to eating food. I’m a simple man.

The acquaintance thanked him.

I informed Crescione that I was a health writer who had never consulted a chiropractor and that this inexperience had motivated me to see him. “Oh, boy!” he responded. “You picked the right guy to come to.” He briefly described his credentials and said his wife was a registered dietitian. He stated that he’d elected not to pursue a career in exercise physiology because he’d gotten tired of administering tests. “You can call me John,” he said. “I’m pretty laid-back.”

I had indicated low-back pain as my major complaint on the case-history form but told Crescione that I had not had it recently. As I lay fully clothed on my back on a slender table, he asked me to counteract pressure from his hand with one, and then the other, of my variously outstretched arms. With his other hand, he poked different parts of my body. He explained: “All I’m doing right now is trying to ascertain the muscle strength and position of the pelvis in relation to your muscle strength, in relation to your entire nervous system. The tests may be similar [to those of physical therapy], but the reason that we’re doing them is different.” With my arms relaxed, he continued poking, evidently searching for tenderness.

He asked me if I tended to yawn in the afternoon, and I said I did. Then I lay on my stomach. He began poking me alternately on the left and right sides of my body and asking me which side was more sensitive. Next, he initiated a procedure involving my legs that was similar to his previous “tests” of arm strength.

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Just Between Us ‘Innates’
Concept therapy is a pseudonatural chiropractic system based on the notion of “Innate to Innate communication.” The system’s originator, chiropractor Thurman Fleet (1895-1983), introduced it in 1931, and his son, George T. Fleet, Jr., promotes it through the Concept-Therapy Institute, in San Antonio, Texas. An institute flyer states: “The Human is a soul (psyche), and has what he or she calls a mind and a body.” Concept therapy comprises a “diagnostic” phase — zone therapy diagnosis — and a “therapeutic” phase — suggestive therapy.

Chiropractor Eddie Harrison described the “diagnostic” phase in the November 1990 issue of The American Chiropractor:

It divides the nervous system and body into six Health Zones: Glandular, Eliminative, Nerve, Digestive, Muscular [and] Circulatory Zones. There are six corresponding reflex points on each side of the occiput [back of the head] and four vertebrae associated with each Health Zone. Analysis consists of locating the most sensitive point on the occiput, indicating which Zone is stressed, and then specific adjustments are given to the subluxated vertebrae. If the adjustment is correct, there is an immediate reduction of tenderness on the reflex point. This is very impressive to the new patient. Zone testing at lay lectures is a winning procedure. People love it.

Suggestive therapy, the “therapeutic” phase of concept therapy, involves spinal “adjustments,” “healing suggestions,” a diet “to eliminate toxins,” and food combining. The basis of suggestive therapy is D.D. Palmer’s interpretation of autosuggestion. In scientific medicine, the term “autosuggestion” refers to the process whereby individuals accept an idea or plan and then adjust their behavior to it. For example, a smoker may convince himself that smoking entails an inordinate risk and thereby quit. Palmer, however, apparently regarded autosuggestion both as a key cause of disease and as a variant of self-healing.

In a booklet titled “The Cause of Disease” (1967), Thurman Fleet expounded:

Intense thinking about disease is probably what Dr. Palmer meant by autosuggestion. Intense thinking about a disease or ailment will, in time, create the disease in the body. … A person can center his mind on some negative aspect of health, or disease, and actually [create] a thing in his mind called a concept. A concept is a group of ideas put together, with precision, which becomes a thing — either a bad thing for the body or a good thing. …

People use their thinking power to think negatively and thereby bring upon themselves deplorable conditions. This power can be used for good or evil, for health or disease. …

A person suffering from a functional disease, or disorder, must go to the doctor in whom he or she has faith. Faith is the key that opens the door to the Innate Healing Power. …

When a doctor, seeking a cure, goes to … people [who teach any technique] and becomes sold on what they teach him, he goes back to his office and, with faith in that system, he explains it to his patient and transfers his faith over to him or her. Then the patient gets well by that particular system.

Accordingly, a Concept-Therapy Institute flyer claims that concept therapy enables doctors to cure “under any and all systems.” A circular for a 1992 seminar claimed:

How you deliver your adjustment to reduce subluxations carries with it a vibratory suggestion that directs the Innate Intelligence to speed up or delay the patient’s recovery. …

The doctor’s thoughts, ideas and inner feelings are transmitted to the patient vibratorily. The doctor who learns the hook-up between Doctor Innate and Patient Innate becomes a powerful broadcaster of health and success. Herein lies the discovery of getting patients well and attracting a bigger practice.

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According to the procedure, Wells would try to pull down my arm. I would resist. Under normal circumstances, my arm would remain strong. But by Wells’ pressing or poking different spots on my body, the arm would give way, I had learned. He told me that muscle weakness corresponded to other health problems.

Wells tested the arm. It remained strong. Then he reached for the potato [he had brought from another room] and placed it on my chest. WHAMMO! When he pulled, my arm dropped like a rock.

“I guess this means I shouldn’t put any potatoes on my chest?” Brown ventured. The chiropractor replied that potatoes would have the same effect regardless of their position on the body. He performed the same procedure with an egg and explained that enzymes and other constituents of the potato and the egg had acted unfavorably on the reporter’s “aura.” Wells claimed that this “interference” indicated a health problem — probably a nutritional deficiency. After further “testing” of the same sort, he sold four bottles of “glandular” supplements to Brown for $47.50.

In an article in the Journal of Chiropractic Humanities, Craig Nelson, D.C., a faculty member at Northwestern College of Chiropractic, states:

The various chiropractic techniques, in addition to prescribing corrective procedures, usually come complete with a theoretical framework to explain the rationale behind the technique. Explicitly or implicitly, each of these techniques claims a unique relationship with the truth. … There is no comparable circumstance in any other health profession.

The Morter HealthSystem — whose purported mission is “to improve the health of mankind worldwide” — melds subluxation theory with other esoterica. The system includes B.E.S.T. (bio energetic synchronization technique), baby B.E.S.T., a stress-management program called “The Twelve Steps to Stress Less,” and nutritional supplementation “to restore the body to its natural alkaline state.” B.E.S.T., the centerpiece of the system, is a pseudonatural variant of self-healing and polarity balancing. M.T. Morter, Jr., M.A., D.C., past-president of two chiropractic colleges, developed the method in 1974 and describes it as an “approach to non-forceful chiropractic.” In “B.E.S.T.” (1980), he claims that an “internal force” — “Innate Intelligence” — totally regulates health, that “Nature” is “not only smarter than we think” but “smarter than we can think,” and that the body “does not know how to be sick.”

In a booklet titled “Baby B.E.S.T.: Infant Adjusting/Care” (1991), Morter states:

The human body was obviously built utilizing subconscious information, as neither our own nor our mother’s consciousness was necessary for the nine months our body was in development. This subconsciousness in man could be thought of as a derivative of the perfect God consciousness that created us. Both GOD consciousness and the consciousness that built us are beyond the comprehension of man. Unlike some would have us believe, God is neither limited by, nor is a reflection of, the subconsciousness of man. The Universal Intelligence, or God, is much more than man can even perceive.

An introductory Morter videotape called “The Health Revolution: Re-Inventing Healthcare” declares: “By applying today’s scientific knowledge to the doctrines of yesterday, we will create the healing science of the 21st century.” It conveys D.D. Palmer’s claims that “innate intelligence” has “the power to conceive, judge and reason on matters which pertain to the internal welfare of the body” and that “the determining causes of disease are traumatism, poison and auto-suggestion.” According to the videotape, trauma, toxicity and thoughts produce “memory-retained engrams” (physical changes in nervous tissue) that interfere with sensory nerves. Such interference allegedly causes “subluxations.” The narrator explains: “Bioenergy — the electromagnetic energy of the universal intelligence that creates and sustains all life — flows through the nervous system naturally. But when negative memory engrams interfere with normal bioenergy, disease happens.” A 1992 videotape cites Kirlian photography.

One of the main premises of B.E.S.T. is that even weak magnetic fields have substantial effects on muscular strength. In “Baby B.E.S.T.,” Morter claims that an electromagnetic field controls the development and repair of the body throughout life. He further claims that physical trauma, chemical stresses (primarily nutritional) and mental stresses affect the movement of this field and may appear as vertebral subluxations, organic disease or emotional disorders. B.E.S.T. supposedly “neutralizes” impediments to the electromagnetic field. Treatment involves applying finger-pressure to equally tender “pulsating points” on the body until — and for at least 20 seconds after — their pulsations synchronize. B.E.S.T. distinguishes between north and south contact-points and between “north-contact” and “south-contact” fingers. It localizes north contact-points on the half of the body that is farther from the earth — regardless of the body’s position — and south contact-points on the other half. North-contact fingers are the right middle finger and the left index finger. South-contact fingers are the left middle finger and the right index finger. According to B.E.S.T., practitioners must use north-contact fingers on north contact-points and south-contact fingers on south contact-points.

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Science is the servant, Innate the executive. This is as true collectively as it is individually and as the corporate Innate grows in and through chiropractic, so grows the power of its healing force. …

Something in the human body wishes and wills … to be well and stay well. Chiropractic believes that nerves send the life force to every muscle and tissue, sustaining every organ, flowing through every impulse, attending every action, governing every thought. The nexus through which this power flows is the spine. The coil of life is in the spine. …

Every religion no less than every spiritually oriented approach to health and healing believes in the existence of this life force. Call it Consciousness. Call it Innate. Call it God. There is a power particularized in man and its most dynamic expression is health.

In his first book, D.D. Palmer claimed: “Too much or not enough nerve energy is disease.” It would be reasonable for uninitiated laypeople to surmise that such ideas lie at the bottom of chiropractic’s philosophical dustbin. However, in the Summer 1992 issue of “Philosophical Constructs for the Chiropractic Profession,” Joseph H. Donahue, D.C., states that the concept of Innate may be gaining acceptance among chiropractors and that possibly as many as 80 percent subscribe to some version of it. He ascribes seven traditional principles regarding the notion to a chiropractic textbook published in 1927. These hold that Innate: is the source of all material qualities and actions; unites with matter to create life; is inborn; has the “mission” of maintaining life; adapts “universal forces” and matter to the needs of the body; counteracts “universal forces;” and operates through the nervous system in animal organisms. Donahue writes that D.D. Palmer regarded innate intelligence as a segment of “universal intelligence.” In a cogent article, he opines that it is a harmful belief and concludes:

Since the concept of II [innate intelligence] is both untestable and falsified by everyday experience, it has no place in a scientific healing profession’s philosophizing. … The uncritical worldview fostered by II is held together with the glue of rationalism and evasions. The doctor, claiming to only be a “channel” for II, can evade professional accountability. The trick to evading accountability, and yet keeping the patients coming, is to imply a lot of benefits without saying anything specific. … Patients can … be strung along with assurances that the chiropractor is doing everything possible to release the patient’s II.

A flyer titled “The Force Is Within You,” published in 1990 by practice-building consultant Dennis P. Nitikow, D.C., distinguishes “innate intelligence” from “life force”:

There is an innate intelligence within each of us that is far superior to our educated brain, which creates and recreates us on a continual basis. In order for this process to occur, life force (mental impulse) must be flowing throughout the body to all cells and tissues. … The innate intelligence directs this life force to every cell and tissue of the body. When the life force is free of interference the body is at its maximum health potential. If the life force is interfered with the body does not have the ability to recreate itself normally and disease results. …

The Chiropractor’s job is to remove the subluxation allowing the mental impulse to get to the tissue cells and replace the abnormal cells with normal cells. This is healing.

The flyer “Why Should I Go to a Chiropractor?” states:

To some people, chiropractic is something strange or mysterious. … The goal of the doctor of chiropractic is to turn on your inner doctor, your own natural healing ability, by correcting spinal nerve stress (vertebral subluxations), one of the deadliest, most destructive blockages of life and energy that we can suffer from. This promotes natural healing, vitality, strength and health.

In 1981, reporter Mark Brown consulted, as a patient, about two dozen chiropractors in or near Davenport, Iowa, the birthplace of the trade. The Dec. 13, 1981 issue of Quad-City Times carried his exhaustive investigative report, which stated: “To many chiropractors, Innate is an almost mystical presence — ‘the power of God being expressed in the body.’ … Others seem to suggest that Innate is God.” One chiropractor told Brown that his ears protruded because they were “antennae” for “nerve energy” and claimed that this “energy” flows through the body and out of the mouth. One morning, Brown visited a chiropractor and “learned” that his right leg was shorter than his left. Later that day, another chiropractor came to the reverse conclusion.

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The World Chiropractic Organization’s “Practice Guidelines for Straight Chiropractic” (1993) defines “vertebral subluxation” as “a misalignment of one or more articulations of the spinal column or its immediate weight-bearing articulations, to a degree less than a luxation [dislocation], which by interference causes alteration of nerve function and interference to the transmission of mental impulses, resulting in a lessening of the body’s innate ability to express its maximum health potential.” It further states:

The professional practice objective of straight chiropractic is to correct vertebral subluxations in a safe and effective manner. The correction of subluxations is not considered to be a specific cure for any particular symptom or disease. It is applicable to any patient who exhibits vertebral subluxation(s) regardless of the presence or absence of symptoms or disease.

The nature of the chiropractic subluxation is slippery, even to many chiropractors. While some chiropractors depict subluxations as “bones out of place,” others describe them quite vaguely. The December 1986 issue of the Journal of Chiropractic includes a perspective by Vincent P. Lucido, D.C., called “The Dilemma of ‘Subluxation.’” Lucido, who later became president of the American Chiropractic Association, stated: “There is no consistent, widely accepted definition of subluxation within the profession.” He offered six definitions. One describes subluxation as “a complex biomechanical neurophysiological disrelationship” that predominantly affects the spine and is usually not structural — that is, not demonstrable with an X-ray photograph.

According to the ninth edition of “Introduction to Chiropractic: A Natural Method of Health Care” (1988), chiropractic’s premise is that “many ills come about as a result of improper (too much or too little) nerve supply.” This “patient education” book says that chiropractors endeavor to restore proper nerve function by “adjusting” vertebrae — usually by hand — in areas that exhibit “derangements (subluxations).” The author, Louis Sportelli, D.C., is a former board chairman of the American Chiropractic Association.

In the September 1988 American Journal of Chiropractic Medicine, Joseph C. Keating, Jr., Ph.D., a research professor at a chiropractic college, stated:

Subluxation has become a holy word in chiropractic. Chiropractors, although unable to reach consensus on its definition and clinical significance, by and large accept that subluxations are real, that they can be detected, adjusted (reduced or eliminated), and that the patient’s health will improve as a consequence.

Because subluxation theory wanders far from knowledge of human physiology, the scientific community has long rejected it. In 1968, for example, the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare concluded in a major study: “There is no valid evidence that subluxation, if it exists, is a significant factor in disease processes. Therefore, the broad application to healthcare of a diagnostic procedure such as spinal analysis and a treatment procedure such as spinal adjustment is not justified.”

A few years later, Yale anatomy professor Edmund S. Crelin, Ph.D., D.Sc., physically demonstrated that chiropractic subluxations do not occur. In “Examining Holistic Medicine” (1985), he recounted his classic experiment:

I dissected out the intact spines or vertebral columns, with their attached ligaments, from three infants and three adults a few hours after they died. I carefully exposed the spinal nerves as they pass through the intervertebral openings or foramina. I placed the spines in an ordinary drill press. A fine wire was then wrapped around the spinal nerve and another was placed against the sidewall of the intervertebral foramen. I then applied a measured force to both the front and back of each vertebra. I also twisted and bent the spines with a measured force. If the intervertebral foramen became reduced in size to the point that its walls merely touched the spinal nerve passing through it, the wires would also touch and cause a volt-ohm-microampere meter to register it. The forces applied to the spine reached the level where the spine was about to break. In not one instance did the walls of the intervertebral foramina impinge on the nerves passing through them. In order to have that happen I had to break the spine.

Crelin added that spinal pressure on nerves is less probable in living bodies because of the counteractive response of powerful spinal muscles.

Despite such findings, Palmer’s theory appears entrenched in state and federal laws. Medicare authorizes payment for the treatment of “subluxations demonstrated by X-rays to exist,” and many states license chiropractors to treat subluxations, free impinged nerves and remove “interference” with the “transmission” or “expression” of “nerve energy” or “nerve force.” For example, North Carolina law defines chiropractic as “the science of adjusting the cause of disease by realigning the spine, releasing pressure on nerves radiating from the spine to all parts of the body, and allowing the nerves to carry their full quota of health current (nerve energy) from the brain to all parts of the body.” South Dakota law permits chiropractors to perform “meridian therapy” but does not define such treatment.

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Palmer’s Disjointed Legacy
Daniel David Palmer — an Iowa grocer, fish seller, spiritualist and neo-mesmerist — devised chiropractic in 1895. Palmer postulated that the “vital force” — which he termed “Innate” — expressed itself through the nervous system. Today, some chiropractors adhere to this belief, some reject it entirely, and others occupy a nebulous middle ground in which they consider disturbances in the flow of “nerve energy” as a major cause rather than the sole cause of health problems.

Chiropractors number more than 45,000, most of whom can be characterized as “straights” or “mixers.” Straights subscribe more or less to Palmer’s basic doctrines that misalignments of the vertebrae — “subluxations” — cause most illnesses and that spinal “adjustments” can cure such conditions. The World Chiropractic Alliance, for example, defines straight chiropractic as “a limited, primary healthcare profession in which professional responsibility and authority are limited to the anatomy of the spine and immediate articulations [joints], the condition of vertebral subluxation, and a scope of practice which encompasses educating, advising about and addressing vertebral subluxations.” Many straights call subluxations the “silent killer.”

Mixers, who outnumber straights, acknowledge the importance of germs, hormones and other factors in disease, but tend to regard mechanical disturbances of the nervous system as a fundamental cause. Besides spinal manipulation, mixers may employ nutritional supplementation, homeopathic “remedies,” acupressure, enemas and various forms of physiotherapy (heat, cold, traction, exercise, massage and ultrasound).

A third category of chiropractors comprises only a few hundred who reject Palmer’s philosophy and have pledged to restrict treatment to “neuromusculoskeletal conditions of a nonsurgical nature.” Their apparent aim is to convert chiropractors into scientific physical therapists without loss of the title “doctor.” In the May 1992 issue of Chiropractic Technique, reformer Samuel Homola, D.C., states:

I am distressed by the propaganda of chiropractic organizations that use back pain studies to promote the chiropractor as a “family physician.”

While it appears that chiropractors might have the best treatment for mechanical-type back trouble, few chiropractors claim to be back specialists. Most chiropractors present themselves as “general practitioners” who offer treatment for a variety of health problems. …

After 35 years of practice as a chiropractor, I have not been convinced that slightly misaligned vertebrae can be harmful to health.

A recent flyer from the International Chiropractors Association titled “11 Common Questions about Chiropractic” states that, even if one feels fine, chiropractic “care” is advisable for maintenance of a required level of health and fitness, that periodic “adjustments” can increase resistance to disease and may be necessary for health maintenance, and that chiropractic treatment is appropriate for people of all ages. Further, it suggests that chiropractic is the best “first response” to most illnesses and injuries. Such claims are the stock-in-trade of chiropractors, many of whom routinely recommend weekly or monthly “adjustments” throughout life.

In 1991, Ted Koren, D.C., published the flyer “Why Should I Go to a Chiropractor?,” which states:

Feeling “good” is not the same as being healthy. Too many people who felt “good” have been told they had silent cancers growing within them, or were close to a heart attack, or suddenly fell victim to a stroke! To ensure health you should make sure your spinal column and structural system are healthy — and bring in the family! … If you’re feeling fine you should remember that spinal nerve stress (vertebral subluxations) are painless “silent killers.” You and your family should get your spines checked periodically to make sure you’re living free from hidden spinal nerve stress. … Why wait for disease to happen before you begin to improve your health?

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