Dr. Sanjay Gupta is the CNN chief medical correspondent.  Last week he spent a decent amount of time highlighting the risk of stroke after Chiropractic Treatment.  This has long been one of medicine’s excuses for not referring to chiropractors.  Chiropractic hasn’t changed much in over 110 years-because it works and is safe.  Millions of people have been helped and very few have ever been directly injured as a result of negligent treatment.  The joke among Chiropractors is that the walk up the front steps into the office is more of a risk than the actual treatment.  Most injuries occur at the hands of untrained, non-doctors.  Adjustments or manipulations should only be done by a licensed Chiropractor or Osteopath.

As for sensationalism on the news, I suppose it will continue.  Be careful what you listen to. Ask questions.  Just because someone is a Doctor, Lawyer or army General, doesn’t mean that they are trustworthy.  CNN should be ashamed for having a leading correspondent and physician that neglects to do his research while simultaneously providing the nation with a commentary based on old wives tales.   In fact, the research shows that stroke is just as likely after a visit to your Primary Care Physician who doesn’t even perform spinal manipulation.  It also eludes to the reality that many of the strokes that occur after a doctors visit were the result of an event that occurred prior to the visit.

Apparently, Dr. Gupta doesn’t read SPINE, the leading medical journal on the spine.  But he does have the nerve to comment on a specialty he knows little about.  The abstract below says it all and is the from SPINE as found on www.pubmed.com

Spine. 2008 Feb 15;33(4 Suppl):S176-83.Click here to read Links

Risk of vertebrobasilar stroke and chiropractic care: results of a population-based case-control and case-crossover study.

Cassidy JD, Boyle E, Côté P, He Y, Hogg-Johnson S, Silver FL, Bondy SJ.

Centre of Research Expertise for Improved Disability Outcomes, University Health Network Rehabilitation Solutions, Toronto Western Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada. dcassidy@uhnresearch.ca

STUDY DESIGN: Population-based, case-control and case-crossover study. OBJECTIVE: To investigate associations between chiropractic visits and vertebrobasilar artery (VBA) stroke and to contrast this with primary care physician (PCP) visits and VBA stroke. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA: Chiropractic care is popular for neck pain and headache, but may increase the risk for VBA dissection and stroke. Neck pain and headache are common symptoms of VBA dissect
ion, which commonly precedes VBA stroke. METHODS: Cases included eligible incident VBA strokes admitted to Ontario hospitals from April 1, 1993 to March 31, 2002. Four controls were age and gender matched to each case. Case and control exposures to chiropractors and PCPs were determined from health billing records in the year before the stroke date. In the case-crossover analysis, cases acted as their own controls. RESULTS: There were 818 VBA strokes hospitalized in a population of more than 100 million person-years. In those aged <45 class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">CONCLUSION: VBA stroke is a very rare event in the population. The increased risks of VBA stroke associated with chiropractic and PCP visits is likely due to patients with headache and neck pain from VBA dissection seeking care before their stroke. We found no evidence of excess risk of VBA stroke associated chiropractic care compared to primary care.