Chiropractors are being educated to become a danger to public health

Chiropractors are fast giving up the vitalistic and obsolete concepts of their founding fathers, we are told over and over again. But are these affirmations true? There are good reasons to be sceptical. Take this recent paper, for instance.

The objective of this survey was to investigate the proportion of Australian chiropractic students who hold non-evidence-based beliefs in the first year of study and to determine the extent to which they may be involved in non-musculoskeletal health conditions.

Students from two Australian chiropractic programs were invited to answer a questionnaire on how often they would give advice on 5 common health conditions in their future practices, as well as to provide their opinion on whether chiropractic spinal adjustments could prevent or help seven health-related conditions.

The response rate of this survey was 53%. Students were highly likely to offer advice on a range of non-musculoskeletal conditions. The proportions were lowest in first year and highest the final year. For instance, 64% of students in year 4/5 believed that spinal adjustments improve the health of infants. Also, high numbers of students held non-evidence-based beliefs about ‘chiropractic spinal adjustments’ which tended to occur in gradually decreasing in numbers in sequential years, except for 5th and final year, when a reversal of the pattern occurred.

The authors concluded that new strategies are required for chiropractic educators if they are to produce graduates who understand and deliver evidence-based health care and able to be part of the mainstream health care system.

This is an interesting survey, but I think its conclusion is wrong!

• Educators do not require ‘new strategies’, I would argue; they simply need to take their duty of educating students seriously – educating in this context does not mean brain-washing, it means teaching facts and evidence-based practice. And this is were any concept of true education would run into problems: it would teach students that chiropractic is built on sand.
• Conclusions need to be based on the data presented. Therefore, the most fitting conclusion, in my view, is that chiropractic students are currently being educated such that, once let loose on the unsuspecting and often all too gullible public, they will be a menace and a serious danger to public health.

You might say that this survey is from Australia and that the findings therefore do not necessarily apply to other countries. Correct! However, I very much fear that elsewhere the situation is similar or perhaps even worse. And my fear does not come out of thin air, it is based on things we have discussed before; see for instance these three posts:

Chiropractic education seems to be a form of religious indoctrination

What are the competencies of a ‘certified paediatric doctor of chiropractic’?

Educating chiros

But I would be more than willing to change my mind – provided someone can show me good evidence to the contrary.