A Winnipeg woman is suing her chiropractor, claiming he injured her by tearing an artery during treatment and that she suffered a stroke as a result. The woman had been a patient at Maples Chiropractic in Winnipeg for some time, and she had previously indicated that she did not want the chiropractor treating or adjusting her neck. In May 2023, the patient suffered a right vertebral artery dissection as a result of treatment. “Due to this injury from the treatment, [the plaintiff] suffered a stroke,” says the statement of claim, filed late last month in Court of King’s Bench at Winnipeg.
Maples Chiropractic is claimed to have failed to give the patient immediate care to minimize the effects of her injury. The patient was admitted to hospital at the Health Sciences Centre. The allegations have not been tested in court and statements of defence have not yet been filed. The lawsuit names as defendants the chiropractor, Gilbert Miranda, and his company, Everybody Health Inc., which operates Maples Chiropractic. The lawyer for the plaintiff declined to comment on the case.
The claim states that the patient will need ongoing therapy, psychological treatment and medical attention. It seeks an unspecified amount in damages for the patient’s alleged pain and suffering, loss of income and loss of enjoyment of life. The chiropractor allegedly failed to warn the patient about the risks associated with the chiropractic treatment, “specifically failing to warn her that a stroke could occur from the treatment or from any injury caused by the treatment”. The claim states that the chiropractor was negligent for not obtaining informed consent from the plaintiff about the treatment in general, and specifically for the treatment that allegedly resulted in injury.
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Let me be clear: this case report – like so many similar ones – lacks important details and thus cannot be interpreted properly. Chiropractors will therefore claim – as they did so many times before – that the case does not amount to evidence. They will also pretend that chiropractic manipulations are safe and that there is no sound evidence to prove otherwise. They can make this claim because the chiropractic profession has – since ~120 years! – resisted adopting an adequate monitoring system for registering events like the one above.
And let me be clear again: such claims by chiropractors are based on self-interest and willful ignorance, polite expressions for ‘dishonesty’.
15 Responses to Another stroke following chiropractic neck manipulation
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Oh no! Not again! Why can’t this (mal)practice be stopped? Until they can be proved innocent?
It’s interesting how SCAM practitioners generally are extreme adherents of the precautionary principle when it comes to e.g. vaccines, antibiotics and other types of regular treatments with potential risks, i.e. that these treatments should not be administered unless proven absolutely safe (which of course is a nonsensical already).
But when it comes to this particular SCAM treatment, where there are in fact strong signs of harm far exceeding any benefits, then the precautionary principle is chucked out the window right away, with chiro’s continuing to yank necks for no good reason at all.
Another irony is that the so-called research in chiropractic largely consists of case reports. They want to claim that improvement after an “adjustment” was caused by the treatment, but injuries must be coincidental. Can’t have it both ways.
good point!
That brings to mind section 146 (p.55) of the Statement of Claim of Sandra Nette, a Canadian tetraplegic chiropractic neck manipulation victim:
Quote:
“Incredibly, and, acting in bad faith, the College [Alberta College and Association of Chiropractors] attacked the new and surprisingly high number of vascular accidents associated with chiropractic services that were published in the medical literature and reported in the media by demanding a level of evidence it has never demanded of itself. It maintained that the causal link between strokes and chiropractic adjustment remained unproven.”
Link: https://tinyurl.com/mry2bnnc
In other words, many chiropractors – and their regulators – seem to find it acceptable to rely on anecdotal or weak evidence where it supports chiropractic treatment, but where similar, or more robust evidence suggests that serious complications can result from it, they are usually quick to dismiss it.
Bill Jarvis of the National Council Against Health Fraud said it best many years ago: “The National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) finds it remarkable that the chiropractic profession has existed for a century without having made a single notable contribution to the world’s body of knowledge in the health sciences.”
And that’s still the case!
true!
Here in Australia, after some horrific adverse events following chiropractic treatment, medical specialists lobbied for the establishment of a Mandatory Adverse Events Reporting System for Chiropractic. There are no prizes for guessing that it all fell on deaf ears. Meanwhile chiropractors and their governing Boards maintain the fiction that it’s all perfectly safe because there are no reports.
How do they keep a straight face?
According to data from the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) of New Zealand, over a 10-year period, there were 283 treatment injuries associated with chiropractic care, averaging approximately 28.3 injuries per year. Given the average number of practicing chiropractors during this time, this equates to one treatment injury every 15 years per chiropractor.
In comparison, general practice recorded 8,175 treatment injuries over the same period, translating to one treatment injury every 4 years per general practitioner.
Considering that the average chiropractor in New Zealand performs approximately 6,000 consultations per year, these figures suggest there is roughly one treatment injury for every 90,000 chiropractic consultations.
Regarding more severe incidents, of the 2,374 sentinel or serious events reported to the Director General of Health over the same 10-year period, only 10 were related to chiropractic care. This extrapolates to approximately one serious or sentinel event for every 2.5 million chiropractic consultations in New Zealand.
These statistics indicate that while adverse events from chiropractic care are rare, they do occur, and the ACC data provides valuable insight into their frequency and nature.
This is in response to an enquiry made several weeks ago, Prof Ernst. et al, are you able to provide a better set of statistics than this? It indicates the number of incidents of complications to chiropractic care in comparison to medical care.
“Prof Ernst. et al, are you able to provide a better set of statistics than this?”
you are correct in implying that your data are unreliable to the extreme.
you are incorrect in assuming that it is my task to supply better data.
GibleyGibley wrote: “… These statistics indicate that while adverse events from chiropractic care are rare, they do occur, and the ACC data provides valuable insight into their frequency and nature.”
● I didn’t know that chiropractors in New Zealand have an adverse event reporting system.
● Or perhaps chiropractor GibleyGibley doesn’t know the difference between adverse events and adverse effects.
Adverse events versus side effects
Any health problem that occurs after a treatment is considered an adverse event following the treatment. An adverse event can be a true adverse reaction, also known as a side effect, that is related to the treatment; or a coincidental event that happened after the treatment.
Obviously, the number of adverse events associated with any given treatment is considerably greater than the number of side effects caused by the treatment.
GibleyGibley wrote: “It indicates the number of incidents of complications to chiropractic care in comparison to medical care.”
Congratulations on being one of the very few chiropractors who openly admit that chiropractic care is not medical care.
@Ken McLeod
The chiropractic profession supported this initiative for standardised AE reporting for all professions collected in emergency departments and then referred to the relevant AHPRA board for investigation.
At the time I discussed it with one of the medical specialists involved and he said it went no further due to “snivelling” from emergency department medical doctors being forced to do more paperwork.
He was annoyed as were the chiropractors advocating for it.
sounds like a nice, non-evidence-based excuse
Critical_Chiro above 2025:
Critical_Chiro on Tuesday 05 September 2017:
Pathetic.
hear, hear!