Chiropractors have an excellent safety record, especially where
children are concerned. The scientific literature records no incidents
where a child's spine had been injured by being adjusted by a
chiropractor. Chiropractic spinal care is one of the safest health care
procedures children can experience cites the New Zealand Chiropractic Inquiry:

"The conspicuous lack of evidence that chiropractors cause harm or
allow harm to occur through neglect of medical referral can be taken to
mean only one thing: that chiropractors have on the whole an impressive
safety record."

We quoted from the Chiropractic Report where the safety records of
certain medical procedures are compared with chiropractic's record. CCA
is so safe, that David Chapman-Smith, LLB(hons), secretary general of
the World Federation of Chiropractic, after reviewing the literature,
told chiropractors that in terms of mortality, "You have more chance of
dying from the effort of giving an adjustment than your patient from
receiving it."

New governmental guidelines and recommendations from the U.S. Public
Health Service, the Ontario (Canada) Ministry of Health and the British
government now suggest that back surgeries are ineffective and costly,
and that spinal manipulation is cheaper, safer, quicker, longer lasting
and has higher patient satisfaction rates. The definitive studies in
the U.S. and Canada have all agreed that chiropractic management is
superior to medical management of this growing epidemic.

Research by RAND Corporation and other researchers estimate the rate of
iatrogenic complications like stroke or paralysis resulting from SMT is
1-2 cases per million, whereas the rate of the same problems caused by
spinal surgery is 15,600 per million! Even NSAIDs like Advil and
Tylenol have shown to cause serious GI problems in 1,000 to 4,000
people per million; reportedly 7,600 patients die annually from their
use.19

References:

Cervical adjustment: the risk of vertebral artery injury.
Chiropractic Report, 1994.

Bigos S, et al. Acute Low Back Problems in Adults, Clinical
Practice Guideline No. 14. Rockville, MD: U.S. Public Health Service,
U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, AHCPR Pub. No. 95-0642, Dec.
1994.

A report on the prescription and supply of drugs. Report of the
House of Representatives Standing Committee on Community Affairs. The
Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. "Prescribe Health, Part 2,
Prescribing and Medication Management." Chairman: Jenkins, H.,M.P.
Sept. 1992.

Mushinski M. Average hospital charges for medical and surgical
treatment of back problems: United States, 1993. Statistical Bulletin.
Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., Health and Safety Division, Medical
Dept., April-June 1995.

Manga P, et al. The Effectiveness and Cost Effectiveness of
Chiropractic Management of Low Back Pain. University of Ottawa, 1993.

Wilk v. AMA. U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois,
Sept. 25, 1987.

Shekelle P, et al. The Appropriateness of Spinal Manipulation
for Low Back Pain. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1992.

Boden SD, et al. Abnormal magnetic-resonance scans of the lumbar
spine in asymptomatic subjects. J Bone Joint Surgery (Am)
1990;72(3):403-8.

Carey TS, et al. The outcomes and costs of care for acute low
back pain among patients seen by primary care practitioners,
chiropractors and orthopedic surgeons. New England Journal of Medicine
1995;333:913-17.

Cherkin DC, MacCormack FA. Patient evaluation of low back pain
care from family physicians and chiropractors. West J Med March
1989;150:351-355.