The United States government selected 200 leading low back specialist to research all of the finest, scientifically-based literature they could find from around the world to determine what treatments are best for low back pain. After going through tens of thousands of scientific publications, and selecting only the finest studies, the government recommended spinal manipulation as the safest and therapeutically superior treatment for most low back pain.

The U.S. government study also criticized excessive disc surgery. A Johns Hopkins study revealed that there were 80,000 unnecessary disc surgeries being done every year. That's more than 1,500 every week!

How did the American Medical Association respond to the government study? Incredibly, it ignored the U.S. government guidelines and retained a medical writer and two MD's to write it's own guidelines four months after the government guidelines. The AMA guidelines claimed " all treatment options " for low back pain were included, while excluding any reference to spinal manipulation. How can the AMA claim to have any intellectual honesty on healthcare matters whatsoever, when it shows such scandalous disregard for the obvious truth supported by the U.S. government studies?

Statistics show 250 spinal disc surgeries being done per 100,000 population in Utah, compared to only 3 disc surgeries per 100,000 in England. Does this mean that everybody with a "bad back" moved to Utah, or is there a more insidious implication?

The conclusion and solution to what must be done should be painfully obvious. We need closer interprofessional cooperation of all health care disciplines, and the utilization of the best treatments that each profession offers. If a certain method of treatment is proven to be superior, we need to embrace it. If it is proven to be less effective, ineffective or even dangerous, we need to abandon it. While this sounds simple and basic, let's look at the facts.

A medical/chiropractic research team at the University of Saskatchewan found within a study group of 171 patients, who were medically unresponsive low back pain sufferers for 7 years, 87% got results within 3 weeks under chiropractic care. One year later, this group was reevaluated and found that their ailments remained corrected.

The British government completed major 10-year randomized control trials on chiropractic and found it to be more therapeutically effective than medicine in some areas, by as much as a 2-1 advantage.

A study involving 2 hospitals orthopedic wards in the Chicago area compared chiropractic and medical care. The hospital using chiropractic care was sending patients home well from its orthopedic ward 7 to 9 days before the medical ward did.

California and Oregon workers compensation studies showed that patients under Chiropractic care for similar back pain got well at one half the time and cost as those under medical care.

The Utah workers compensation board found a 10 to 1 economic advantage of chiropractic over medical care for similar back ailments.

Simple logic and common sense dictates that with all of these advantages, the medical community should overwhelming embrace chiropractic within its realm of expertise. Why does the medical community take so long to endorse effective treatment like this? Because it is not in their profession and does not relate to their mode of treatment (drugs and surgery). How can the American Medical Association be trusted when facts like this exist. It can't !!!

With this being the case, always get a second opinion when dealing with medicine, and the second opinion should be CHIROPRACTIC. Dr. Schaefer 602-548-6100