[cj]

I come from a long lineage of chiropractors (although I’m not one).

I’ve never been a big believer in the practice, and yes there are very rare cases where a chiropractic adjustment can lead to a stroke but again, it’s extremely rare. (Perhaps less rare if you’re going to the guy at the mall kiosk..)

I’d like to see some scientific studies proving chiropractic adjustments are harmful.

A lot of physical and mental health has to do with simply having awareness and being conscious of your body. For some people, going to a chiropractor monthly gives them 20 minutes in a room where their doing nothing but thinking of their body and talking about their body with the chiropractor.

Again, I’ve never been a big believer of the science behind it. But I am a believer that any activity that makes you sit down and think about your body and what you could be doing differently to reduce your aches/pains is likely to have some degree of positive outcome.

There are lots of links in the article and I didn’t click them all. But if there are actual studies showing damage (aside from 1 in a million adjustments causing a stroke), I would love to read them.

[thathndude]

Same lineage here. Great grandpa was a chiro. His boys all chiros. One of those was my grandpa, and all his boys chiros. None of the next generation took up the mantle. I’m a lawyer.

If the care is outright harmful, we all must have dodged a bullet.

And I have at least one or two anecdotes where the treatment genuinely brought me near-instant, lasting relief for an ache or pain.

[LeonB]

> I’d like to see some scientific studies proving chiropractic adjustments are harmful.

The burden of proof lies very much in the other direction.

[pochamago]

No, that's not how burden of proof works. The default assumption is that a given event has zero effect. If you want to assert that it's actively harmful then the burden is on you to show that.

[sumeno]

Which is why we let people sell anything they want as medicine until someone proves it's harmful...

Oh wait that's the opposite of how it works. Medical procedures have to go through a rigorous approval process to prove they are safe, or at least better than no treatment.

[thathndude]

The “supplement” industry has entered the chat.

[LeonB]

“First do no harm”

[igornadj]

Here's a few cases of chiro doing harm: http://whatstheharm.net/chiropractic.html (ignore the site header at the top, that statistic is for all topics totaled)

[cosmotic]

As long as the evidence shows chiropractic results in more strokes and also isn't more effective than doing nothing, then that's all the evidence you need.

I have a ~30 year old friend who had a stroke shortly after seeing a chiro; it was not officially recorded as due to the adjustment, but I suspect it was. How many more strokes are not properly attributed?

[enriquto]

> I’d like to see some scientific studies proving chiropractic adjustments are harmful.

This is really not at all how science works. On the contrary, chiropractors should be able to prove that their methods work to a community of extremely skeptical scientists, using double-blind tests as is standard practice.

At the end, it is likely mostly harmless, just like homeopathy. It may be even positive, in that receiving regular soothing attention from a bullshitter may have a good effect on your mental health (unless it is used as a replacement for real medical care when there are serious issues).

[cj]

> It may be even positive, in that receiving regular soothing attention from a bullshitter may have a good effect on your mental health

This is why I would be more interested in seeing studies showing harm than studies showing efficacy.

If it’s harmless and helps people in psychosomatic/indirect ways, I’m all for it. Especially when the alternative is going to an orthopedic doc and getting pain meds, over-eagerly prescribed surgery, etc.

[enriquto]

> I’m all for it.

Not me. I abhor pretty lies, even when the knowledge of the truth proves to be harmful.

[warble]

Sure it is, he's addressing a specific question that is theoretically testable.

This is the same question that gets asked of drug developers as well - There's the efficacy question AND the harmful question. Does it work? (not what he's asking) and Does it break something? (this is the question)

This is a valid scientific endeavor.

[robert4]

I think it makes more sense when you rephrase it and drop the ask for proof to something like 'I would be interested in some scientific studies on the safety...' (at least I would, having considered visiting a chiropractor recently for back pain).

Medlife Crisis has a good video talking about the placebo effect and the promotion of pseudoscientific treatments that's really worth a watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQw2B0vCPYo

tl;dr In the video, he captures my concerns perfectly about the whole thing, "by mainstreaming and legitimising practices outside proven science it increases acceptance of things that don't work, and regular people can be harmed through neglecting effective therapies"