From: "James J. Lippard" <LIPPARD%ARIZVMS.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
Subject:      Chiropractic
Message-ID: <9301191812.AA00836@lll-winken.llnl.gov>
Date:         Tue, 19 Jan 1993 10:32:50 -0700
The theory behind chiropractic is pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo,
but chiropractic manipulation itself has been proven effective
for certain kinds of back pain.  The result of this tension was the
formation in 1984 of the National Association of Chiropractic Medicine
as an attempt to reform chiropractic.  NACM members will treat only
certain kinds of back pain for which chiropractic has been demonstrated
effective, and send away other people.  The "unreformed" chiropractors
(some of them, that is) are the ones who do such things as applied
kinesiology (muscle testing), iridology, colonics, glandular therapy,
etc.--and talk about "subluxations" as the cause of all health
problems.

I recommend the article "Chiropractic: A Skeptical View" by William
Jarvis, president of the National Council Against Health Fraud, in
the Fall 1987 issue of the _Skeptical Inquirer_ (vol. 12, no. 1,
pp. 47-55).  The NCAHF also publishes a position paper on chiropractic
which is available from the NCAHF, P.O. Box 1276, Loma Linda, CA 92354,
for a self-addressed stamped envelope.