Patients who received chiropractic or physical therapy had lower total health care costs and were less likely to have surgery than demographically similar Wellmark members who did not receive such services, and overall, 89 percent of all patients receiving physical medicine services reported improvement of at least 30 percent within 30 days.
http://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=53987
As long as rumors about the safety of chiropractic exist, we must work to educate the general public. The Foundation for Chiropractic Progress is doing a great job with campaigns by Jerry Rice and others. Every doctor DC needs to post articles proving efficacy of chiropractic and the fallacy of the stroke connection onto their website and work to educate the public, one patient at a time. In time, the public will come to know that chiropractic is the safest and most effective health care system available.
Back surgery fails 74 percent of the time and yet insurers still cover the procedures and patients still line up for them hoping for a quick fix. What they too often end up with is a problem that is much worse. Failed back surgery syndrome is “characterized by intractable pain and varying degrees of functional incapacitation occurring after spine surgery”. Where is the logic?