My 2008 evaluation of chiropractic concluded that the concepts of chiropractic are not based on solid science and its therapeutic value has not been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt. It also pointed out that the advice of chiropractors often is dangerous and not in the best interest of the patient: many chiropractors have a very disturbed attitude towards immunisation: anti-vaccination attitudes still abound within the chiropractic profession. Despite a growing body of evidence about the safety and efficacy of vaccination, many chiropractors do not believe in vaccination, will not recommend it to their patients, and place emphasis on risk rather than benefit.
In case you wonder where this odd behaviour comes from, you best look into the history of chiropractic. D. D. Palmer, the magnetic healer who ‘invented’ chiropractic about 120 years ago, left no doubt about his profound disgust for immunisation: “It is the very height of absurdity to strive to ‘protect’ any person from smallpox and other malady by inoculating them with a filthy animal poison… No one will ever pollute the blood of any member of my family unless he cares to walk over my dead body… ” (D. D. Palmer, 1910)
D. D. Palmer’s son, B. J. Palmer (after literally walking [actually it was driving] over his father’s body) provided a much more detailed explanation for chiropractors’ rejection of immunisation: “Chiropractors have found in every disease that is supposed to be contagious, a cause in the spine. In the spinal column we will find a subluxation that corresponds to every type of disease… If we had one hundred cases of small-pox, I can prove to you, in one, you will find a subluxation and you will find the same condition in the other ninety-nine. I adjust one and return his function to normal… There is no contagious disease… There is no infection…The idea of poisoning healthy people with vaccine virus… is irrational. People make a great ado if exposed to a contagious disease, but they submit to being inoculated with rotten pus, which if it takes, is warranted to give them a disease” (B. J. Palmer, 1909)
Read more here: Why so many chiropractors advise against immunisation
