Is Chiropractic Effective Against COVID-19?

Everyone wants to take advantage of the pandemic; some offer products and services that lean toward quackery and others less so, but they are trying to lure in customers by playing on fear. Sometimes the connection is dubious. For example, CNN reports that the World Health Organization (WHO) “called on tobacco and nicotine industries across the world to stop taking advantage of the global pandemic and marketing directly to children and teens.” (How anyone can use the pandemic to put a positive spin on teen smoking is very puzzling, but WHO is worried.)

As another example, many chiropractors are posting information on their websites similar in wording to this one: “Regular chiropractic adjustments have been proven to boost your immune system. This is accomplished by improving the state of the nervous system which in turn improves the immune system.”

The International Chiropractic Association (ICA) found these claims troubling. Concerned with the credibility of their practice, they tried to clarify in March with a 15-page bulletin stating in part: “There are no vaccines, no drugs, no natural remedies, no alternative therapies that have been tested and the outcomes peer reviewed to meet any credible evidence-based standard in science. This includes chiropractic.” They had “previously provided clear reminders to its members of the importance of not advertising” such abilities.

Where would hundreds of chiropractors get this idea? They believe that straightening a patient’s spine positively affects the nervous system by reducing stress. Stress reduction is loosely linked to immunity. As explain in the Annals of Vertebral Subluxation, which tracks chiropractic research, “It is well established that the nervous system controls and coordinates all functions and systems of the human body including immunity and the immune system.” This theoretical connection feeds an assumption that it is ethical to advertise chiropractic as a treatment and prevention during the pandemic. But it’s not.

This train of thought – less stress to nervous system to immunity – has never been proven to exist. This site quotes another ICA report warning, “there exists no credible, scientific evidence that would permit claims of effectiveness for conferring or enhancing immunity through spinal adjustment/manipulation to be made in communications by chiropractors.” Furthermore, last month “more than 150 chiropractic researchers from eleven countries criticized [any suggestion] that chiropractic care (primarily spinal manipulation), can have a meaningful impact on immune function.”

At the end of the 15-page ICA report, they make the lack of evidence clear by asking for more funding to support “necessary clinical research required to validate the role of doctors of chiropractic in promoting health and vitality by stimulating a healthy immune response.”

As these renegade chiropractors advertise viral immunity, along with several other questionable benefits, they undermine the credibility of the profession, providing more ammunition to the naysayers. Numerous skeptical publications, including this one, describe chiropractic as teetering precariously on the edge between science and pseudoscience.

Such advertising trying to get away with unsubstantiated claims, reinforces the need for critical thinking. Many chiropractors, naturopaths and others claim all sorts of peripheral health benefits. Patients walk in expecting miracles and walk out with placebo-effect satisfaction telling their friends. But wild claims and customer endorsements don’t constitute evidence. Eventually, the professional associate must move to protect the reputation of the profession before the FTA steps in to protect consumers. But none of this would be necessary, if critical thinking prevailed.