Legal Issues with Chiropractic

What are Legal Issues with Chiropractic Treatment?

When a chiropractic patient experiences injury such as a stroke in conjunction with chiropractic treatment, a number of legal issues come into play. These may include the following:

Standard of care

Despite ample anecdotal evidence that many young, previously healthy stroke victims had received chiropractic upper cervical manipulations within 30 days prior to their strokes, the chiropractic profession in the U.S. generally rejects the notion that this treatment poses extraordinary risks. They acknowledge only that it is a rare possibility. When a stroke occurs, they claim that no violation of a standard of care has occurred.

Interestingly enough, the Canadian health care system does not pay for this particular chiropractic procedure. Apparently, the Canadian health care community holds chiropractors to a higher standard of care.

Informed consent

In order for a patient to give informed consent to a medial procedure, he or she needs to clearly understand what the risks are. Without a well-thought out risk-benefit analysis, we the board members of Chiropractic Stroke Awareness Organization (including our attorney advisor) question whether informed consent has been given even when a waiver document in small print has been signed.

Failure to warn and risk of harm

At the offices of Chiropractic Stroke Awareness Organization, headquartered in New York with a national and international scope, we are most keenly interested in the risk posed by chiropractic upper cervical manipulation. Our organization's board of directors consists of two stroke victims and an attorney advisor. We work with M.D. affiliates and chiropractor affiliates to address such principles as standard of care and failure to warn.

Chiropractic Stroke Awareness Organization is non profit. We are dedicated to understanding, evaluating and researching the risks of stroke induced by chiropractic upper cervical manipulation.

We welcome the participation of chiropractors, doctors, lawyers and other interested professionals, including physical therapists and psychological counselors.