Veterinary chiropractic: A friend or foe to your patients?

Few chiropractors today still adhere to the notion of a mystical energy such as innate intelligence as the source of disease or the focus of chiropractic treatment. However, there is a split in the field with respect to the subluxation concept.^3,4 Most chiropractors still view subluxation, or the vertebral subluxation complex (VSC), as a real entity causing illness and that can be corrected by chiropractic manipulation. These practitioners also sometimes reject modern scientific explanations of illness, such as germ theory, and may recommend their patients avoid accepted medical interventions, such as pharmaceuticals or vaccination.^5–7

A minority of chiropractors have rejected the subluxation idea and have tried to find alternative rationales for how spinal manipulation might treat disease. This group tends to be less inclined to reject science-based medical theory and practice generally. However, they have not had great success in influencing the chiropractic profession as a whole, which still tends to focus primarily on the VSC as both the cause of most disorders and the target of chiropractic therapy.^4,8