On September 17, 1862, Union General Ambrose Burnside directed an attack against the Confederate Army by marching his 12,000 troops across a narrow bridge spanning the Antietam River near Sharpsburg, Maryland. For the better part of a single day, he continued this campaign while neglecting to check on the depth of the river he was crossing. Had he done so, he would have discovered that the stream was only waist-deep and could have easily been forded over the length of a half-mile-wide swath, leading to the rapid conquest of strategic territory on the opposite bank.
While the Battle of Antietam was fought on several fronts, General Burnside's unrelenting and painfully slow march across a bridge that could accommodate only a few columns of soldiers was disastrous. It allowed about 450 Georgia militiamen to pick off wave after wave of the exposed Union Army practically at will as it set foot upon this bottleneck.
Antietam was, and still is, the bloodiest single-day engagement in American history. Burnside's maneuver was largely responsible for denying what could have been a key Union victory and could have shortened the Civil War by as many as three years. The general's campaign (or folly) immortalized what widely became known as the Burnside Bridge.1
There is clearly a lesson here. The chiropractic profession has been drawn into a major conflict on the issue of cerebrovascular accidents linked to cervical manipulation, undoubtedly a health risk, but by no means as widespread as a number of external parties have implied. The flawed science behind many of these assertions2-6 and the failure of both the media and deliberate detractors to adequately disclose the benefits that constitute the risk-benefit ratio of any health care intervention7-12 create a grossly distorted picture, discussed at length in this space previously.13,14
While the defense of these safety issues is both necessary and commendable, marked by examples of research15,16 substantially more rigorous than those studies often cited as a means for attacking the practice of cervical manipulations,2-6 it is imperative for us to try to maintain a perspective on the big picture. The danger of becoming too preoccupied in the heat of battle, like General Burnside, is to lose the needed momentum in such other areas of needed research as:
This is not to suggest that efforts to arrive at a definitive conclusion as to how and how often CVAs result from chiropractic intervention should be abandoned. And the questions of spontaneous CVAs or the risks of medical procedures that might be followed instead of those selected by the chiropractor should not be ignored. It is simply to realize that the safety issue constitutes only a fraction of the entire landscape that needs to be populated with definitive studies that inform the general and selected populations as to the advisability of seeking chiropractic care, and for which conditions chiropractic intervention offers an effective and economical alternative. The FCER remains the first and oldest resource within the profession for achieving this objective, for which your support is urgently needed.
The flurry of media events and the Canadian inquest of Lana Dale Lewis have focused our attention upon the safety aspects of chiropractic care, with promising research being offered and planned in response. My point is simply to avoid being confined to only a small niche in both the scope of practice and research efforts during a limited window of opportunity, in which the validity of chiropractic intervention needs to be more firmly and convincingly established across a broader number of conditions affecting the patient. In this manner, the lessons of history from the Burnside Bridge will have been effectively learned.
References
When sports chiropractors first appeared at the Olympic Games in the 1980s, it was alongside individual athletes who had experienced the benefits of chiropractic care in their training and recovery processes at home. Fast forward to Paris 2024, where chiropractic care was available in the polyclinic for all athletes, and the attitude has now evolved to recognize that “every athlete deserves access to sports chiropractic."
It is estimated that 61% of patients with CTS avoid taking surgical options due to postoperative complications and costly surgical procedures. Chiropractic care offers a comprehensive and effective treatment for carpal tunnel syndrome, addressing the condition from multiple angles. Recent studies also have unveiled a game-changing adjunct to chiropractic treatments for CTS: nerve flossing.
Some doctors thrive in a personality-based clinic and have a loyal following no matter what services or equipment they offer, but for most chiropractic offices who are trying to grow and expand, new equipment purchases help us stay relevant and continue to service our client base in the best, most up-to-date manner possible. So, regarding equipment purchasing: should you lease, get a bank loan, or pay cash?
