August 16, 2024 (Falls Church, VA) Do you remember how the United States ended up with an Opioid Crisis? Several factors were at play to create the “perfect storm.” Around 1996, Perdue Pharmaceuticals received FDA approval for a new opioid commonly referred to as “Oxy.” Around this time, the American Pain Society was established and developed a highly effective “pain as the fifth vital sign” marketing campaign to raise awareness of the importance of proper pain management. The symptom of pain dominated the healthcare dialogue until the National Academies of Science’s Institute of Medicine conducted an analysis and published a report that provided that over 11% of the American public experienced pain every day. The alarm bells went off like a firehouse alarm. And the “firefighters” (regulators and policymakers) jumped in their shiny red trucks and dashed off to put out the fire.

The allopathic medical model calls for symptom suppression and now, in their bag of Rx potions, doctors and dentists had Oxy. So, when JCAHO – the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations – instituted a requirement that hospitals ask every patient about their pain status and the satisfaction in their pain management, all of a sudden, the patient population was not focused on their recovery, but on their pain. The use of the smiley face-frowny face pain scale began being used with adults and children every day in doctors’ offices, clinics, and hospital.

Suddenly, millions of Americans were being prescribed opioids and other drugs to suppress their pain! The medical community has always known that opioids are addictive and have serious risks. Oxy was supposed to be “less addictive,” so the “do no harm” oath was set aside and Oxy became the prescribed drug of choice. We now know the manufacturer misled the world about Oxy’s addiction capacity intentionally. Along the way, the American Pain Society was busy normalizing the thought that one should be treating pain with opioids and other strong drugs. In 2019, The American Pain Society would go bankrupt and shut down when their ties to drug makers were made public. But not before the damage was done – millions of Americans died.

Today, over 2.5 million Americans have OUD – Opioid Use Disorder – and over 80,000 Americans died in 2021 from opioids. The medical community puts its attention on the symptom of pain being suppressed and their methods resulted in death and addiction for many. Because their model is far from optimal.

The Life Lesson: Where You Put Your Attention is Where You Get Results!

Where is ICA’s Attention? On making sure every person on the planet has the opportunity to access chiropractic care focusing on the correction of vertebral subluxations by safeguarding the privilege of licensed/credentialled chiropractors to practice chiropractic worldwide!

ICA chiropractors know that pain is a symptom of an underlying subluxation and that by identifying and correcting that subluxation through the chiropractic adjustment, the symptom can be addressed. There are no drugs that can fix the “chronic pain” that develops when the pain signal gets stuck in the “on” position. It is up to you, the ICA chiropractor – Doctors of Health™ who promote the body’s innate ability to seek and achieve optimal life expression, health, and human potential through specific and scientific chiropractic care – to provide the opportunity for patients to resolve this suffering.

To paraphrase former ICA President, Dr. George Curry – the world is subluxated, let’s get to it and get adjusting.

Growth is the Solution – growth of the ICA and growth in the numbers of chiropractors worldwide. ICA leadership and staff are focused on growth; and we ask you to join us in being a part of this important global solution.

ICA is focused on improving the member benefits, on advocating for you and the profession, and on expanding awareness of the benefits of regular chiropractic care.

Our continuing education programs offered through our councils advanced the mission through training at the highest standards. We help attendees be better chiropractors.

We have new vendors coming on board to offer you discounts, and revenue opportunities. The MLily mattresses designed by ICA experts are only available through ICA doctors – it is up to you to get engaged with the company and make these amazing products available.

We could focus on all the negatives in the world today; but instead, we are focusing on what we can do to help the world – and that is to increase access to ICA chiropractors. I am asking you today to joins us in this focus on ICA membership growth through the end of 2024. Will you bring one new doctor to the ICA each month? If you share the ICA message, I know you can. But we must make the effort to achieve the goal. Simone Biles didn’t win all those gold medals by just thinking about gymnastics – she put the effort in. I’m making this same request to our leadership and Assembly Representatives. Working on this focus together we can achieve amazing growth. Our founder, Dr. B.J. Palmer created the ICA to be THE voice in chiropractic to protect and promote the profession worldwide. To achieve his vision and goals, we need ICA members – ALL OF US – focused and active on growing the ICA.