For Immediate Release                                                          

Media Contact: Beth Clay, Executive Director bclay@chiropractic.org

International Chiropractors Association Affirms Policy on Health Freedom

12 October 2021, (Falls Church, VA):  In Fall 2021, we find ourselves in situations that are not aligned with the inalienable human rights of health freedom, freedom of movement, and freedom of speech. Parents with legitimate grievances are being labeled as domestic terrorists, factual data is being reported as misinformation, access to public venues is being severely restricted, and even job security is being threatened by Draconian mandates not supported by science. 

In a world of public health that promotes evidence-based decision making, we see the importance of natural immunity being ignored and replaced with a totalitarian approach of compulsory vaccination.  At a time when the Surgeon General says misinformation has become an urgent threat to public health, misinformation is now being used in an attempt to discredit the chiropractic profession, the International Chiropractors Association, and all chiropractic patients who desire to focus on improving health naturally. After enduring 18 months of shutdowns, lockdowns, flattening the curve, masking, limitations of speech on social media; and a cancel culture environment that threatens the basic freedoms our country was founded upon in 1776, ICA will not compromise on the importance of protecting health freedom.  In 1776, our Founders agreed: 

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The International Chiropractors Association has never had a policy against the use of vaccinations and adamantly rejects recent published misinformation that misrepresents its position on “Health Freedom”.  The ICA Policy on Immunization and Vaccination has remained unchanged for almost 50 years and clearly states:

“The International Chiropractors Association recognizes that the use of vaccines is not without risk and questions the wisdom of mass vaccination programs.  Chiropractic principles favor the enhancement of natural immunity over artificial immunization.

The ICA supports each individual’s right to select his or her own health care and to be made aware of the possible adverse effects of vaccines upon a human body.  In accordance with such principles and based upon the individual’s right to freedom of choice, the ICA is opposed to compulsory programs which infringe upon such rights.

The International Chiropractors Association is supportive of a conscience clause or waiver in compulsory vaccination laws, providing an elective course of action for all regarding immunization, thereby allowing patients freedom of choice in matters affecting their bodies and health.”

The International Chiropractors Association maintains that all healthcare interventions, including the chiropractic adjustment, are associated with some level of risk and that every individual is entitled to be informed of those risks, no matter how insignificant. All individuals must retain the freedom to accept or reject any healthcare product, procedure, or medication including vaccinations.  The International Chiropractors Association therefore strongly opposes the use of medical mandates that violate personal sovereignty, violate the principles of informed consent, and constrain the rights of patients to make their own health care choices.  The ICA Policy is grounded in the principles of the Nuremburg Code that apply to medical research and influenced the development of informed consent for all medical procedures.  The first principle defines that

“The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential”.

“This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision.”

The chiropractic profession was founded in 1895 by D.D. Palmer who wanted to know the secret of good health: Why did one person get sick while others living under the same roof, eating the same food, and working the same way, remained healthy? For over 125 years the Chiropractic Profession has focused on health rather than disease, has postulated the basic principle that the health of the host and its ability to adapt to its external environment is more important than the virulence of the disease it is exposed to. 

The ICA encourages the recognition that natural efforts to enhance the innate immune system ability to adapt to novel viruses are grounded in science and rejects the notion that the patients’ freedom to rely on naturally acquired immunity is not based upon unscientific beliefs.

The ICA rejects the premise that the chiropractic profession’s long history of promoting health freedom and supporting conscientious exemptions is based upon unscientific or non-mainstream beliefs.

The ICA rejects the premise that American parents organizing to promote truth in education, or to speak up on behalf of their children constitutes domestic terrorism.  ICA further asserts that all patients and their families have the right to peaceably assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances including those grievances against mandates. 

Dr. Selina Sigafoose Jackson, ICA Board President stated, “While the actual truth on COVID cases, consequences, and deaths, as well as the science on the long-term benefit and risks associated with the COVID-19 vaccines is still a moving target; what is not a moving target is the right of all to health freedom. That is an inalienable human right.”

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