January 17, 2024 (Falls Church, VA) – ICA President Dr. Selina Sigafoose-Jackson responded to an article in Lancaster Online from a medical doctor who discussed referring her pediatric patients to a chiropractor. Given the article made negative and inaccurate information about the International Chiropractors Association (ICA), Dr. Selina submitted a full rebuttal (provided below and attached). The editors requested a truncated response limited to 250 words. Dr. Selina agreed with the stipulation that a link to the full original letter be provided in the article.

ICA Executive Director, Beth Clay, stated, “ICA has a duty to respond to misinformation in the media regarding chiropractic or the ICA. Anytime someone sees articles in the media that paint the profession or the ICA in a negative or invalid light, we ask that you notify us so that we may respond and correct the record.”

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January 9, 2023

Mr. Tom Murse
Executive Editor
LancasterOnline
PO Box 1328
Lancaster, PA 17608-1328

Re: Response to Dr. Pia Fenimore’s article “Refer children to chiropractor?”

Dear Editor Murse:

As a chiropractor in practice in the York/Lancaster area, and the current President of the International Chiropractors Association, I have reviewed with interest the above-mentioned article regarding a Medical Doctor’s referral of patients to Doctors of Chiropractic also referred to as Chiropractors. While it is laudable that Dr. Fenimore makes a public statement acknowledging she at times refers her patients to Chiropractors, her discriminatory statement against the International Chiropractors Association (ICA) requires correction, which is provided below.

History Confirms the Discrimination Against Chiropractors: Medical Doctors (MDs) have a long history of discriminating against Doctors of Chiropractic (DCs) that dates at least back to the mid-20th Century, when the American Medical Association (AMA) and other medical associations instituted policies actively discriminating; establishing policies that medical doctors were not to refer patients to or even socialize with Chiropractors. As a result, Dr. Chester Wilk with several other chiropractors filed a federal anti-trust lawsuit against the AMA and others in the medical profession alleging Sherman Act violations. The ICA played an integral in supporting Dr. Wilk’s case for the 20 years it took to resolve. In 1987, federal Judge Getzendanner concluded that the AMA “had engaged in an unlawful conspiracy in restraint of trade to contain and eliminate the chiropractic profession”…and the ”AMA had entered into a long history of illegal behavior.” (Wilk v. American Medical Ass’n, 671 F. Supp. 1465, N.D. Ill. 1987). The vestiges of these actions linger even today in antiquated health policies and quiet actions of discrimination by MDs who make statements limiting the scope of care to which they believe a doctor of chiropractic should be involved. Chiropractic is a whole person health care system, separate and distinct from allopathic medicine which is a drug centric system of care.

ICA is a Premier Provider of Advanced Post-Graduate Training in Pediatrics: The ICA was established in 1926 by Dr. B.J. Palmer to promote and protect chiropractic as a separate and distinct profession with its mission focused on chiropractic philosophy, art, and science. The ICA stays focused on helping doctors of chiropractic become the best chiropractors they can be and does so with high quality post graduate continuing education programs, including a diplomate program for chiropractors who focus on caring for women and children.

Our Diplomate in Clinical Chiropractic Pediatrics (DICCP) is an intense, 360+ hour program completed over three years after our doctors have obtained their Doctor of Chiropractic degree. These doctors, who complete the rigorous program and pass the final exam, provide chiropractic care for neuromuscular issues, as well as issues that mothers have found no resolution through other approaches including allopathic medicine. These issues include failure to thrive because of nursing challenges and colic. Chiropractors are also able provide non-surgical solutions to scoliosis. The ICA Council on Chiropractic Pediatrics publishes an open-source peer-reviewed journal available to everyone at https://jccponline.com/ .

Correcting the Record on Two Ill-informed Comments: Dr. Fenimore makes two comments that are ill-informed. First, her comment that she “does not want a lot of imaging (x-rays) done on my patients due to concerns for radiation” is not based in the latest scientific evidence validating the safety of x-ray imaging and its important role in chiropractic and other analysis of the spine. Chiropractors only x-ray when there is a need; and as Oakley, et al stated in their 2021 paper in Dose Response, “Fears over radiation have created irrational pressures to dissuade radiography use within chiropractic…. low-dose radiation in the amounts given from X-rays (and CT scans) offers no threat to public health as they have never been shown to cause harm…” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8375354/)_

Dr. Fenimore’s second comment that she does not refer to ICA doctors because the organization “does not support immunization of children” is blatantly false. The ICA takes no stance against immunizations, and in fact for 50 years has maintained a policy which we restated in 2021. The ICA position 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.” ( https://www.chiropractic.org/ica-affirms-policy-on-health-freedom/) ( https://www.chiropractic.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/ICA-Health-Policy-Statement-August-2021.pdf )

Our fact-based statement that every vaccine carries the risk of a possible adverse effect aligns with that of the U.S. Government. That information is provided at Appendix A (below).

As a second-generation chiropractor for more than 30 years, I have been honored to provide chiropractic care to patients of all ages in the York-Lancaster communities. I am honored to serve as President of the ICA, and in that role promote a factual representation of the chiropractic profession, which is that we are doctors of chiropractic who provide drug-free care focused on identifying subluxations of the spine (misalignments) and correcting them through the chiropractic adjustment.

ICA is pleased to have launched a public education campaign this year on public television. Our video message can be seen at: https://www.viewpointproject.com/features-international-chiropractors-association/.

I respectfully request that this message in its entirety be published in response to Dr. Feinmore’s article.

Sincerely,

Selina Sigafoose Jackson, DC, FICA
President
International Chiropractors Association

Dr. Sigafoose Jackson is co-owner/operator of
Sigafoose & Jackson Chiropractic
2816 E. Market Street York, PA 17402

Cc:
Ms. Stephanie Zeigler
Managing Editor of Content

Delivered Via Email to: tmurse@LNPnews.com and szeigler@LNPnews.com

Appendix A

Data from the U.S. National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program December 2023

The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) is a federal program to compensate individuals who experience a serious adverse reaction to a covered immunization (which includes the complete list from the Childrens Recommended Vaccine Schedule.) (https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation ). This month the program reported that since 1988, over 10,371 individuals have been compensated for vaccine injuries for a total of over $5 billion. This equates to 38.6% of filed cases in the VICP. (https://www.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/hrsa/vicp/vicp-stats-12-01-23.pdf).

The Department of Health and Human Services publishes a table of recognized vaccine injuries at https://www.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/hrsa/vicp/pre-march-2017-vaccine-injury-table.pdf to streamline the compensation process.

The information for COVID-19 vaccine injuries, which go through the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program at HRSA. HRSA reports, “Of the 12,700 COVID-19 countermeasure claims, 9,621 allege injuries/deaths from COVID-19 vaccines.” (https://www.hrsa.gov/cicp/cicp-data/table-1).

A reliable non-government resource on vaccine is the National Vaccine Information Center at https://www.nvic.org/