Now I agree the way we've been handled on some of this is unfair. The bottom line is, we can't change that on a national level. What you can change is how you respond to it in your office. There's no need to be defensive. The facts sup- port where we are. This is a very unfortunate situation. In the fullness of time, whether it's determined to be related to chiropractic care or not, it doesn't matter. We want the public to know that we're aware of this. We're attending to it and that in the scheme of things relative to neck pain and headache, chiro- practic is the safest intervention across the spectrum of things to be done to people when you look at medications, when you look at surgery, when you look at other interventions. Nothing comes close to the safety of chiropractic care. We need to keep that in mind. Next slide, please. Now another caution that I would have for you. This may sound a little preachy to you and I apologize if it does. You may feel a need at this moment to set the record straight. You may feel like you as a chiropractor have been unfairly judged and the chiropractic profession is not fairly judged. You may be ap- proached by a local, state or national news media for a comment. I'm pleading with you. Resist the desire to accept the offer. Refer those inquiries to your state and national associations. You go back in your office and continue to take great care of your patients. The bottom line is, this is not the issue nor the time to cut your teeth as a spokesperson for the profession. If you haven't had tremendous background experience and training and media training and you're not intimately familiar with the literature of the situation, please do not enter this fray. It's a very critical moment. We need to make sure that the answers that the press gets are informed, are logical, are reasonable and are knowledgeable and they're supported by the literature. Next slide, please. In contrast, it might be helpful to you to read what some folks are say- ing, particularly some high profile folks in medicine are saying about this situa- tion. Early on in this discussion, I made reference to the Pittsburgh Post-Ga- zette as Dr. Hoffman did. The Director of the Penn State Institute of the Neuro- sciences was quoted in the article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His perspective was very simply, the chiropractor got caught in the middle. He went on to say that it was unlikely to have caused the original tear. He was quoted in saying specifically, "I think the data is overwhelming. That there's a very low risk of dissection from neck manipulation." Next slide, please. In that same article, there was a quote from Felipe Albuquerque, a neurologist in Phoenix who is published in this area. In January 2011 in the Journal of Neuro- surgery, he published an article critical of chiropractic care relative to dissec- tion and so on. Even he had the perspective that Ms. May was "probably in- jured her artery during the modeling pose." He went on to say it was his per- spective that he thought the chiropractor worsened the situation but the prob- lem didn't begin with the chiropractor.
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