
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 29, 1990                   TAG: 9003290603
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-16   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

STICK TO THE FACTS, `MEN OF SCIENCE'

RICHARD B. Cunningham of Moneta (letter March 12) proudly espoused medicine's educational requirements as somehow superior to chiropractic education and hinted therefore that medicine was superior to chiropractic.

We should allow the facts to bear witness to this alleged superiority. According to a Yale-New Haven study, 2,000 people die every week from medication reactions in the United States. One thousand more die every week from needless surgery (Johns Hopkins study).

Thirty thousand people are hospitalized every week from medication reactions, according to another Yale-New Haven study. Despite the fact that we spend more than $355 billion on health care each year, the United States ranks 35th in the world in male life expectancy!

The Associated Press reported that the federal appeals court in Chicago upheld its 1987 ruling that the American Medical Association and cohorts conspired to destroy chiropractic in America. The original trial revealed evidence of chiropractic's efficacy in treating back-related disorders substantiated by medical doctors!

If Cunningham and so many other "men of science" would stick to the bottom line and resist the urge to make antitrust insinuations, the healing arts could advance immensely in the attainment of knowledge for the alleviation of human suffering.

DAVID M. GARST, B.S. D.C.\ ROANOKE

by CNB