• Smith JC

• Back
• Chiropractic
• Diagnosis
• Low Back Pain
• Open Access Document

Narrative abstract: Studies from around the world on the back pain pandemic agree the medical model consists of ‘outdated models of care’ based on ‘widespread misconceptions’. However, primary care physicians and spine surgeons have ignored the call for a paradigm shift to conservative (nondrug, nonsurgical) care popularised by Chiropractors that has gained support from spine specialists and researchers including the legendary Alf Nachemson, the god father of medical spine research and journalism. 

Traditional medical practice led to the prescription opioid painkillers crisis and the tsunami of failed back surgeries. The current worldwide clinical disaster in spine care begins as this author contends with the initial misdiagnosis as ‘nonspecific’ primary pain, which is unsupported in research and is seen by this author as an admission of their educational and clinical ineptness in spine care that continues as a major scam upon the public. Undeniably ‘bad disks’ seen on x-rays and MRI scans have been used as effective selling points to gullible patients that have greatly increased the number of unnecessary surgeries at an enormous cost, waste, and chronic opioid abuse. Many studies confirm the medical model of spine care has been a ‘20th century disaster’ causing widespread ‘tragic human wreckage’ according to Gordon Waddell. 

This paper explores the reasons and solutions for this unmitigated medical clinical disaster originating from a Spine Cartel hellbent on profiteering rather than a health profession seeking the ‘best practices’ in spine care as evidence-based guidelines recommend from around the world and long pursued by Chiropractors despite the ongoing medical war fighting in the most lucrative and wasteful market in American medicine at US$134.5 billion annually, more than cancer, heart disease, or diabetes. 

Author keywords: Chiropractic - LBP - Diagnosis- Low back pain - Back surgery.