A pair of media stories recently have shown chiropractic in a favorable light. The first story appeared on October 28, 2002 on a California television news show. The station, “Action News 8” is out of Salinas, Monterey and Santa Cruz. The story’s title is “Chiropractors Offer Relief For Moms-To-Be”. This news feature tells the story of a pregnant woman who was experiencing lower back pain. The woman told her story by saying, “Laying down was very difficult, changing positions was extremely, extremely painful. I was at the point where I really wasn’t functioning very well.” According to the news story a chiropractor found that the woman’s pelvis was out of balance. She explains her story by saying, “I was here three days in a row (with) a weekend off and (there was a) drastic difference.” The story goes on to explain that there are additional benefits to chiropractic care for pregnant women. The chiropractor of the woman featured in this news story ended by saying, “The actual time of labor, the length of it, is shortened. The delivery was very easy. The baby just literally, kind of, came out slowly and smoothly. Complications are very rare.”
The second news story appeared in the October 28, 2002 issue of the Buffalo Business First Newspaper. In this story, the Erie County Medical centre (ECMC) has established a Department of Chiropractic, a level of service unique to hospitals across the state of New York. ECMC medical director Dr. Roger Kaiser gives the reason for this by explaining, “We recognized sometime ago the importance of offering a broad spectrum of service to our patients,” said Kaiser. “Patients will frequently access chiropractors and we couldn’t ignore that market force. If that’s what the patients want, that’s what we’ll give them. To deny them that access just because of a turf battle didn’t make sense.” Dr. Stephen Zajac newly named head of the ECMC’s Department of Chiropractic, explains the shift in thinking by removal of a professional wall that has existed between Chiropractic and Medicine. “Chiropractic is not included as an alternative (treatment) any more. We can’t deny that the wall existed for a very long time. That wall isn’t that solid here as it is elsewhere in the state and country,” Zajac said.
