ABC News 20/20: “Pediatric Chiropractic”

Treating children for almost everything. Lots of parents trust them.

You haven't had any infection since.

But there's another side. Our hidden cameras checked out many chiropractors. Wait till you see what we found. Bizarre treatments. Conflicting advice. Doctors who test the mother when the child is the patient.

What we're doing right now is I'm testing her muscles for him.

This child, paralyzed after visiting the chiropractor. They use their techniques on babies' bones. Is this good science or just good business? If you care about your children, you can't afford to miss John Stossel's eye-opening investigation. Handle with care. And Eric and Lyle Menendez. They killed their\...

It's already brought us an avalanche of letters, many of them warning us not to air this report. Why? Well, that's a good question to ask yourself as our hidden camera investigation unfolds. Who do you turn to for your child's medical care? For most parents, it's their pediatrician. But some people have found an alternative, one that is raising serious concerns.

We're talking about chiropractors. You probably associate them with adults. But some chiropractors are now claiming they can deal with a wide range of children's illnesses, from ear infections to asthma, without medication. and millions of parents believe it. What could be wrong with that? Tonight, John Stossel investigates their techniques and the results. Are parents being manipulated by some chiropractors? Is this the way to treat your children?

Is that okay? Did we do good? Okay, Greg, get ready.

Dr. Larry Webster of Atlanta is the image of the kindly family doctor. His waiting room is filled with kids and parents who firmly believe Dr. Webster is their road to good health.

Well, that means that probably they seek me out first for a problem.

But Webster is not a family doctor in the usual sense. He's not a pediatrician or even an MD. He's a chiropractor, one of many who now say, we can do more than just treat backs. Chiropractic can help your whole body and your children's bodies too. Webster's treatment, you're seeing it here, focuses on making an adjustment in the child's spine. He just pushes on the bones. This, he says, gets rid of something called vertebral subluxations. Bones out of alignment in the spine, the chiropractors claim, press on nerves. Getting rid of these subluxations, he says, restores the child's nerve supply and allows messages to flow freely from the brain. This is supposed to allow the body to heal itself. Did you make an adjustment? Yes, I did. So that little thing, that was it? That was it. The appointment costs about \$25 and lasts just minutes. But Dr. Webster's customers are very satisfied. He and other chiropractors we watched have wonderful bedside manner. Dr. Webster plays with the kids and takes lots of time to explain things. Above all, his treatments are unthreatening. No shots, no antibiotics, no vaccinations, ever. It's all natural healing, say many chiropractors. And by treating vertebral subluxations, this natural healing can prevent ear infections, asthma, bedwetting, some say even cancer.

I think it's amazing, myself. It really is.

This mother says Webster helped her autistic child. He was still. He wouldn't sit still, period.

I mean, he would tear the things off the wall.

He would just\... And now, he'll sit in class, his teachers say, well, he sits in class. Probably my most dramatic one has been a kid from Cao Paulo, Brazil.

That child, he says, was deaf when he first saw him.

We adjusted him on Saturday, checked him again Saturday afternoon, adjusted him again. Sunday morning, they told me the child was doing this. The child was having sounds penetrating for the first time and did not know what they were. And now the child's hearing normally.

Can I talk to these families?

Well, if you got the Cao Paulo Brazil, I don't know.

We can call Brazil.

Sure. OK. That's no problem.

But later, when we asked him for the number, he said he couldn't find it. All this makes me more skeptical, but his patients believe for many, Webster's the only doctor they see. Do you go to a pediatrician too? I don't go to a pediatrician. He does everything. He does everything. But your son then gets no vaccinations? Not at all. No antibiotics ever? Not needed.

I said chiropractor for an ear infection.

This mother was skeptical at first.

I really was kind of leery when he did the little thing that he does to his ears, and.

He hasn't had an ear infection since.

It's all nonsense and scare tactics.

Dr. Murray Katz of Quebec is director of one of North America's biggest pediatric medical centers. If this is such nonsense, why do patients get better?

Patients don't get better. People believe they're getting better. We know that ear infections can go away in two days. We know an asthma attack can stop acutely. We know that bedwetting, eventually, people outgrow it.

Katz is just one of many medical doctors skeptical of chiropractic. But Katz is unusual in that he's taken the time to really study it. He's visited chiropractic colleges, sat in on courses. He even joined the Chiropractic Pediatric Association, which is headed by Dr. Webster. Cat's and other MD's conclusion, yes, spinal manipulation, like the treatment you're seeing here, can be useful in relieving some lower back pain. And there are studies in medical journals to support this. But as for relieving other symptoms and treating children, cats and others say it's nonsense.

There are hundreds of millions of dollars being spent to treat 15 or 20 million children a year for subluxations, which none of them have.

Can you give me a smile, John? Yeah, that's great.

Dr. Webster's been called the grandfather of chiropractic pediatrics. But today, it's a hot business, and lots of chiropractors are doing what Webster does. Today, there are companies that teach chiropractors how to build their practice. Make a million in 24 months. I guess then you can buy this boat. Another tells you how to treat patients for a lifetime. \$100 buys you a tape that'll convince parents to bring their kids in. One trick is to offer free steak dinners to people who listen to your pitch. And the children get coloring books showing the joys of adjustment. Even the dog wants one. Many pediatric chiropractors were inspired by the baby adjusters, Palmer and Jennifer Peete. They run a business teaching others how to open a practice, how to promote it with things like free t-shirts. And they teach courses for chiropractors, talking about things like ear infections, colds, asthma. And they know their techniques work. They've helped thousands of children.

They come in with a fever, we adjust them, the child goes to bed, and they get up the next morning, and it's if there was never anything wrong with them. We've had case after case.

The Pete's ideas are quoted in chiropractic manuals. Chiropractic works and medical procedures usually fail.

In some cases, that's true, and I don't think that you will get people to argue with that too much.

Usually fail.

From the histories of literally thousands of Children that we've taken when we've checked them in our office, many of them have come to us as medical failures.

And you can help these children more than a conventional doctor could.

If they have a vertebral subluxation, I'm the only kind of doctor that can help them.

And how many people have subluxations?

About 95% of children have vertebral subluxations.

They say 95% of children have them, they just, they don't.

They don't. They have an ulterior motive for saying it. It's a growth industry. In order to find something to treat, they must find everybody's little bones out of place starting right after birth.

You doctors are just protecting your turf so you can make more money.

It's not a fight between doctors and chiropractors. It's a fight between science and superstition. It's a fight between science and a belief system.

The pediatric chiropractors say they have science behind them, the science of subluxations. This is the crux of the dispute. Many medical doctors say what the chiropractors call subluxations don't even exist. That everyone has tiny variations in their spines and these have no effect on our health. The doctors also say that if you show chiropractors the same x-rays, they can't even agree on where the subluxations are. Chiropractors like the Pete say research shows they can pick out the same subluxations. You can pick up subluxations on these x-rays.

Absolutely.

And it's.97%. That's very high.

Let me ask you to do one then. I'll do a few.

I can't. I don't have a view box.

Yeah, we do.

Sorry, we're not set up yet.

Also, we don't have the time because we have to\...

Wait, if we leave them with you or\...

Well, it would depend on what kind of x-rays there were. Let me look at the quality of the x-ray. The quality of the x-ray and\... That's not a very good x-ray. Who took these? That one, you can't analyze that.

If you can't read these x-rays, can we take some of your x-rays and take them to other chiropractors and see if they see the same thing?

Yes.

But when we later tried to do that experiment, the Peds wouldn't give us the x-rays. They said we were running a circus.

Certainly medically.

He checks out just fine. Physically he's okay.

We thought we'd learn more about this hot new business by running a real-life test. Blake has recurring ear infections. His pediatrician told his mother, Lori, that the ear infections can be treated with antibiotics, and eventually Blake will outgrow them.

Give me high fives. Yeah.

At our request, Lori then took Blake to 9 chiropractors. A 2020 cameraman accompanied her, saying he was a friend. The friend carried a hidden camera. If pediatric chiropractic is a science, you'd think that the chiropractors would agree in what's wrong with Blake. Or perhaps they'd agree with the pediatrician and say Blake is healthy and needs no treatment. Did they? No. Every chiropractor found a problem, and for the most part, not the same problem. The first one says.

Blake has a misalignment. between the second and the third bones in his neck.

This chiropractor found a different misalignment. And it's on the right side of his neck between the first and second bone. This Dr. concluded that Blake's main problem is in his glands.

At least in terms of the reflexes that I'm testing, there is a weakness in the renal glands.

This chiropractor knows Blake has a subluxation because one of his legs is shorter than the other.

They're not even close to the level.

Now, see, this is off about an inch. And so on. Although the chiropractors found different problems, they agreed on one thing. They could help. And by the way, Blake's crying not because the chiropractors hurt him. Blake just doesn't like going to the doctor. Now, some of the techniques the chiropractors used were quite strange, such as second-hand examinations. This chiropractor says he'll diagnose Blake by pulling on Lori's arm while Lori touches Blake.

Just touch the shoulder. OK. As I push down your arm, then there's a problem. I'm just going to go weak, and that's going to give me information about what has to be done.

This chiropractor had Blake lie on top of Lori, and then he pulls Lori's legs.

Now, what we're doing right now is I'm testing her muscles for him, okay? And there's a combination of energy here. So let me show you. Pull this up again. Right now, this leg doesn't work too good, and this leg doesn't work too good, right? Yeah. Okay, now that means that there is a jamming of his occiput, that's the top bone in this. His what? The occiput, which is the backbone of his skull. All right. By pushing down on her leg, you felt? That's what it says. Yeah.

Then he touches Blake's back and presto, he says Blake is already bitter.

I just lifted the occiput, his backbone in the skull, with my thumbs like this and like that on the other side. And then we went back and tested the muscles. And they were strong. So that's something. That's Lori's muscles. Well, yeah, but it's right now. Now she's becoming him.

Lake needs treatment, he says. His bones don't work.

So they've got to be fixed. But before we fix that, we have to line up certain other things. His immune system don't work.

And the doctor was worried about learning disabilities. Learning disabilities.

Yeah. Which somebody in the family?

Someone in the family.

In your family. How do you think of that? Because I know. Do you know that just from what? This is what I do. And your eyes don't team too well and neither does how. So, I mean, the both of you think he's got a problem.

Of course, the cameraman wasn't even related to Blake. Why all the varying diagnoses? When we confronted the chiropractors, they told us the body is always changing. And some said these were just initial evaluations and more tests would be needed. In any case, all nine chiropractors said they could help. Though the treatment would be expensive, because it could last anywhere from several weeks to a lifetime.

Now, you've seen the growing trend in chiropractors treating childhood illnesses, and sometimes it seems to work. But when is it dangerous? There are tragic cases that bring up important questions, as you'll see when John Stossel's investigation continues. Stay with us. An alternative for treating children and others who believe it's nonsense. If it is nonsense, kids could be at risk, not from the adjustment itself. This is rarely dangerous. But if the chiropractor gives bad advice, then real diseases could be overlooked. It has happened, as you'll see in the conclusion of John Stossel's investigation.

Recently, two children were brought to this hospital at the University of Iowa with mastoiditis, an ear infection so bad it had eaten into their skulls. Cases this severe are seldom seen since the age of antibiotics, but the chiropractors that had treated the children didn't think antibiotics were necessary. At this hospital in Peoria, doctors were stunned to see a case of kwashiokor, a kind of malnutrition rarely seen in developed countries. Matthew Goodwin had been treated by chiropractor James Hoag. Hoag says he was treating the child for a skin rash. Apparently, he didn't know that the rash was the result of malnutrition. Hoag adjusted him and prescribed herbal therapies like Silmax leaf from the health food store. But Matthew's problem was that he just wasn't getting enough food. Hoag didn't notice that.

I saw no indication that he, for instance, was not being fed.

Hoag claims he referred Matthew to a pediatrician. But Matthew wasn't seeing a pediatrician. Officials say he was only being treated by Hoag. When Matthew arrived at St. Francis Medical Center, doctors here tried to save him, but it was too late. He died of malnutrition. Lawyers for Matthew's grandmother asked physician Warren Bishop to investigate the chiropractor's care. This is obvious.

This sort of thing should be obvious to anybody.

I think if you were in the grocery store, for example, in line at the cash register behind a mother carrying a child who looked like this, you would have been shocked, appalled, and worried. Treating it with Sylmax leaf, whatever that is, It just defies belief. A grand jury indicted the boy's caretaker, his grandmother, for neglect because she didn't provide proper medical attention. She's been sentenced to four years in jail for involuntary manslaughter. The grand jury wanted Hoag investigated further, but the DA responsible decided not to prosecute. Hoag continues to offer chiropractic care to children.

I didn't see any occasion he was starving to death. The last time he was in, he looked thin.

One more case. When Keith Farrow was a baby, he held his head at a tilt. His mother's chiropractor said, I can help.

He just kept talking to us and finally talked us into it, you know, saying that he could fix that.

And he turned his head to the right, to the left, and back, and snapped. I mean, he popped, his neck popped, you know. And Keith started crying. I said, and he said, well, he'll calm down a little bit. It won't hurt very long.

The next day, he says, Keith went limp. So they took him back to the chiropractor.

Turned his head to the right, left, snap. He said, I said, well, look how limp he is. He said, he just looks like he's got a bad flu bug. He said, he'll be okay in a couple of days.

Keith started running a fever. Then they took him to an emergency room. Eventually, a St. Louis hospital found Keith had a tumor that ran the length of his spinal cord. The doctors believe the chiropractor's adjustment aggravated the tumor, which then cut off the blood supply to Keith's spine. Today, Keith is paralyzed from the waist down. The chiropractor, James Kessinger of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, says Keith's problems stemmed from a drug he was given at the hospital. So it's not because you adjusted his spine?

No, absolutely not.

The doctor said the tumor ruptured, and I would think you were adjusted.

He said it ruptured, but he had no proof of that.

In fact, Kessinger says if the Pharaohs had just brought Keith in earlier, proper adjustments might have taken pressure off Keith's brain stem, and the tumor might never have grown. You don't feel you did anything wrong with Keith?

Oh, absolutely not.

He should have come to you sooner.

Absolutely.

The Pharaohs don't know what to believe. They're not convinced that the chiropractor caused Keith's problems. They even took Keith back to Dr. Kessinger in hopes more adjustments would relieve Keith's paralysis. They didn't. We thought we'd try another test, this time with a child who does have an ongoing problem. Five-year-old Cody Finello of La Crosse, Wisconsin, has chronic ear infections. Infections so severe, they're starting to give him hearing loss. Cody's medical doctors want to insert tubes in his ears to help the infection drain. But Cody's mother was nervous about surgery.

Then I got talking to my normal chiropractor, and he said he could do something better. And if I can find some other way to fix his ear problem, I'll do it.

ABC paid to have Cody examined by 8 chiropractors. Again, all eight found a problem. But Cody's mom says it usually wasn't the same problem. This chiropractor said Cody has a pinched nerve in his neck. At this office, the chiropractor said Cody's left leg was shorter than his right. Here, the chiropractor said his right leg was shorter than his left. Chiropractic critic Dr. Katz says none of the diagnoses make sense. Why couldn't an ear infection be caused by a pinched nerve?

If the nerve was being pinched, all the parts which that nerve supplies would then be affected. The child would have facial paralysis, the child might have swallowing problems, the child would have many, many other problems.

Anatomically impossible.

Anatomically impossible.

This chiropractor said the problem was nutritional. Cody was deficient in zinc. This doctor said food sensitivities are the problem. These are the things that he was sensitive to. Stay away from corn, cow's milk, and wheat flour. Okay. He never even examined Cody's ears. When we asked these chiropractors why all the different diagnoses, some said leg lengths change. Some said they weren't varying diagnoses, just different techniques. Stay away from corn, cow's milk, and wheat flour. When you confronted this chiropractor, he said although he had talked about food, his main diagnosis was a subluxation in the top vertebrae. Chiropractor James Bowman said Cody didn't even have an ear problem. Instead, he said he has a disturbance in his nervous system.

The cause of that seems to be scoliosis.

Scoliosis is a frightening diagnosis. It can be grossly deforming. This is very persuasive. His spine is curved. If I were his mother, I'd worry.

Scoliosis is not any little curve in the spine, and it's not a condition which we see in that age group. It's almost unheard of. We've never seen a case. I think I've seen one case in 20 years.

His doctor says your diagnosis is ridiculous.

Well, you know, if he's not familiar with chiropractic, it would sound absurd, certainly.

And the radiologist, too, says this is totally normal.

I would disagree.

Of course, if you listen to what the Pete's say, most children don't have normal spines. They have subluxations. Subluxations, if left undetected and uncorrected, are life-threatening.

They certainly are. They certainly are.

Someone might just drop dead if they're not treated.

That's correct.

That's correct.

Now is the time to tell your patients that subluxations are slowly killing their children.

That's true.

That's true.

You're scaring people for money.

No. Sometimes we don't even charge patients.

But you're running a business telling people to do more with kids. You're getting paid by other chiropractors for help in starting a business.

Is it scary for the Cancer Foundation to go out and warn women about having mammograms? That's not a scare tactic. That's an educational tactic. What parent wouldn't want their child to be able to have that kind of health care?

A parent who thought you were quacks.

Well, doctors of chiropractic attend chiropractic college for as long as medical doctors go to school.

Yet even some chiropractors are critical. The biggest chiropractic association says there's no evidence that subluxations are life-threatening and that comments like that are irresponsible. On the other hand, the association does claim they've had lots of success treating kids. And they say children with ear infections and other conditions should be evaluated by chiropractors. The association and other chiropractors we talked to said children should also be seen by a pediatrician. Some chiropractors were still more critical.

They are making all the chiropractic physicians, even the scientifically oriented ones that are trying to do a good job, look like absolute quacks.

Chuck Duvall heads the National Association for Chiropractic Medicine, which believes chiropractors should stick to trying to relieve back pain in adults. Is there a lot of money in this?

There is so much money being ripped off. They want the patient to start from the day they're born on, forever. I'd say maybe the average patient here is 50, 60 times, but over a period of time. And again, that's\... That's covered by insurance.

Yes, You might be surprised to learn who's paying for all this. You are. So the government pays for these treatments.

That's correct. Oh, absolutely, and it has for years. Medicaid and Medicare in most states cover for chiropractic, and it's not limited to the treatment of back pain.

But they say they'll make the body work right so it can heal itself and prevent itself from getting sick.

That's a wonderful idea, but it's not ever been proven.

Might be true.

Might be true, and we might go downstairs and have lunch with Elvis.

So are you saying that they're making it up just to make money?

Yeah, absolutely.

Now, I don't agree with that. From the people I met, I think they genuinely believe that they're doing the right thing.

And they're exercised about it because the mail and faxes are coming in by a ton. Yeah, it's phenomenal. Even before it's on the air. John, I have to ask you, though, this business of a medium, the second-hand therapy, like pulling the mother's leg instead of the child's, is that conventional treatment in chiropractic, or is that\... Is that something oddball?

No, that's something that the Maine Chiropractic Association said was absolute nonsense. Very few believe in that, but it's being taught at seminars and practiced around the country.

Do you think there ought to be laws curtailing that kind of activity?

Well, I mean, I think in a free country, people should have the right to seek out alternative medicine. I think that it might work. Anything is possible. I'm upset that\... We pay for it. The government and our insurance, we pay for their experimental treatment.

That was a surprise to me when you first came up with that. Fascinating piece. Thank you, John. Thanks.

Look at all this mail sent in advance.

We've got to read all that now.

We don't get that before they've seen it. We don't get that kind of mail. Maybe we're lucky.