Chiropractic kills

Chiropractic, the idea that violently manipulating one's vertebrae can alleviate a variety of physical ailments through an indirect effect on the spinal nerve, was invented by a quack named Daniel David Palmer in 1895 (he was also a magnetic healer). Immodestly, and absurdly, he claimed that he had "answered the question — what is life?" A well designed study aimed at testing the theory behind chiropractic showed "that vertebrae could not be displaced enough to stretch or impinge a spinal nerve unless the force was great enough to break the spine" according to a lucid article by J. D. Haines in eSkeptic. That didn't stop a chiropractor from killing 24-year old Kristi Bedenbaugh back in 1993 (one of several cases that have emerged since), because the manipulation of her neck resulted in splitting the inner walls of both of her vertebral arteries, thus causing a fatal stroke. Outrageously, the South Carolina State Board of Chiropractic Examiners fined the "practitioner" $1000 and assigned him to 12 hours of continuing education on neurological disorders and emergency response.