Seems like Gorski at the SBM link does a pretty good job of showing how vague and unreliable that number is. Of course there is also no reliable data on chiropractic errors so its pretty difficult to make the assumption that it is less dangerous.
"So the question is do they do any good"
Indeed. Anecdotal evidence isn't proof. After over a hundred years of chiropractic, there is virtually no verifiable studies of its efficacy. Some chiropractors are even willing to acknowledge this.
After 12 years of teaching and research at several chiropractic colleges, I can say with confidence that chiropractic is both science and anti-science. Yes, there is a meaningful science of chiropractic, but just as
surely there is an anti-scientific mind-set and even a cult within chiropractic (for example, the cult of B.J. Palmer, son of the founder of chiropractic). Moreover, if University of Connecticut sociologist Walter Wardwell, Ph.D. is correct (Wardwell, 1992), the belief systems of a majority of DCs lie somewhere between these two poles: chiropractic as science vs. chiropractic as unscientific, uncritical dogma and circus. ...
https://web.archive.org/web/20070928211752/http://www.sherman.edu/research/rsch510/FaultyLogic-in-Chiro.pdfIf the profession continues to publish theory, in the absence of scientific support, and continues to waste its funds on outrageous advertising rather than investigate the truth of the theory in meaningful scientific studies, then the enormous progress made by the profession and its leadership over the last 20 years will have been wasted. A philosophy is no substitute for rational thought and a desire for business is no substitute for meaningful supportive research.
http://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=43170
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