The Board of Directors of the WikiChiro Foundation is proud to announce the establishment of WikiChiro.org, an encyclopedia chiropractica for the chiropractic profession.
So, how to fight back? In the end, truth must prevail. First, we have to educate not only the public, but also ourselves regarding the state of scientific research out there. An encyclopedia chiropractica can provide articles we can all understand that interpret the scientific language many outside of our profession find difficult to comprehend.
Second, we need to develop a consensus on the value of that research. And third, we need to get our community consensus to fly higher in search-engine optimization than the self-appointed watchers of supposed "quackery" run by disgruntled, unqualified "experts" with nothing to do but slander us.
To this end, Dr. Stephen Press, together with his son, Robert Press, MS, DC, founded the WikiChiro Foundation. Dr. Stephen Press is well-known in the profession for helping bring chiropractic into the Olympic movement; founding the International Federation of Sports Chiropractic (FICS), the IAOCO and other agencies; serving as chief physician to the USSR at the Winter Olympics in 1992; and being a member of the medical commissions of various international sports federations.
WikiChiro: The Basics
WikiChiro.org is a voluntary, nonprofit corporation [501 C (iii) pending], and no funds go to anyone individually. They all go to improving our profession's image online and expanding the encyclopedia. Dr. Press has brought together a stellar board and fantastic scientific advisory panel consisting of many of the premier names in chiropractic science from around the world. Drs. Reed Phillips and Stephen Perle are board members, along with Profs. Kim Ross (CMCC) and Ezra Cohen (NUHS); Todd Reiter, DC, MD; and Anne Jensen, a PhD candidate at Oxford University, who is board secretary.
The scientific advisory board currently consists of Drs. Medhat Alattar (Palmer Florida), Lisa Bloom (NYCC), Christine Goertz (Palmer), Heidi Haavik-Taylor (NZCC), Cheryl Hawk (Logan), Deborah Kopansky-Giles (CMCC), Dana Lawrence (Palmer), Tony Rosner (ICAK), John Stump (ICA SC – past president.), Peter Tuchin (Macquary – Australia.), and Howard Vernon (CMCC).
All chiropractic colleges are invited to participate in WikiChiro, as are chiropractic researchers who would like to be members of the scientific advisory panel.
What Is a Wiki?
A Wiki is both an encyclopedia and a community forum. Anyone can edit it. All doctors of chiropractic and all chiropractic students are invited to participate. Just log in and create an account. You cannot hurt the site. If you make a mistake, it can be reverted.
If you are complaining about something on the site, then you don't get the idea! Don't complain; contribute; argue your position. We welcome your comments on the talk (discussion) page. Just sign your comments with four tildes like this: ~~~~. That will place a signature and date stamp your remark. If you have some reference to back up a statement, then go into the document and update the article. WikiChiro is not intended to be a place for dogma; it is a place for consensus.
Will We Remove Criticism?
No. Only unscientific, baseless criticism will be removed from the site. WikiChiro welcomes criticism of chiropractic if it is evidence-based and legitimate as determined by our panel of advisors. We want you to know that when you link to our articles, they have been vetted by our panel of experts.
Why Support WikiChiro?
The number-one reason to support WikiChiro is simple: because if we work together to bring the articles on WikiChiro up to the state of the art as far as our scientific knowledge of our profession is concerned, then we will become the state of the art for the world to see when they "Google" our field.
How Will We Get Higher Search-Engine Placement?
All of our profession's societies and institutions should link to WikiChiro.org as a resource for doctors of chiropractic. All DCs with articles on various aspects of chiropractic on their practice Web sites should link to the state-of-the- science articles on WikiChiro. The key is incoming links to WikiChiro, which will raise our position so that we as a profession can compete with the self-appointed guardians against quackery who have been discredited over and over, but whose opinions are still lionized on other sites and often end up in higher search-result positions.
For additional information, to become a language administrator (We are in dire need of bilingual chiropractors who can help with our French, Italian, Japanese, Russian, German and Spanish Wikis. You can become the site administrator for your language), if you're a researcher from a school not already represented, or just to participate in a good discussion, go to www.wikichiro.org and log in. You can e-mail Dr. Stephen Press at
with any questions.
Article exclusive to DC courtesy of the WikiChiro Foundation.