Palmer Research Center Awarded Million-Dollar Federal Grants

The Palmer Chiropractic University System, which recently announced progress in its plans to establish a chiropractic college in Port Orange, Fla., has just received another in a series of major federal grants for chiropractic research.

The Palmer Chiropractic University Foundation was most recently awarded a facilities construction grant for $1.3 million from the National Center for Research Resources, a division of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). Just over $1.3 million will be matched by the Palmer Chiropractic University Foundation, for a total of $2.68 million approved for renovation and expansion of the existing Palmer Center for Chiropractic Research facility in Davenport, Iowa.

"This is the first time that the NIH has directly funded a 'bricks and mortar' project for research at a chiropractic institution," said Dr. William Meeker, director of research for the Palmer Center for Chiropractic Research (PCCR), and principal investigator for the Consortial Center for Chiropractic Research, headquartered at the PCCR.

Not only is the federal government recognizing the Palmer Center by funding major facilities enhancements, but it is also seeking the expertise and ideas of Palmer researchers. Meeker, who serves on the National Advisory Council of the NIH's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, was invited to speak to the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy in Washington, D.C., in October 2000. He was one of only two representatives of the chiropractic profession to be invited to provide testimony.

"The fact that chiropractic institutions were invited to testify in front of this White House commission is of tremendous significance," Meeker said. "It is recognition from the highest level of the U.S. government that chiropractic is a major force in the CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) area, and that research is necessary in order to increase scientific and eventually public understanding of chiropractic."

In his testimony, Meeker focused on two major points. First, the professions that value it the most will accomplish the best CAM research, because it is their professional duty. "It is the obligation of chiropractic, for example, to develop its research capacity and conduct research in its training institutions, just like all the other health professions," Meeker said.

"Second," he added, "the federal government has the duty and obligation as an agent of the public to assist the development of the research capacity of the CAM professions, particularly chiropractic, just as it has for the other health professions."

Taking the opportunity to point out distinctions of great importance to the chiropractic profession, Meeker told the commission that "there is a major distinction to be made between procedures and substances; and professions. For example, chiropractic is a profession; the spinal adjustment is a procedure. Thus, research on a health profession such as chiropractic must be broader and should include at least the disciplines of sociology, economics, health services anthropology, law, education, and others."

In addition, the Palmer Center for Chiropractic Research has been the recipient of several federal grants and is the principal institution through which federal money is funneled for chiropractic research.

The latest federal research grant was awarded to Maruti Ram Gudavalli, Ph.D., from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). On Sept. 27, 2000, Dr. Gudavalli received a three-year award of $1.24 million from HRSA's Chiropractic Demonstration Projects Grant Program for his project "Chiropractic vs. Medical Care for Chronic Neck Pain."

This major project will be undertaken jointly by the Palmer Center for Chiropractic Research, the National University of Health Sciences, Lombard, Ill., Loyola University at Chicago and Hines Veterans Affairs Hospital, Maywood, Ill., and Orthosport Physical Therapy Clinics, Forest Park, Ill. As principal investigator in two additional projects funded by the HRSA Chiropractic Demonstration Projects Grant Program, this is Dr. Gudavalli's third consecutive award under this program.

Gudavalli's award is the most recent in a series of major federal and private grants received by the Palmer Center for Chiropractic Research. In 1997, the NIH designated the Palmer Center as headquarters for the Consortial Center for Chiropractic Research, a group of five chiropractic colleges and two state universities. The CCCR is supported by a $2.5 million grant award from the NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

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