Latest news. Includes correspondence with the UK General Chiropractic Council (GCC) regarding the risks of chiropractic and the validity of a number of chiropractic practices. The GCC appears to avoid directly answering many of the questions put to it, most notably on the issue of the safety of neck manipulation where the risk/benefit ratio for the procedure is in question due to the availability of safer options. [NOTE: In its August 2005 reply, the GCC stated that it understood that the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) was in the process of establishing a national database to which UK chiropractic patients could report complications following their treatment. However, in a letter to Nature on 22nd September 2005 (in response to an article which questioned what complementary and alternative medicine [CAM] organisations were doing to monitor adverse reactions) Barry Lewis of the BCA stated that the association had, in conjunction with the Anglo-European Chiropractic College, "set up a chiropractic reporting and learning system; more than 1,200 practitioners who are members of the BCA have recently received an information pack to enable them to participate in the scheme. Resulting data will be analysed at the Anglo-European Chiropractic College and outcomes will be relayed to the profession, through our newsletter, journal and website, so practitioners may learn from the experience of others. The intention is that the scheme will, if successful, be offered to other chiropractic associations within Europe in 2006". No mention was made of a database to which the patients of all (approx 2,300) UK chiropractors could report complications following their treatment.]