Excerpt
Ten years ago in The Journal, we commented that the concept of chronic whiplash as an injury was “an example of illness actually induced by society, in general, and by physicians in particular”1. Subsequent data have shown whiplash is an “injury” like no other, very much not in keeping with the effects of a localized disorder2. Second, the outcome of the acute injury depends on where you live. That is, the acute whiplash injury, thought to be not objectively demonstrable, appears to produce symptoms wherever there are cars and collisions, but chronic pain is attributed to that collision event in...
