John Wiens DC

The Chiropractic Education Foundation

By John Wiens DC|May 6, 2011|Education|

by Kent Greenawalt

The future is a topic that is top of mind to everyone. When the future comes up in conversations, words that are generally associated with it are technology, improvement and growth.

But as we look into the future of chiropractic, one of those important words is missing: growth. Among chiropractic colleges, the enrollment trend has declined or flat lined over the past 10 years. The economy has been difficult, but we cannot place the blame there. A successful profession cannot last long when its college enrollment isn’t strong. As a chiropractic community, we need to make an impact to grow the profession and invest in our future – the students.

I strongly believe there is a need for action to be taken to assist in enrollment efforts. Obviously what is being done now needs to be tweaked or even fundamentally changed. To fill this need, I felt it was essential to create a nonprofit organization, the Chiropractic Education Foundation. The foundation was founded in order to develop chiropractic education and support the Association of Chiropractic Colleges (ACC) as it decides what actions need to be taken. (more…)

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Danish vaccine scientist indicted in US

By John Wiens DC|April 20, 2011|Vaccination|

Autism researcher accused of embezzling $1 million
Source Copenhagen Post

American prosecutors are seeking to extradite a Danish scientist who a federal grand jury in Atlanta has charged with 13 counts of wire fraud and nine counts of money laundering. They allege that Poul Thorsen, 49, stole over $1 million from autism research funding between February 2004 and June 2008, and used the proceeds to buy a home in Atlanta, two cars and a Harley Davidson.

Thorsen helped two Danish government agencies obtain research grants, which amounted to $11 million between 2000 and 2009, whilst he was working as a visiting scientist at the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the 1990s. He returned to Denmark as the ‘principal investigator’ for the programme, which studied the relationship between autism and exposure to vaccines, allegedly putting him in charge of the administration of the funding.

(more…)

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Don’t sit up straight

By John Wiens DC|April 5, 2011|News, Uncategorized|

Source MSNBC

The longstanding advice to “sit up straight” has been turned on its head by a new study that suggests leaning back is a much better posture.

Researchers analyzed different postures and concluded that the strain of sitting upright for long hours is a perpetrator of chronic back problems.

Using a new form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), researchers studied 22 volunteers with no back pain history. The subjects assumed three different positions: slouching; sitting up straight at 90 degrees; and sitting back with a 135-degree posture—all while their spines were scanned. (more…)

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Smokers and the obese cheaper to care for, study shows

By John Wiens DC|April 5, 2011|Health Care|

Source New York Times

Preventing obesity and smoking can save lives, but it does not save money, according to a new report.

It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that preventing obesity would save governments millions of dollars.

“It was a small surprise,” said Pieter van Baal, an economist at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands, who led the study. “But it also makes sense. If you live longer, then you cost the health system more.”

In a paper published online Monday in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal, Dutch researchers found that the health costs of thin and healthy people in adulthood are more expensive than those of either fat people or smokers. (more…)

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Community cuts heart attacks by 24 percent with preventive health

By John Wiens DC|April 3, 2011|Prevention|

Source Scientific American

The town of New Ulm, Minn., some 90 miles outside of Minneapolis, is small. With a population of about 15,000, the self-proclaimed polka capital of the U.S. might not seem like the most obvious locale to roll out an aggressive, unconventional attack on heart disease.

But for the past couple years, a local health system has been doing just that, using an array of preventive health tactics that include everything from state-of-the-art electronic health records to free water aerobics classes.

Early results suggest that the preventive health program has been working. In the some 10,000 adults in the target zip code (56073), the rate of acute heart attacks fell by 24 percent in 15 months, according to research presented this week at the American College of Cardiology meeting in New Orleans. Fewer than 50 people in the area suffered a heart attack in 2008—before the reduction efforts kicked in—so the stats are slight, but the approach could have implications for larger population bases.

The program “encourages a large population to embrace healthy lifestyle changes, such as smoking cessation and improved nutrition that could improve long-term health,” Jackie Boucher, of the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation, said in a prepared statement. Area residents can join an organized walking group, take a cooking class or participate in workplace health screening. (more…)

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Should last remaining known smallpox virus die?

By John Wiens DC|March 8, 2011|Virus|

Source Washington Post

More than three decades after smallpox was eradicated, an international struggle has reemerged with new intensity about whether to destroy the only known specimens of the virus that causes one of the worst scourges to plague humanity.

Some public health authorities, infectious disease specialists and national security experts maintain that the time has come to finally autoclave hundreds of vials of the pathogen held in two high-security government labs in the United States and Russia.

“We feel the world would be safer without having these stocks in existence. Why risk it escaping and resurging again?” said Lin Li Ching, a researcher at the Third World Network, an international research and advocacy group based in Malaysia.

But the U.S. and Russian governments, which have repeatedly delayed incinerating the samples, are fighting for another stay of execution. Scientists need the living virus, they say, to make a better vaccine and finish developing the first treatments just in case the deadly microbe is somehow unleashed again – by accident, by a bioterrorist or by re-creating it from the computerized records of its DNA sequences.

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About John Wiens DC

The Chiropractic Education Foundation

Danish vaccine scientist indicted in US

Don’t sit up straight

Smokers and the obese cheaper to care for, study shows

Community cuts heart attacks by 24 percent with preventive health

Should last remaining known smallpox virus die?