by Kelly Stephens
| Baumgardner, Bloom Join CP Editorial Advisory Board | | Chiropractic Products welcomes Kathleen D. Baumgardner, DC, and Lisa K. Bloom, DC, DACS, DIBCN, to its Editorial Advisory Board (EAB).  Kathleen D. Baumgardner, DC
Graduating in 1986 from Logan College of Chiropractic in Chesterfield, Mo, Baumgardner maintains Health Goals Chiropractic Center, a 24-year-old practice in Marlton, NJ. She hopes to expand her practice over the next 3 years to include more nutrition services, personal training, fitness training, and possibly homeopathy. As a specialist in pediatric and athletic patients, Baumgardner holds Kids’ Day International annually to promote children’s health, safety, and environmental awareness, and she is a certified personal trainer, diplomate of the American Chiropractic Board of Sports Physicians, and member of the American Chiropractic Association Sports Council (ACASC). Additionally, she serves as medical director for the Garden State Games. In May, the ACASC honored her as the 2002 Sports Chiropractor of the Year. “I have enjoyed the magazine since its inception. I am honored to be part of a dedicated group of people who are committed to furthering the chiropractic profession by disseminating timely, pertinent, and extremely useful information to doctors,” Baumgardner says. “I hope that my background and experience will be beneficial and that I will be helpful in assisting CP to continue its high level of achievement toward its goals and mission.”  Lisa K. Bloom, DC
After earning a bachelor of music from Ithaca College in New York and spending 3 years as a professional musician, Bloom decided her true calling was chiropractic. In 1990, she graduated from New York Chiropractic College in Seneca Falls, NY, and started private practices in Tenafly, NJ, Manhattan, NY, and Brooklyn, NY. Holding two diplomates—one in applied chiropractic sciences, the other in neurology—Bloom currently runs a pro-bono, consultative-only practice in Seneca Falls that is dedicated to neurological consultation. She also serves as an associate professor in the Department of Diagnosis and Clinical Sciences at her alma mater, which has conferred honors on her that include the Faculty Excellence Award in 2000. “As an EAB member, I hope to contribute to and maintain the high standards of CP magazine,” Bloom says. As board members, they will contribute articles, technical expertise and advice, and editorial direction to the magazine. CP |
Top WSCC Administrator To Step Down William H. Dallas, DC, president of Western States Chiropractic College (WSCC), Portland, Ore, informed the Board of Trustees that he has elected not to renew his contract as leader of the institution at the end of the college’s fiscal year, June 30, 2003. Under Dallas, WSCC became the first chiropractic college to receive a federally funded research grant through the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), a division of the US Department of Health & Human Services. He also spearheaded the establishment and publication of Conservative Care Pathways and Protocols by the College for Chiropractic Procedures. One of his most recent contributions to the college was the construction of Hampton Hall—a state-of-the-art lecture facility. He has also placed a strong focus on the value of an evidence-based, scientific chiropractic curriculum. The integration of health care “for the good of the patient”—Dallas’ own professional philosophy—has become the college’s tag line. During Dallas’ tenure as President, he also served as president (2001–2003) and secretary-treasurer (1999–2001) of the Association of Chiropractic Colleges (ACC); president (1996–1998), vice president (1994–1995), and secretary-treasurer (1992–1993) of the Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE); and held numerous offices with the American Chiropractic Association (ACA). At press time, Dallas had not responded to requests for comments. The WSCC Board of Trustees will begin a search for his replacement in the near future. CP
College Seeks Study Participants Western States Chiropractic College (WSCC) Research Department, Portland, Ore, is seeking participants for ongoing studies on the treatment of low back pain and chronic headaches and neck pain. The college acquired national research funding through Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), a division of the US Department of Health & Human Services. For information about participating in either of the studies, contact WSCC at 800-678-9072. CP
Sting Operation Leads to Arrests A major Federal Bureau of Investigation-led operation to root out health care fraud in California has led to the arrest of nearly 400 people, the Los Angeles Times reports. Among those arrested in the 2-year probe were a handful of chiropractors busted in a San Diego sting operation involving staged car accidents. The feds also were successful in setting up a fake wellness clinic, with state and federal agents posing as doctors and patients, to catch numerous instances of illegal kickback and false billing schemes, the paper says. The FBI received help from the state’s US attorney’s offices, the Internal Revenue Service, and other agencies. CP
ACA Urges Chiropractic to Pursue Medicare Reform A rash of Medicare reform legislation is expected to appear in the next few months, and the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) says it is a good time for the profession to jump on the bandwagon. Congressional leadership has instructed committees with jurisdiction over Medicare to produce a reform package, and this represents an opportunity for chiropractors, the ACA says in a notice on its website, www.aca.org. The last time chiropractors benefited from such an opportunity was in 1997, when the group successfully lobbied to remove a requirement that x-rays be performed on beneficiaries before DCs could perform manual manipulation of the spine. One stand-alone legislative proposal, HR 902, would increase the number of reimbursable services DCs can provide under Medicare. The ACA wants to see this measure incorporated into larger Medicare reform packages this year. The association warns, however, that other special interest groups may compete with—or even lobby against—the interests of chiropractors. CP
State Cuts Threaten Chiropractic Services Across the country, states are turning to Medicaid coffers to boost sagging budgets, and chiropractic services are among the cuts being considered. In South Carolina, a Department of Health and Human Services letter recently warned the state’s providers of impending cuts to services for Medicaid patients. As of May 1, the budget seeks to eliminate or reduce chiropractic services for adults, reported the Columbia, SC-based newspaper, the State, April 3. In Mississippi, a controversial budget proposal would slash Medicaid payments for a variety of services. The elimination of adult chiropractic services would save the state $300,000, The Associated Press reports. Mississippi’s governor has threatened to veto the budget’s Medicaid-cutting provisions. CP
| Findings Support Fibromyalgia Claims | | A new brain-scan study confirms scientifically what fibromyalgia patients have been telling a skeptical medical community for years: They’re really in pain. The study found that people with fibromyalgia say they feel severe pain and, indeed, have measurable pain signals in their brains from a gentle finger squeeze that barely feels unpleasant to people without the disease. The squeeze’s force must be doubled to cause healthy people to feel the same level of pain—and their pain signals show up in different brain areas, according to the study. Lead authors Richard Gracely, PhD, and Daniel Clauw, MD, conducted the study at Georgetown University Medical Center and the National Institutes of Health. They are now continuing the work at the University of Michigan Health System (UMHS). The results, published in Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), may offer the proof of fibromyalgia’s physical roots that many doubtful physicians have sought. It may also open doors for further research on the still-unknown causes of the disease, which affects more than 2% of Americans, mainly women. In the study, 16 fibromyalgia patients and 16 healthy control subjects had their brains scanned for more than 10 minutes while a small, piston-controlled device applied precisely calibrated, rapidly pulsing pressure to the base of their left thumbnail. The pressures were varied over time, using painful and nonpainful levels that had been set for each patient prior to the scan. To correlate subjective pain sensation with objective views of brain signals, the researchers used a superfast form of MRI brain imaging called functional MRI or fMRI, on participants. As a result, they say, the study offers the first objective method for corroborating what fibromyalgia patients report they feel and what is going on in their brains at the precise moment they feel it. And it gives researchers a roadmap of the areas of the brain that are most—and least—active when patients feel pain. “The fMRI technology gave us a unique opportunity to look at the neurobiology underlying tenderness, which is a hallmark of fibromyalgia,” Clauw said. “These results, combined with other work done by our group and others, have convinced us that some pathologic process is making these patients more sensitive. For some reason, still unknown, there’s a neurobiological amplification of their pain signals.” The researchers found that it only took mild pressure to produce self-reported feelings of pain in the fibromyalgia patients, while the control subjects tolerated the same pressure with little pain. “In the patients, that same mild pressure also produced measurable brain responses in areas that process the sensation of pain,” Clauw says. “But the same kind of brain responses weren’t seen in control subjects until the pressure on their thumb was more than doubled.” Though brain activity increased in many of the same areas in both patients and control subjects, there were striking differences too. Patients feeling pain from mild pressure had increased activity in 12 areas of their brains, while the control subjects feeling the same pressure had activation in only two areas. When the pressure on the control subjects’ thumbs was increased, so did their pain rating and the number of brain areas activated. But only eight of the areas were the same as those in patients’ brains. In all, the fibromyalgia patients’ brains had both some areas that were activated in them, but not in controls, and some areas that stayed “quiet” in them, but became active in the brains on controls feeling the same level of pain. This response suggests that patients have enhanced response to pain in some brain regions, and a diminished response in others, Clauw said. Further results from the study were presented at the 2001 ACR annual meeting November 11 to 15 in San Francisco. The project will continue later this year at UMHS, joining other fMRI fibromyalgia research now under way. CP |
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