One of Iowa City’s own speaks about family. If we can raise our sons to be this articulate and impassioned, we will have done our job right.
The small business that Zach refers to in his speech is Iowa City Learns, an acclaimed peer tutoring service that he owns and operates that is dedicated to elevating academic achievement in Iowa City. The website for Iowa City Learns also indicates that there are scholarships available for students who can demonstrate need.
Zach’s mother Dr. Terry Wahls has a remarkable history of her own. From her website biography:
I was diagnosed with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (MS) in 2000. My decline was swift and complete. In 2003, my disease was reclassified as secondary progressive multiple sclerosis as I had become wheelchair dependent. An academic internal medicine physician at the University of Iowa, I began studying the medical literature, night after night. At the end of 2007, based upon my own theories about what drove MS disability, I designed a new intervention which I tested upon myself. Six months later, in May 2008, I found myself trying something I hadn’t attempted in a decade: riding my bike.
It has been a truly miraculous turnaround of my life, for which I am grateful. I now use intensive nutrition to treat patients in my primary care and traumatic brain injury clinics with more favorable results than I had when I relied on drugs alone. Each week I spend part of my time teaching my colleagues and the public how to use intensive nutrition to improve health and vitality.
Dr. Wahls’ research and commitment to educating others about food as medicine has helped many people with multiple sclerosis as well as other inflammatory autoimmune diseases, not to mention a lot of other people who seek to improve their general health.
Iowa City is really lucky to have the Wahls family. I hope that they realize that there are many here in Iowa who agree that family is defined by love. Legislation will catch up if we continue dedicate ourselves to advocating for equality for all people.
Tara McGovern 
I so wanted to attend one of Dr. Wahls seminars (hosted by New Pi) when I was there . The use of intensive nutrition for healing is of great interest to many people who are looking for alternatives to western medicine (or even as an option to be used in conjuction with it). Along the same lines I found read this the other day~
http://nourishedkitchen.com/nutrition-mental-illness-chronic-pain/
Thank you for that link! I think this is a often overlooked aspect of health care. I’m happy to see that it’s being taken more seriously and that Dr. Wahls is doing scientific research that will be acknowledged properly by the medical community.