Integrative Medicine Practitioners Are Targeted More Often Than Their Colleagues

Advocacy group publishes A Practitioner's Guide to Protecting Your License and Your Practice from Medical Board and Government Action.

(PRWEB) April 25, 2008 -- According to the American Association for Health Freedom (AAHF), integrative medicine practitioners' licenses are typically more vulnerable than their colleagues for two main reasons: their modality of practice and procedures methods are often viewed as not being science based, and they often are solo practitioners that have fewer resources to counteract aggressive state medical boards and their investigators.

Through phone calls and requests for help that AAHF receives each year, they believe that a majority of investigations of integrative medicine practitioners occur not because of patient harm or patient complaint but because a disgruntled employee, competitor, insurance company, or someone who doesn't believe in integrative medicine complained to the state medical board.

"We receive numerous requests for help each year because state medical boards are over-zealously pursuing integrative medical doctors," Brenna Hill, the AAHF Executive Director said. "Unfortunately by the time they call us they've already signed their rights away. At that point there's not much we can do to help." Often these charges may make the practitioner a felon.

Inspired by their numerous members who have gone through exhausting state medical board investigations and legal battles to retain their licenses, AAHF has published A Practitioner's Guide to Protecting Your License and Your Practice from Medical Board and Government Action. The well-respected law firm, Augustine, Kern and Levens, Ltd, wrote the Practitioner's Guide. AAHF hopes that this guide will help practitioners think ahead and create a plan.

"It is always a good policy to plan ahead," Hill said, "The decisions you make at the beginning of a state medical board investigation could mean the difference between saving or losing your license and your freedom to practice the type of medicine you believe is most beneficial to your patients."

Although the Practitioner's Guide does not provide legal advice and is not tailored to any specific situation, it will provide physicians with general guidelines and information in dealing with medical boards. The guide includes best practices to help a practitioner institute an office policy and plan if there's a knock on the door and how to respond to investigators as well as what to do if presented with a subpoena and how to handle a settlement offer. AAHF is providing the guide free to their Professional members.

AAHF is a non-profit association based in the Washington DC area that promotes health freedom legislation in all 50 states and in Congress. As the politically active voice at the federal and state level for integrative medicine, AAHF is involved in crafting, monitoring, and supporting legislation that allows the right of the consumer to choose and the practitioner to practice. For more information, please visit www.healthfreedom.net.

Latest Attack on Dietary Supplements

By now, you have probably read the headlines such as “Vitamins May Shorten Users' Lives,” “Vitamins may increase risk of death," or “Vitamins A, C and E are 'a waste of time and may even shorten your life.”

These biased articles are based on the latest Cochrane review which more or less copies the JAMA paper from February 2007.

Unfortunately, bad science and misleading media stories are confusing consumers. As dietary supplements become more popular and threaten the bottom line of traditional medicine and Big Pharma, we see more and more studies and articles that try to convince the public that dietary supplements are useless, unregulated, or even deadly.

Often these studies are superficial and if you scratch the surface you can see the bad science and inaccurate reporting. AAHF’s international affiliate, Alliance for Natural Health details some of the reasons why this latest round of headlines are based on bad science.

The article highlights are below describing why it's bad science:

1. This isn’t new.

2. This isn’t research.

3. This isn’t meaningful.

4. This applies only to synthetic forms of vitamins (as produced by the pharmaceutical industry).

5. Natural vitamins and minerals are lifesavers.

6. Over the top on synthetics!

7. Two bites at the cherry.

To read the full article, click here. Don’t forget to join the American Association for Health Freedom to support our lobbying efforts at the federal and state level or make a tax-deductible donation to the Health Freedom Foundation to help support education and international efforts.

FDA Doesn't Want Your Voice Heard

We’ve heard from several sources that the FDA is whispering into Congressional ears to ignore letters from their constituents about bio-identical hormones. The FDA is spreading the rumor that the health freedom community is “unfairly” upset about their recent ban on estriol and bio-identical hormones. Furthermore, the FDA continues to insist that they are not “restricting” estriol and that physicians wishing to treat their patients with drugs containing estriol may submit an investigational new drug application.

On January 9, 2008, the FDA essentially BANNED estriol (which is used in 80% of bio-identical hormones). They stated that estriol is an unapproved drug and unless they have a valid investigational new drug application, pharmacy operators may not compound drugs containing estriol. The same day at a press conference, the FDA admitted that they knew of no serious adverse events reported in conjuncture with estriol (even though doctors and hospitals are required to report ALL adverse events.

On Thursday (April 3), we’re meeting with members of Congress to discuss this issue and others related to health freedom. We’ll be sure to tell you how the meetings went!

If you’re a practitioner, a patient, or someone who wants the FDA to stop practicing medicine, please continue to read.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Read the timeline and Draw Your Own Conclusion – is the FDA doing Wyeth’s bidding?

Contact Congress and the President of the US and let them know that you want the FDA to stop attacking bio-identical hormones.

Personalize your letter. Tell your story, edit to reflect your points of interest (this is VERY important, please take the extra time!)

Spread the word! We need the loudest voice possible – let your friends and family know of this threat, send an email. Tell people to visit www.healthfreedom.net. Download, print, and distribute our flyer ( click here) and if you don’t have a printer, let us know how many you need.

Join AAHF so we can continue to make a difference on this and other important issues.

Make a tax-deductible donation to the Health Freedom Foundation so we can continue educational efforts and pursue opportunities to block the FDA’s assault on bio-identical hormones.

Brenna Hill
Executive Director
American Association for Health Freedom/Health Freedom Foundation
4620 Lee Highway, Suite 210
Arlington, VA 22207
1.800.230.2762
www.healthfreedom.net