How APMA's (Alternative Medical Practices Acts) have been helpful in allowing physicians to use natural and alternative therapies without fear of interference.

There is a brilliant new no cost simple solution to America's ailing and failing health care system. It is known as the Alternative Medical Practices Act. It has been introduced in state legislatures across the country. There are two already on the books, one was signed into law in Alaska in June of 1990 and the state of Washington instituted theirs in March of 1991.

Today, similar bills are on the docket in Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Maine, South Dakota, Texas, California, and Florida. These pieces of legislation have no fiscal cost to their states, however they could save billions of dollars and restore the freedom of choice to health care for millions of Americans who are disenfranchised by our present system because of cost or philosophical disposition.

The health care laws that have been passed in Alaska and Washington stand out as being short on text and long on benefit for what they can do for the denizens of their particular states.

Good things come in small packages however, the one in Washington states simply "The use of nontraditional treatment by itself shall not constitute unprofessional conduct, provided that it does not result in injury to a patient or create an unreasonable risk that a patient may be harmed."

This short paragraph is placed, although the section and chapter vary from state to state, under the grounds for discipline, penalties, and enforcements for medical practitioners in the state's by-laws.

By simply adding a new subsection to read as follows: "The board shall not revoke, suspend, or deny the renewal of a license or reprimand, censure or otherwise discipline a licensee based on the practice of a licensee using nontraditional treatment where there has not been a finding of demonstrable harm to a patient." This will free-up practitioners to recommend or offer all forms of natural healing modalities to their patients.

The importance of this bill is not to be underestimated. According to syndicated columnist Jack Anderson, 1,500 doctors across the country are being persecuted by state medical boards.

These state medical boards are being criticized by the federal government for inconsistency in judging whether a doctor is right or wrong in prescribing a course of treatment. These punitive actions have done much to hamper progress and innovation in an industry where costs are rising out of control and benefits are declining.

Anderson states "These are not quacks, but medical doctors with all the right diplomas and credentials, but they treat patients with vitamins and enzymes. They shy away from too many X-rays and too many drugs.

Their more traditional peers worry that the patients of wholistic doctors aren't getting the best care, and some wholistic doctors think traditional doctors are conspiring to silence them because wholistic medicine threatens the multibillion dollar surgery and drug business in this country."

Malpractice laws are meant to protect consumers from wrongful doing and not to be convoluted by one school of thought (allopathy) attempting to exert hegemony against a collection of others. It is a travesty when good government is perverted by special interests into being used as a cudgel to thwart the progress of up and coming innovative competitors. Particularly when solutions are badly needed.

It is fear that keeps doctors limited in what they can recommend to their patients, fear of disciplinary actions, even though they may feel that an alternative approach may be the best course of treatment for their patient. In this fashion our regulatory bodies have been put to a perverse use by special interests.

This has lead to a sick, ailing and miserably failing health care system in this country. According to a World Health Organization report, the U.S. in 1991 spent 836 billion dollars, up from 700 billion dollars in 1990 for health care.

With all the spending, the World Health Organization reports that the U.S. ranked 16th in longevity, 17th in overall health, 32nd in birth defects, and 23rd in 1st year birth survival rate. At the same time, America's largest 500 companies reported that medical insurance premiums added up to more than 50% of their bottom line, profits.

This means that dollars that would otherwise be invested in research and development, and plant and equipment to insure American competitiveness and provide quality of life, are being used to prop up a discriminatory system that has become a victim of it's own success. Fifty individual Alternative Medical Practices Acts will be our Free Trade Agreement within our medical industry.

Time is of the essence as we are mortgaging our future on a system that isn't working.

The dissatisfaction with "orthodox" medicine is evidenced by the many health care providers that are responding to this crisis with an orientation toward prevention and maintaining wellness. Doctors are prescribing regimens that treat the whole person by integrating the mind, body and emotion/spirit.

This trend has reached epic proportions, according to the New England Journal of Medicine, 1 in 3 Americans opted for some type of alternative therapy in 1991. Sadly, the demographics of the individuals that have sought out alternative health care indicate that they are affluent and well educated. This means that well-to-do Americans have access to low cost health care and the less advantaged don't - terrific.

There are also millions of Americans who are alienated from our present system because of religious belief, philosophical disposition or are simply inclined to march to the beat of a different more natural drummer.

To keep this alternative health care trend in check the vested interests malign alternative therapies as unproven, unorthodox and quackery in addition to using disciplinary bodies to punish providers for their failure to restrict their practices to conventional treatments.

These alternative therapies include Herbology, Homeopathy Ayurvedic, Acupuncture, nutrition, oxidative modalities, physiotherapy and massage therapy. Physicians careers have been destroyed because of their belief in the practice of alternative and wholistic treatments to support the body in creating wellness. When a fellow American is punished for innovating in response to a dilemma it's time for action.

The citizens of Alaska and Washington recognizing the seriousness of the situation took the lead in instituting bills which resulted in the passage of the Alternative Medical Practices Acts legislation, so that no longer can the state regulatory bodies be used to punish doctors, innovative doctors who are seeking solutions to today's problems.

Citizens for Alternative Health Care has objectives that go beyond the passage of individual state Acts. One particularly important objective is the assistance they are giving to physicians in their respective specialties to form boards and getting those new and existing boards recognized by the American Board of Medical Standards - or preferably a less prejudicial standards board.

This will enable physicians in their respective specialties to establish consistent protocols where they don't exist and create a forum for determining what is appropriate conduct within a particular specialty. These standards can then be used by the insurance companies to cover and reimburse insureds for their alternative health care costs.

This type of self regulation is how most industries in this country are governed. It is more conducive to a free market and limits the size of government.
Fifty individual Alternative Medical Practices Acts will pave the way toward that welcome day by creating an open environment where therapies that have shown particular promise can develop and evolve in an orderly and professional manner.

Frequently the detractors of alternative health care state that these therapies are unproven, unheard of, quackery and could be DANGEROUS. First off, nothing could be further from the truth, however the main point is that we have a catch 22.
If a doctor can not utilize a modality that has a demonstrable history of effectiveness and safety for fear of being shut down, how is that therapy ever going to generate any successes or failures in order to determine whether it is effective or not. If a doctor is properly licensed, accredited and insured, his patient is well informed of the available treatments and together they elect a course of action - what province does the government have to interfere?

These pieces of legislation have no fiscal cost to the individual states but will save billions of dollars and restore freedom of choice to the people who are predisposed to natural and traditional healing modalities, provide an avenue for health care for those who cannot afford today's costs and restore dynamism to an industry that has become encumbered by it's own juggernaut.

This push for 50 Alternative Medical Practices Acts is being orchestrated by the Citizens for Alternative Health Care and Citizens For Health. Their goals are to free all physicians to administer the modality they feel will best activate the healing process in their patients.

To free all persons to seek out and be attended to by the physician of their choice, giving all persons the right to all healing modalities. To educate all physicians and people as to what processes and modalities are available, so that in knowing, one can make intelligent choices. To move ahead unrestricted into the 21st century applying what works best in the process.

These goals can best be achieved by assuring informed consent in choice of mode of therapy, assuring availability of information about available therapies, assuring availability of practitioners in different modes of therapy, assuring consumer contract rights with third party carriers, which means getting alternative therapies coverage by insurance companies, and assuring providers the right to be reviewed and disciplined by governing and licensing authorities of their peers.

Allopathy and Wholism are separate but parallel industries, and to date the natural doctors are being judged by allopathic standards. Frequently state agencies site that a practice is not recognized by the American Board of Medical Standards when taking action against a physician.

The ABMS recognizes only a fraction of the existing accreditation boards and none of those come under the heading of alternative therapies.

The government does not attempt to determine what is a standard within an industry, so it falls to agencies such as the ABMS to determine what is appropriate conduct by a physician. Since the ABMS does not recognize any of the alternative therapy boards, these doctors are not being judged by their peers, they are being judged by their opponents. In other words the fox is guarding the henhouse and justice is not being well served.

The Alternative Medical Practices Acts will do much to level the playing field. By clearing the way for diversity, the market dynamic will come in to play and costs will come down, the public will be better served and put to rights a system that has perpetrated many acts of unjust discrimination.

Part of this project should to be to provide for an administrative standards board for alternative therapies so that wholistic practitioners can be judged by their peers. Alternative health care physicians and their patients use natural therapies in an attempt to support the whole bodily system (probiotic) rather than suppressing the system and attacking an invading "germ" (antibiotic).

Since the fundamental precept of these two schools of thought are opposite, a "separate but equal" mentality should be applied in setting up the standards boards.

What is happening within our medical system is that there are many vested interest groups such as the AMA, the drug companies, hospitals and insurance companies, which have extreme wealth and political power.

Physicians and even parents have been brought before courts and other medical and legal agencies which exercise inquisition like tactics to extract compliance, abrogate rights and squelch dissention. The entire legacy of our great nation has been to create diversity, protect smaller groups from being persecuted by larger more affluent groups and to break up centers of undue influence when they inhibit democratic principles.

This movement embodies the truest spirit of that tradition.

The first step has been taken in leveling the playing field in Alaska and Washington where alternative health care laws were put into place by the efforts of motivated citizens and physicians.

Two tandem groups, the Citizens for Alternative Health Care for lay persons and the Professional League for Alternative Health comprised of doctors, were responsible for getting the ball rolling on this landmark movement. By coordinating a publicity campaign, getting the bills sponsored, raising awareness, letter writing, radio interviews and publishing articles they got these measures passed.

Hopefully the individuals who are spearheading the campaigns in the other states where it's on the docket will get similar support from the people in their states. We wish them all the best in getting organized, raising funds, finding sponsors for their bills in their respective houses and senates, notifying the legislators of the importance of this bill, and getting it successfully voted on, passed and implemented.

For those of you who are not in states where the Alternative Health Care Law is on the docket or been approved, the first thing you need to do is organize a state chapter of Citizens for Alternative Health Care and find a sponsor in the house and senate of your state legislature.

Once the bill has been introduced you can follow suit as to what has worked in other states. For Instance in Florida the Citizens for Alternative Health Care (P.O.B. 651285 Miami, Fl. 33265; 305-567-3958) has found sponsors for their bill in the state legislature.

Both the sponsors, state senator Bill Turner and representative Eladio Armesto-Garcia feel that The Freedom of Choice in Health Care Bill for Florida is good public policy. They are encouraging Floridians to call their county board of elections to get the address of their Tallahassee house and senate representative in order to shoot them a quick note as a constituent urging support for the bill. They'll listen. They should also contact CAHC of Florida and pitch in.

For those of you in other states contact Citizens for Alternative Health Care of Washington, Charles Moore President. They are coordinating the individual state efforts. They can be reached at (206) 526-8091; P.O.B. 8518 Kirkland,Wa 98034 fax: 206 937-4430.

At the national level Citizens For Health, Alex Schauss Ph.d. Executive Director, P.O.B. 368 Tacoma, Wa. 98401; phone: 206 922-2457 fax: 206 922-7583 is keeping things organized and spearheading the initiatives.

The American Preventive Medical Association (APMA) , Dr. Julian Whitaker director, P.O.B. 2111 Tacoma, Wa 98401; 206 926-0551 is the physicians organization that is coordinating activities for professionals.