This article is adapted from a longer personal account first published by ANH International.

Listen to the audio version of this article:

THE TOPLINE

• I developed a suspected serious hypersensitivity reaction within days of starting allopurinol ahead of foot surgery.
• My experience raises difficult questions about informed consent, individualized risk, baseline testing, dosing and monitoring.
• We do not need a war between conventional and natural medicine. We need connected healthcare that puts the person before the protocol.

For most of my adult life, I have lived almost entirely outside the pharmaceutical model—not because of ideology, but because of experience.

In my twenties, I was diagnosed with multiple chemical sensitivity following severe reactions to pesticides, solvents and pharmaceutical drugs. A particularly serious reaction to the antimalarial drug Lariam reinforced my caution. For more than 30 years after that, I avoided prescription medicines.

Then, earlier this year, that changed.

A Motorcycle Injury Comes Back to Haunt Me

In 1995, I badly damaged my right foot in a motorcycle accident in Malaysia. Decades later, increasingly painful inflammation was interfering with walking and cycling. Imaging showed a protective mass around the damaged bone, along with what appeared to be urate crystals.

An orthopedic surgeon agreed to remove the mass and remodel the bone, but first recommended six months of allopurinol—a standard uric-acid-lowering drug—even though I had never suffered from gout.

Busy with work and a house move, I deferred to the specialist and obtained the prescription. Six days after starting the drug, while driving, seemingly out of nowhere, extraordinary cramps spread across multiple muscle groups. The pain felt as though acid had been poured into my muscles. I stopped the drug, but the reaction did not stop.

Over the following days came worsening muscle pain, rashes, skin sensitivity, numbness and neuropathic symptoms affecting my arms, hands and one leg. At night, the pain became so intense I couldn’t sleep and the only relief I could get was by getting up and walking.

My research, subsequently supported by a medical center in France, pointed toward a serious hypersensitivity reaction. I discovered that full-blown allopurinol hypersensitivity syndrome is rare—estimated at around one in 1,000 users—but can carry a disturbingly high mortality rate of 20–25 percent.

With guidance from Nasha Winters, ND, a member of ANH-USA’s board, I pursued testing for possible effects on my kidneys, liver, muscles and nerves, while supporting recovery through rest, hydration, nutrition and targeted natural compounds. Thankfully, the symptoms are beginning to ease, with the neuropathic ones—especially numbness in the hands and left thigh—being the slowest to improve.

The Questions Every Patient Deserves to Have Answered

This experience left me asking:

• Why was my history of extreme sensitivity to drugs and chemicals not explored in detail by the orthopaedic surgeon?
• Why did I not feel properly informed about the possibility of a severe reaction?
• Why were these kinds of severe reactions nowhere to be seen on the patient information leaflet accompanying the prescription.
• Why was there so little interest in my wider biochemical, metabolic and nutritional terrain?
• Could baseline testing, lower starting doses, gradual titration or closer monitoring have reduced the risk?

These are not fringe questions. FDA-approved prescribing information warns that allopurinol can cause serious and sometimes fatal reactions. Yet allopurinol is the preferred first-line, standard-of-care medication for managing chronic gout in the United States, as recommended by the Arthritis Foundation. For gout patients, it calls for baseline assessment of uric acid, blood counts, liver chemistry and kidney function, and notes that lower initial doses with gradual titration can reduce serious adverse reactions.

Known Does Not Mean Normal

We have become far too accustomed to the phrase “side effect.” Television drug ads recite terrifying lists so routinely that they fade into background noise.

But a “side effect” can mean pain so severe you cannot sleep. It can mean being unable to walk comfortably or drive safely. It can mean wondering in the middle of the night whether something is going seriously wrong inside your body. A “side effect” may or may not include a hypersensitivity reaction—it depends who you ask.

A reaction does not become normal because it is listed in fine print. “Known” does not mean trivial—and it should never erase the obligation to consider susceptibility, alternatives and individual context.

Better Medicine Uses the Best of Both Worlds

Natural medicine cannot repair the structural damage in my foot. I still need a skilled surgeon. Modern imaging, laboratory medicine, emergency care and surgery are extraordinary achievements.

But imagine a system in which the surgeon was also deeply interested in the patient’s physiological, metabolic and nutritional terrain. Imagine conventional clinicians working routinely with professionals trained in nutritional, functional and natural medicine.

That would not be “alternative” medicine. It would simply be better medicine.

Patients must be partners, not passive recipients. Clinicians must see the individual before the protocol. And when suspected adverse reactions occur, they must enter the safety record. In the United States, patients and healthcare professionals can report them directly through FDA MedWatch. Clinicians are not required to file these reports, so patient reporting matters.

We do not need competing medical tribes. We need connected health systems that combine the safest and most appropriate tools available—from the operating room and diagnostic laboratory to the food we eat, the way we live and the natural world.

That is the future of healthcare I want to see—and the future ANH is working to create.

If you have suffered an adverse reaction to a drug or know someone who has, it is important to report the reaction. Find out how to do it via FDA’s MedWatch portal.

Please share this article widely so more patients recognize that informed consent and adverse event reporting are rights, not optional extras.

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But the battle to protect health speech goes on both in Europe and America.

Throughout the EU, the terms “probiotic,” “prebiotic,” “superfood,” and “antioxidant,” when used in relation to commercial food products or supplements, are now illegal….The European Commission believes that terms like “microorganisms” or “bacteria” is a more accurate way of referring to bacteria associated with the human gut that we have long called probiotics, despite the fact that some bacteria may be harmful or even pathogenic….

The Commission is equally concerned about how terms like “superfood” might mislead consumers and affect their buying practices. Any commercial operator that now uses this long popular term to suggest that pomegranate, goji berries, chia seeds, mango, blackberries, or green tea are somehow better for us than white flour or sugar or any number of processed foods, is now engaged in a criminal act in the EU. The same goes for the term “antioxidant” when used to refer to vitamins or polyphenol-rich fruits, vegetables or herbs.

Furthermore, under the EU Food and Supplements Directive, it’s illegal for doctors to communicate the benefits or health claims of any food, supplement, or non-drug product to patients. As Dr. Verkerk shared in an interview with LaLeva.org,

So for example, though we have a very substantial problem in our society with consumption of inappropriate foods, to say that taking Omega 3 fatty acids are good for ADHD children, would be illegal. Yet that may be a very important and fundamental piece of advice a practitioner needs to give to their client or patient. Unless your product is licensed as a medicine, you are not allowed to talk about its benefits, even if it is a food.

You may find it difficult to believe that such a suppression of speech could happen here in the United States, given the First Amendment. However, your freedom of speech is violated every day, in ways that are written into state laws and federal regulations:

• You may not be able to share diet tips. You may be familiar with the case of Steve Cooksey, the North Carolina paleo blogger with an informal, “Dear Abby”-style nutrition advice column. The North Carolina Board of Dietetics claimed he was giving nutrition advice without a license. They literally went through Cooksey’s website with a red pen, crossing out any speech they deemed unsatisfactory. Dietetics boards across the country frequently commit abuses like this, limiting speech about nutrition by threatening legal action.
• You can’t talk about industrial farming abuses. Throughout American history, reforms to our industrial food system have been sparked by the eyewitness accounts of concerned activists (to use a famous example: Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle was the catalyst to the 1906 Food and Drug Law). But in many states, “ag-gag” bills have made it illegal to videotape or take a picture on a factory farm—even when an illegal act was occurring. These bills are simply meant to protect illegal or unethical operations from consumers’ prying eyes, and help perpetuate the sickening industrial CAFO system.
• Your doctor can’t tell you about natural treatments…. In Kentucky, doctors can’t discuss chelation therapy with their patients. In California, natural treatments for cancer have for many years been illegal, so a doctor can get in serious trouble just mentioning them. As you can see, your freedom of speech and your freedom to choose the treatments, supplements, foods, and practitioners you prefer are closely intertwined.
• …or what’s making you sick. Fracking can contaminate the water table and air with such toxic chemicals as benzene, toluene, etylbenzene, xylene, barium, and radium. A Pennsylvania law allows physicians to access information about the proprietary chemicals used by fracking companies when they sicken patients—but they must sign a confidentiality agreement that they won’t tell anyone else—not their patients, not other doctors—what’s in those formulas. Plain and simple, this places restrictions on what doctors can tell sick patients about their condition.
• A Facebook “Like” can magically turn a supplement into a drug… In 2013, the FDA issued warning letters to supplement company AMARC Enterprises because it “liked” a Facebook customer testimonial about how their product helped “keep cancer at bay.” FDA says this means AMARC made a disease claim (according to FDA regulatory-speak, a disease claim turns a supplement into a drug). Are companies now responsible for customer comments on social media pages, an increasingly important form of communication and interaction between companies and the public? If a company stops allowing customer comments that might get it in hot water with the FDA, then the FDA has effectively censored consumer speech.
• …and quoting scientific studies can, too. Current FDA regulations prohibit dietary supplement manufacturers and food producers from referring to any scientific studies on the health benefits of a food or natural substance. In the FDA’s view, even providing a link on a website to a study converts a healthful fruit or nut into an unapproved new drug—a bizarre result that effectively censors scientific information and greatly restricts consumer access to scientific research.

It’s vital that we remain consistently vigilant against these piecemeal attempts to violate the First Amendment. By maintaining our freedom of speech, we maintain our ability to speak out against our government and Big Business, share important information about the products we buy and the treatments we use, and protect communication between patients and doctors, as well as consumers and businesses.

It’s unlikely that the First Amendment will ever be repealed—however, it’s clear that our freedom of speech is being chipped away slowly and subtly, one law and lawsuit at a time.

That’s why proactive measures are just as important as defensive ones. For example, the Free Speech about Science (FSAS) Act, a bill that would change FDA regulations so that legitimate, peer-reviewed scientific studies can be referenced without changing the food’s regulatory category to an unapproved drug. This will protect access to scientific information, and will protect your right to know about the healthy benefits of food and food supplements. We expect this bill to be reintroduced soon, and will let you know when it’s time to take action.

Dr. Verkerk has always praised Americans’ fortitude in the face of Crony Capitalism. Compared to Europe, we have superior access to potent dietary supplements because—and only because—of consumer-activists such as our members. For example, in Europe, if a beta carotene capsule contains more beta carotene than is found in one-third of a large carrot, it is banned). Dr. Verkerk concludes his article by encouraging consumers not to give up hope, and continue to fight for what’s right:

We must do as much as we can to pass our knowledge to the younger generations who will grow up in a world in which the corporatocracy rules—and for which censorship over communications about healthy foods and supplements is rife.

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• The Milk Freedom Act of 2014 would overturn the interstate ban on raw milk, as well as provide relief for small, local producers who have been harassed, fined, and prosecuted for distributing unpasteurized dairy.

• The Interstate Milk Freedom Act of 2014 would allow the interstate shipment of raw milk between two states where the sale of raw milk is already legal.

 
Meanwhile, local legislators aren’t waiting for Congress to act: ten states—California, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, and Oklahoma—are all considering legislation to legalize or enhance the sale of raw milk.
 
Why, after years of grassroots activism, are we finally seeing these results? Increasingly, citizens and legislators are appalled not only by the industrial food complex, but by the FDA’s targeting of small family businesses. For example, in 2011, the FDA conducted a year-long sting operation on an Amish dairy farmer, which climaxed in a 5 a.m. raid and the destruction of his business.
 
Raw milk is natural and healthful. The government estimates that 1% to 3% of Americans are drinking it. As the Weston Price Foundation notes in their Real Milk campaign, people are 35,000 times more likely to get sick from other FDA-protected foods than from raw milk.
 
Opposed to our position are the mainstream media and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In response,   many raw milk producers have taken the proactive step of securing certification from the Raw Milk Institute (RAWMI); some take more precautions than required by the state and by RAWMI, adding an extra layer of on-site testing before delivering milk to clients.
 
It should be noted that the government has long had an anti-raw milk political agenda, no doubt linked to its close ties to massive dairy companies and Big Farma—an agenda which these bills threaten.
 
Action Alerts! Please ask your congressional representative to support Reps. Massie’s and Pingree’s raw milk bills. Take Action!

 

In addition, if you’re a resident of one of these states, please send an additional message to your legislators in support of raw milk!

California—Take Action!
Georgia—Take Action!
Hawaii-—Take Action!
Iowa—Take Action!
Louisiana—Take Action!
Maryland—Take Action!
Massachusetts—Take Action!
Michigan—Take Action!
New Jersey—Take Action!
Oklahoma—Take Action!

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• McKenzie Lowe, 12 years old, suffers from diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), an aggressive cancer of the brainstem. Because DIPG grows amidst healthy nerves, it is inoperable, and traditional radiation and chemotherapy is rarely effective. As detailed in McKenzie’s Change.org petition—which currently has over 50,000 signatures—begging the FDA to grant a compassionate use exemption, antineoplastons are “the first and only medical cure for the type of tumor McKenzie has.” As noted in a Huffington Post article about McKenzie’s struggle for access, the FDA has already permitted 471 “compassion use” exemptions for other treatments. As she has no other options left to her, why won’t the FDA grant her request?
• Liza Cozad Lauser, 46 years old, was also diagnosed with DIPG (DIPG is rare in children, but seldom heard of in adults). She was told that her cancer was inoperable, and that radiation would only buy her a year or two more with her family and friends. Undaunted, Liza searched for a cure—and discovered antineoplastons. Like McKenzie, Liza is now petitioning the FDA to grant her a compassionate use exemption. And, with no other options and nothing left to lose, why shouldn’t Liza be granted the chance to save her life? In the words of Liza’s husband, “Why would you withhold something that would give her a chance?” (Read Liza’s impassioned letter to the FDA pleading for access to Dr. Burzynski’s treatment here).

Dr. Jonathan Wright, another natural health pioneer, also wrote a Letter to the Editor of the Tacoma News Tribune about the FDA’s refusal to grant compassionate access.
In the course of its decades-long vendetta against Dr. Burzynski, the FDA has become deaf to the suffering of those patients for whom antineoplastons are their last shot at living a full, normal life. The FDA’s refusal to grant McKenzie and Liza access to Dr. Burzynski’s treatment is particularly egregious, considering the extremely limited treatment options for DIPG. As Dr. Wright told ANH-USA, “Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski has cured DIPG in some individuals with his 100% harmless antineoplastons, and FDA is denying this woman and this girl antineoplaston treatment!”
When other doctors refuse to help, and death is imminent, shouldn’t patients have the option to try any treatment that could save their life?
Action Alert! Contact your senators and representative immediately and call for a full congressional investigation into the FDA’s violation of patient rights, particularly its refusal to grant compassionate exemptions to dying patients. Send your message today!

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In new trade talks between the US and the European Union, we need to make sure “harmonization” doesn’t make our supplement laws like theirs. Action Alert!

The post A New Front Opens in the Battle to Protect Health Choice in the US first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

The New York Times has published another shameful op-ed bashing nutritional supplements. Here’s our response.

• We do not get enough nutrients from our food. The soil in factory farms is depleted of nutrients, resulting in less nutritious vegetables. The runoff from CAFOs and their animals, together with the pesticide residue on plants, produce foodstuffs that are considerably less safe and healthful than their organic counterparts.
• Many Americans do not eat a healthy diet, and instead consume primarily processed foods—resulting in severe nutrient deficiency. A 2005 USDA report found that 93% of Americans have an inadequate intake of vitamin E, 56% have an inadequate intake of magnesium, 44% have an inadequate intake of vitamin A, 31% have an inadequate intake of vitamin C, 14% have an inadequate intake of vitamin B6, 12% have an inadequate intake of zinc, and 8% have an inadequate intake of folate.
• The notion that “nutrition experts” agree with the recommended daily allowances (RDAs) is absurd—the Academy for Nutrition and Dietetics adhere slavishly to RDAs. The vast majority of nutritionists and naturopaths provide treatment through vitamin and mineral supplementation, often recommending dosages well above the RDA.
• In fact, RDAs are not the best way to determine optimal levels of vitamin and mineral intake. RDAs are based on extraordinarily conservative recommendations from the Institute of Medicine and spring from a deeply flawed risk assessment approach. As Robert Verkerk, executive and scientific director at ANH-Int’l, notes in his critique of this approach, there is a “tendency for risk assessments to be undertaken on ‘nutrient groups,’ rather than discrete ‘nutrient forms,’ despite considerable variation in biological response between nutrients within given groups.” For example, a risk approach that analyzes one more potentially dangerous form of niacin at higher dosages (nicotinic acid) discriminates against other forms of the same nutrient (inositol hexanicotinate).
• Dr. Offit fails to distinguish between using nutritional supplements to maintain optimal health versus using supplements just to prevent disease (e.g., rickets), which is a much lower bar. He also ignores the fact that each individual has different nutritional needs and therefore different supplementation needs.

Dr. Offit cites a few studies indicating that vitamin E is linked to an increased risk of mortality, heart failure, and prostate cancer. Yet ANH-USA won a qualified health claim—in court, based on science—that vitamin E may actually reduce the risk of cancer!

The Life Extension Foundation (LEF) cites numerous studies that soundly contradict Dr. Offit’s assertions and show the protective effects of multivitamin supplementation. A large intervention trial published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2012 discussed a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in which over 14 000 US physicians took either a multivitamin or placebo each day and were followed for an average of 11.2 years. The doctors who took a multivitamin had a statistically significant reduction in total cancer incidence compared to those who took a placebo pill. Then there’s the 2010 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in which over 31, 000 women aged 49–83 revealed cardiovascular benefits of regular multivitamin use. In this study, women without a history of cardiovascular disease who took a multivitamin for more than five years had about a 40% reduced risk of heart attack.

Moreover, Dr. Offit referred to the Proxmire amendment, which prevented FDA from regulating megavitamins as drugs based solely on their potency (i.e., if they exceeded a certain potency, they would be considered a drug) as the agency’s biggest failure. We would call this a tremendous victory. The Proxmire amendment ensured that we would have access to high-dosage vitamins and minerals that could not go through the exorbitantly expensive drug approval process because, as natural substances that cannot be patented, manufacturers could never charge enough money to recoup the money spent in clinical trials.

As LEF notes, Dr. Offit ignores data that conflicts with his agenda. He only cites studies that suggest negative effects of supplementation and excludes important evidence to the contrary. This approach, LEF opines, may have been influenced by the fact that he will soon be publishing a book bashing alternative medicine. The entire piece seems to have been written to promote interest in his new book.

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Like other professionals, dietitians can justify the enactment of licensure laws because licensing affords the opportunity to protect dietitians from interference in their field by other practitioners. Licensure also can protect dietitians by limiting the number of practitioners through restrictions imposed by academic, experience, and examination requirements. This protection provides a competitive advantage and therefore is economically beneficial for dietitians.

 When the news broke about the investigation (and attempted silencing) of blogger and Paleo diet proponent Steve Cooksey by the North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition, we had a feeling he wasn’t the first non-RD targeted by dietetics boards. Were there people like Steve Cooksey in other states?
 
ANH-USA filed freedom of information requests with state dietetics boards that had histories of aggressively targeting non-RD nutrition practitioners. Our requests sought any and all information on complaints, investigations, enforcement actions, and internal communications related to RD monopoly laws.
We received thousands of pages of documents, meeting minutes, email communications, complaint forms, cease-and-desist orders, and consent decrees relating the enforcement of restrictive nutrition practice and speech laws by dietetics boards in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio. We also scoured the Internet for records—including those found on the boards’ public websites. Here’s what we discovered:
 
Florida
Florida’s Dietetic & Nutrition Practice Council is part of the Florida Department of Health; the latter carries out investigations and enforces the state’s RD monopoly law. Our investigation revealed that undercover operations—with individuals posing as potential patients or clients seeking personalized nutrition advice so as to entrap the unlicensed practitioner—were conducted by RDs who had filed complaints against non-RD nutrition professionals, as well as by investigators from the Department of Health itself.
 
Undercover surveillance might be excused if the public health were really at risk. But as Forbes contributor Michael Ellsberg noted, “The reason to surveil and report citizens who provide public nutrition advice (people like Steve Cooksey) is not that there’s any evidence that these citizens actually harm the public. Rather, the reason to surveil and report citizens like Cooksey is that doing so is necessary to maintain licensure laws (which were designed by the ADA explicitly to limit market competition).”
 
At a Dietetic & Nutrition Practice Council meeting this past January, a board member stated that in 2012, the Department of Health spent 681 hours, at a cost of $19,857, to investigate complaints of people practicing nutrition/dietetics without a license. Previous year’s totals were 191 hours in 2010, and 207 hours in 2011. That’s a 229% increase in investigations in just two years! Last year the Florida Department of Health fined at least seven people at a total of $11,672 for the crime of referring to themselves as a nutritionist or offering “nutrition services” without a license. There were no allegations of harm and not a single complaint filed by individuals who visited these “unlicensed practitioners.”
Ohio
Our investigation revealed that since 2009, there have been 349 investigations by the Ohio Board of Dietetics. At least forty-two of the investigations were of non-RD practitioners accused of practicing nutrition/dietetics without a license—including wellness centers, alternative health providers, physical trainers, and other licensed professionals. To date, seven official disciplinary actions, such as cease-and-desist orders and consent decrees, have been issued by the board.
Ohio was singled out as “a model dietetics board” for its aggressive investigations into unlicensed activity at the AND’s Public Policy Workshop this past March.
 
In addition to its questionable investigations against non-RD nutrition professionals, we should highlight what seems to us to be a flagrant conflict of interest on the part of the Ohio Board of Dietetics. A bill that was introduced in the state legislature, HB 259, would have allowed non-medical practitioners who do no harm to practice in Ohio. The bill was supported by health freedom advocates, but opposed by the state Ohio Dietetic Association, a 501(c)6 trade group that can legally lobby for and against bills. However, our investigation revealed that the Ohio Dietetics Board—a state government entity—actively lobbied against HB 259, which is patently against the law. This is outrageous enough, but we’ve also learned the board was coordinating its lobbying activities with the Dietetics trade group—the same group the board is supposed to regulate. The bill passed the Ohio House, but failed in the Senate, and the bill died in 2012.
ANH-USA is preparing materials for review by the Federal Trade Commission into possible restraint of trade actions by both the state dietetic association and the state board.
 
Georgia
The office of Georgia’s Secretary of State responded to our freedom of information request with the statement that “all complaints, their outcomes, and all other documents pertaining to investigations…are restricted from release” and that “deliberations, a complaint, an investigation or a disciplinary proceeding…is not subject to release.”
The Georgia Board of Examiners of Licensed Dietitians (six of whose seven members are RDs) refused to release detailed meeting minutes or a recording of recent board meetings to us—even though ANH-USA was an agenda item at its December 2012 meeting!
 
Georgia’s “Dietetics Practice Act” empowers the board to “enforce the provisions” of the Act—one of which is that only a “person licensed…shall be engaged in dietetic practice.” That means that only an RD can legally “assess nutritional needs or individuals” or “provide nutrition counseling.”
 
Although the board states on its website that “the Board has not issued Voluntary Cease and Desist Orders for unlicensed practice,” the minutes of the board’s August 24, 2012, meeting tell a different story: the board “moved to accept the Cease and Desist order, notify the Composite Board of Professional Counselors, Social Workers and Marriage and Family Therapists of the complaint, and close the case.” Why is this information buried in meeting notes, but not posted in the Cease and Desist section of the board’s website?
 
At its June 15, 2012, meeting, the board went into executive session—that is, all matters were off the record and visitors were not privy to the discussion—to deal with “enforcement matters, investigative reports, and pending cases.” The board “moved to schedule an investigative interview” with a holistic health coach.
As we reported last November, the Georgia board conducts undercover sting operation investigations with the full knowledge and cooperation of the Georgia attorney general’s office. We find it appalling that a government board, through a controversial dietetics law, is able to investigate and prosecute, has little to no accountability or transparency, and misinforms the public as to their actions. They’re not even required to tell you what was said when you or your organization is “reviewed and discussed” in their board meeting!
 
North Carolina
Most of our readers will be familiar with the story of Steve Cooksey, the health blogger that provided nutrition advice online. What you may not realize is that the Cooksey is one of nearly fifty people in North Carolina who have been targeted and investigated by the North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition over the past five years for possible violations of the state’s dietetics practice law.
Our freedom of information request found that RDs in the state are posing as patients and consumers in order entrap individuals practicing nutrition without a license. We found a litany of needless investigations into practitioners who are not even violating the North Carolina dietetics law—though the board pursued these individuals simply because complaints were filed. We view this as tantamount to harassment.
Do restrictive dietetics laws limit competition in the nutrition field? You bet. Consider the case of Liz Lipski, an expert nutritionist who was forced to leave North Carolina because the board denied her the right to practice as a nutritionist in the state. There are only 2,408 licensed dietitians in North Carolina to service a population of nearly 10 million people! By comparison, there are 119,069 registered nurses in NC.
 
Action Alerts!
While ANH-USA has been very successful defeating AND-proposed RD monopoly bills, we’re currently exploring multiple legal and regulatory options that would end the anti-competitive, restrictive trade and anti-free speech actions of state dietetics boards.
 
If you are a resident of Florida, Ohio, Georgia, or North Carolina, please contact your state legislators and ask them to repeal your state’s dietetics board. In NC, there’s even a bill, HB 676, which hopes to do just that. Please send your message to your state senators and representatives today!
 

 
New York, S.4999, would create a licensure scheme for nutritionists and dietitians (lumping them together as if there were no difference). It creates a board disproportionately made up of RDs, ensuring a board biased against non-dietitians.
This bill is very similar to one introduced last year by the same senator, Kenneth Lavalle (R-NY01). We hope the bill doesn’t have legs, since no companion House bill was introduced, and the similar bill did not go anywhere last year, but we’re not taking any chances. New York residents, please send your message immediately!

 New York

Michigan, HB. 4688, would repeal the 2006 the Dietetic/Nutrition Regulation Act, and eliminate the Dietetic/Nutrition Licensing Board.  Michigan residents, please send you message immediately!

Michigan

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Let’s look at the science.

• Acute otitis media (when the middle ear gets blocked with fluid and infected with bacteria): a 2012 RCT showed that symptomatic improvement was quicker in the homeopathy group than conventional therapy group, with a much lower antibiotic requirement
• Allergies: a 2012 observational study revealed that homeopathy substantially improved allergy symptoms and conventional medicine dosage could be substantially reduced; a 2013 study listed the effectiveness of different homeopathic treatments for allergies based on the type of allergy
• Asthma: In a study of individualized homeopathic treatment for asthma, there was evidence that it decreased the severity of asthma in children

Other studies show effectiveness of homeopathy for conditions ranging from chicken pox, diarrhea, and in a multi-center observational study, chronic sinusitis. Homeopathy could be an effective treatment for low-grade chronic inflammation, which is the root of many diseases, and as a complement to conventional anti-tubercular treatment (a finding that is especially important as patients are becoming resistant to TB drugs).

Much more research is ongoing despite the abysmal lack of funding for it. At the very least there is promising evidence supporting homeopathy.

So if it works, how does it work?

A homeopathic remedy is an extremely pure, natural substance that has been diluted many times. In large quantities these substances would cause the same symptoms the patient is trying to cure. In tiny, diluted doses, it is not only safe and free from side effects, but it will trigger the body to heal itself. For example, when you chop a red onion, it causes watery eyes and a runny nose in most people. Allium cepa is a remedy created from red onion; in very small doses, Allium cepa doesn’t create those symptoms but instead activates the body’s own mechanism for stopping watery eyes and a runny nose.

As noted in “Immunology and Homeopathy,” an article published in the journal Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, “The profound analogies between homeopathic thought and immunology are due to the fact that the whole of homeopathic theory is substantially based on the principle of regulating endogenous systems of healing, the best known of which is certainly the immune system and its neuroendocrine integrations.”

Around the end of the 19th century, scientists observed that different doses of the same substance can create wildly varying effects in humans. They observed that weak stimuli slightly increase biological responses, medium stimuli markedly raise them, strong ones suppress them, and very strong ones arrest them. This principal, called hormesis, is seen, for example, in medicinal plants: belladonna, in very small doses, has long been used as a pain reliever, muscle relaxer, and anti-inflammatory; in large doses it is extremely toxic. Foxglove (digitalis) helps cardiac arrhythmias in minute dosages, but in large doses can cause heart block and either bradycardia (decreased heart rate) or tachycardia (increased heart rate), depending on the dose and the condition of one’s heart.

The big difference between these practices and homeopathy is the amount of dilution used—and it is here that conventional medicine has such difficulty with it. In homeopathy, the substance (an herb, mineral, or animal product) is crushed and dissolved in a liquid (usually an alcohol and water solution), violently shaken with impact at least 100 times (“succussion,” usually done mechanically), then stored. This is the “mother tincture.” Homeopaths then dilute tinctures further. One part of the tincture to ten parts of the liquid is a 1X dilution (X being the Roman numeral for ten), with another round of succussion. A 2X potency takes one part of the 1X potency and adds it to nine parts of the diluting solution, thus creating a one-to-100 dilution; common potencies used in homeopathic remedies usually begin around 6X, or one part of the original mother tincture to one million parts of the diluting material. By the time you get to a 30X dilution, there is no measurable part of the original substance left.

The precise mechanism of how homeopathy works—why greater and greater dilutions should have more and more power, and why the violent shaking with impact should be so important—is still unknown. This is not really surprising given the lack of funding available to study the question, although some prominent scientists such as Luc Montagnier, the first discoverer of the AIDS virus, is pursuing it.

Despite the lack of formal research funding, homeopathy has always been an observational science, testing and refining a practice until it works better and better. The authors of “Immunology and Homeopathy” (cited above) put it this way: “The two approaches to system regulation—scientific/reductionistic and homeopathic/holistic—are not conflicting, but use different approaches: mainstream pharmacology applies a ‘structural’ analog, which is identified as the molecule binding to specific receptors or enzymes of the target system (if known). Classic homeopathy applies a ‘functional’ analogue, which is identified as the diluted compound that is able to regulate and/or to trigger homeodynamic systems. This kind of functional analogy, based on the similarity of symptoms, can be exploited even if the details of the receptors or the effector enzymes are unknown within the complex homeodynamic networks.”

Conventional medicine is, by and large, solely focused on biochemistry. but living cells and tissues also generate bioelectromagnetic fields, and it is at this level that homeopathy may be working. Every electron in every cell vibrates; so if everything vibrates, it would seem fairly logical that one vibration must affect another. One current hypothesis is that the succussion of the dilution strengthens the vibratory resonance of the substance, even when the physical component of the substance has been removed.

Other hypotheses discuss homeopathy in terms of nanotechnology—or nanopharmacology. The micro-bubbles and the nano-bubbles caused by the succussion may produce microenvironments of higher temperature and pressure. Several studies by chemists and physicists have revealed an increased release of heat from water in which homeopathic medicines are prepared, even when the repeated process of dilutions should suggest that there are no molecules remaining of the original medicinal substance.

In other words, no one knows precisely how homeopathy works. That is the rub. But there is a vast amount of anecdotal evidence that it does, including the experiences of ANH staff, such as an instant cure of trigeminal neuralgia, one of the most painful and difficult conditions to heal, instant cures of infant earaches, teenage allergies, and much more. Scientific studies, undertaken with very little funding because these are not patentable drugs, are now starting to show that it does work—and that it is far safer than FDA-approved drugs.

In the meantime, vicious attacks on homeopathy—in the US and UK and elsewhere—continue, both because it is an affront to conventional medical thought and an economic threat to the patent drug business.

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