• The American Medical Association (AMA) is the most powerful of the three groups we’ll discuss. It influences Medicare prices, has recommended that drug companies keep mercury in vaccines, and makes about $218.8 million a year on its government-granted CPT medical code monopoly. It’s also the eighth most powerful special interest on Capitol Hill, spending $18 million on lobbying in 2013.
• The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) co-runs the medical licensure exam and is the umbrella organization for the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME). In turn, ACCME accredits organizations that provide Continuing Medical Education (CME), which is mandatory for all licensed doctors. The FSMB has a history of discrimination against integrative medicine. Allegedly a private organization, it is hard to gather much information about, but it also seems to be led by the AMA, and seems especially determined to eliminate integrative doctors by one means or another. We will be writing more about the Federation in the future.
• The American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) consists of specialty boards of medicine (e.g., the American Board of Allergy and Immunology) and offers board certification. The ABMS was formed by a conference that included the FSMB and the AMA, and considers both organizations to be Associate Members.
  Technically, board certification is not mandatory. After all, doctors are required to remain abreast of the latest medical developments in other ways, such as through mandatory CME classes. But since the FSMB controls CME accreditation, doctors are forced to play the AMA/FSMB/ABMS game, one way or another.
  Moreover, the best jobs in medicine are typically reserved for those who are “fellows” of a given board. The higher rungs of medicine are run very much like a classic Medieval guild: knowing the right people and not displeasing them will make or break your career, regardless of your talent.

The three organizations described above work so closely together that they seem to us to be virtually one entity led by the AMA. The AMA and FSMB openly collaborate on projects and initiatives, while the FSMB is officially affiliated with ABMS.
Until now, doctors who are board-certified by the AMBS must be recertified every ten years. That gives the organization considerable control over doctors, though the control is loose. But, starting this year, the AMBS is requiring that doctors go through “mini” recertification every two to five years. This would make it much easier to keep tabs on and rein in anyone daring to dissent from standard orthodoxy.
Fortunately this has been met by opposition. In April 2013, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), not an integrative but an independent and courageous group unaffiliated with the AMA, sued the AMBS for imposing “enormous ‘recertification’ burdens” that are “not justified by any significant improvements in patient care.” The lawsuit goes on to call the recertification process a “money making scheme:”

[AMBS’s recertification] brings in many tens of millions of dollars in revenue to ABMS and the 24 allied corporations. Though ostensibly non-profit, these corporations then pay prodigious salaries to their executives, often in excess of $700,000 per year. But their recertification demands take physicians away from their patients, and result in hospitals denying patients access to their physicians.

As noted above, we do not think this new proposal is simply a “money making scheme.” Nor just an intra-professional power play. We believe it is designed to stamp out doctors who dare to explore non-conventional treatments that go outside the bounds of FDA-approved drugs and surgery, no matter how commonsensical (such as changing one’s diet) they are.
In response to criticism, the AMBS has responded that certification is purely voluntary, and that doctors not willing to be recertified more often can simply opt out. We have already explained why this is disingenuous. In addition, on their Certification Matters website, AMBS itself implies that uncertified doctors are somehow less qualified and may not provide adequate care:

Being licensed does not indicate whether a doctor is qualified to practice in a specific medical specialty, such as family medicine, surgery or dermatology. One of the best ways to know if your doctor has the qualifications to provide care in a specialty is to find out if he or she is Board Certified.

On the same website, AMBS has a search tool to verify if your doctor is certified. Not surprisingly, the ABMS refuses to work with integrative doctors, and only includes ABMS-certified doctors in their database—not doctors qualified by other boards.
Integrative practitioners do have some certification boards either in existence or in creation. But none of these boards will ever be recognized by the AMA-allied medical establishment and its allies and overlords in government any more than integrative doctors themselves will be recognized.
The whole point of integrative medicine is to take the best aspects of both conventional and complementary/alternative medicine and integrate them into a sound healthcare approach. We work for a healthcare system that embraces both modalities with equality and respect. All of medicine has a common foe in greedy, monopolistic organizations that seem to us to have their own best interests in view—not those of physicians, and certainly not those of patients.
For more information on finding an integrative practitioner in your area, visit our “Find a Practitioner” webpage.

The post War on Integrative Medicine, Part One: Eliminate the Integrative Doctors first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

This has been going on for nearly two decades, but has intensified lately. Government licenses are not meant to be used to enforce monopolies. Restraint of trade is against the law. It is time to call the Washington state board to account for its illegal targeting.

• MD 1: Investigated by MQAC for making a diagnosis of mercury toxicity in a teenager whose symptoms matched those listed for mercury toxicity in a standard toxicology textbook. Lab tests confirmed the diagnosis. (The teenager had been eating large quantities of canned tuna.) The case closed by MQAC after the doctor spent a large sum in legal defense fees.
• MD 2: MD 1 referred the above mercury toxicity patient to MD 2 for treatment. The patient and her parents insisted that no harm had been done, and that her health had significantly improved after MD 2’s treatment, yet MD 1 was found to be at fault for not referring the patient to enough specialists (even though she had previously seen three, including two neurologists, prior to seeing MD 2, and MD 2 had referred her to three more, for a total of six)! MD 2 was also found to be at fault for agreeing with MD 1’s diagnosis of mercury toxicity. The “expert” upon whom MQAC relied during the disciplinary proceedings had not practiced medicine in seven years, and admitted when questioned that he had miscalculated by a hundredfold the dose of the treatment material in an IV given by MD 2.
• MD 3: In the only case stemming from a patient report, a patient allegedly complained about a holistic medicine procedure (known to be harmless) which MD 3 discussed but did not use with the patient. MD 3 was also charged with diagnosing lead toxicity based on blood, urine, and hair specimens. MQAC charges included violations of interstate and intrastate commerce, unprofessional conduct and, believe it or not, “moral turpitude”! Even though MQAC found that no harm was done, and even though the complaining patient testified that he was not harmed, MQAC suspended MD 3’s medical license for five years, staying the suspension on condition that he use only MQAC-approved techniques from now on, that every three months he submit a signed affidavit that he isn’t using the technique he personally judged best, and that he meet with MQAC and be interrogated every six months in a town over three hours away. His legal costs so far have been over $250,000.
• MD 4: MQAC’s investigation concerned his use of intravenously administered vitamins and minerals. MQAC demanded to know if he had diagnosed vitamin and mineral deficiency before giving such IVs—even though less than a year earlier, NIH researchers found that high-dose IV vitamin C might kill cancer cells but did so without diagnosing scurvy (vitamin C deficiency)! In fact, of the sixteen physicians who use use IV nutritional therapy in Washington, eleven have been charged by MQAC.
• MD 5: Investigated by MQAC for “off-label” prescriptions of human growth hormone (HGH)—a natural substance and an FDA-approved medication—to four patients. “Off-label” prescribing of medications is 100% legal, FDA-recognized, and done by every licensed physician in the US. Even though it was prescribed for a specific medical condition, all patients reported improved health, there was informed consent, and none of the patients reported any harm, MQAC suspended his license for three years and fined him $5,000.
• MD 6: Another integrative doctor targeted for prescribing HGH; MQAC decided that there was not enough medical justification (as defined by MQAC) that the patient required HGH. He was placed on probation for five years, has to undergo a two-day ethics course and submit semi-annual practice reviews, and was fined $10,000.

In evaluating the treatment of MDs 5 and 6, consider the board’s treatment of another doctor, whom we will call MD X, not an integrative doctor but rather one practicing conventionally. MD X also prescribed HGH off-label, as did MD 5. However, he prescribed it for a family member (his stepson) without any recordkeeping—and did so not to treat an illness but rather to help his stepson grow taller, even though his stepson was 5’9” tall and weighed 152 pounds, normal for a young person his age. Under Washington law, HGH can only be used for the treatment of a disease or medical condition. MD X’s penalty? Nothing more than a reprimand and a $5,000 fine. In fact, five of the six charges against him were dropped because there were “mitigating circumstances:” no actual harm to the patient! This is not a leniency MQAC gives integrative physicians, or each of the doctors mentioned above would have had their charges dropped, too!

MQAC charged two other conventional doctors for prescribing HGH, and they too got off much lighter than their integrative counterparts. One was placed on two years’ probation and fined $3,000; the other was placed on four years’ probation and fined $8,000. Neither one had their license suspended or was required to submit a performance review.

There is a lot more to be told here: other unfair and malicious charges against integrative doctors, as well as leniency toward or no charges against conventional doctors with actual patient complaints of harm. Take, for example, the case of one Washington patient whose conventional physician mis-prescribed a drug contraindicated for the patient’s condition. The patient died, but MQAC refused to investigate, much less charge the doctor.

There have also been numerous complaints of sexual misconduct. In 2006 the Seattle Times found that in the previous decade, state regulators dismissed almost a third of all sexual-misconduct complaints without any investigation. Even when charges were investigated and found valid, there were no consistent guidelines for discipline, and sexual misconduct was treated as a medical error or routinely dismissed and forgiven.

In short, there is a clear pattern of bias by MQAC against integrative doctors in Washington State. This seems to us to be a clear case of the discriminatory application of Washington’s laws in order to drive integrative physicians out and protect conventional medicine’s treatment monopoly.

This is not just a recent trend. We have found other cases going as far back as 1994 in which MQAC unfairly and unreasonably targeted CAM practitioners and integrative doctors. One physician, who had been trained in biofeedback and acupuncture, had purchased an FDA-registered medical biofeedback device based on electroacupuncture, and used it for food allergy testing. When he learned that FDA had not approved the device for allergy testing (contrary to the manufacturer’s claims) he got rid of the device. Yet MQAC still found him at fault for relying on the claims of the manufacturer and saddled him with endless legal bills ending in a trumped-up “settlement.”

This situation is all too typical. The state has limitless legal resources. Physicians usually are not rich. So just the threat of legal action is often enough to create a climate of intimidation in the medical community. Also consider that a physician has invested so many years and so much money in his medical degree or license, but may lose it just by getting on the wrong side of the all-powerful medical board.

Many integrative doctors, faced with outrageous legal bills and fines because of MQAC’s baseless attacks, agree to make everything go away by signing consent decrees with often draconian and humiliating provisions. Some legal experts feel these consent decrees violate the restraint of trade doctrine, which relates to the enforceability of contractual restrictions on the freedom to conduct business.

One bright spot in all this: the Federal Trade Commission is now scrutinizing some state laws and practices that create anti-competitive behavior by physicians—such as the scope-of-practice restrictions supported by physicians who trying to monopolize their field. In Tennessee, for example, only physicians were able to provide interventional pain management services. The state legislature wrote a bill that eliminated that requirement—and FTC weighed in on the bill, to the consternation of conventional doctors in the state. Happily, the bill passed.

Perhaps MQAC should rethink its discriminatory attacks on integrative physicians in Washington State before the FTC investigates MQAC for anti-competitive behavior. Or before a lawsuit is filed to bring this restraint of trade and malicious prosecution out in the open.

As you know, Dr. Wright has developed innovative and successful natural therapies utilizing food, supplements, and lifestyle changes for a host of maladies that conventional medicine cannot cure. But his battle against MQAC’s unfounded charges is extraordinarily expensive, and he needs your help. If you have not already done so, please give generously to the Dr. Jonathan Wright Legal Defense Fund.

The post Will Integrative Medicine Be Driven Out of Washington State? first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

The post Washington State Medical Board Further Disgraces Itself first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

Worse, it continues its decades-long vendetta against medical giant Jonathan Wright, MD. Action Alert for Washington State residents!

• In 2007, MQAC sent a letter to Dr. Wright telling him they were investigating the Tahoma Clinic telephone system, alleging that “all incoming calls go to voice mail” with “the potential of harm to the patients.” Although Dr. Wright and Tahoma Clinic wondered how it would be possible to stay in business at all if “all incoming calls go to voice mail,” they were forced to go through the process of defending their telephone system. Two years and $35,000 in attorney fees later, the investigation was dropped—with no changes at all to the telephone system.
• In 2006, MQAC sent a letter to Dr. Wright alleging that a number of procedures described on the Tahoma Clinic website were “inefficacious.” Procedures described on the website included chelation therapy (which has been studied by the National Institutes of Health with generally positive results), colon hydrotherapy, intravenous ozone, and non-invasive sensitivity screening. Legal proceedings ensued; more than $20,000 in legal fees later, the investigation was settled, and descriptions of these procedures were removed from the Tahoma Clinic website. It was later discovered that the entire investigation was based on a single email communication to MQAC by an MD member of “Quackwatch,” who posts on her website that she blogs about “quackery, healthfraud [sic]…and other forms of so-called ‘Alternative’ Medicine.”

These last two investigations of Dr. Wright pale beside what happened in 2006 to Dr. Geoffrey Ames of Richland, Washington, another respected practitioner of integrative medicine. He saw a patient who had a positive antibody test (IgG4 RAST) for egg white and egg yolk. Dr. Ames explained treatment options for this problem, including not eating eggs at all, and desensitization to eggs. To achieve desensitization, Dr. Ames sometimes used a combination of kinesiology and EAV (a non-invasive electronic device), which he recommended to be used for this patient. Although no treatment was actually given, and no harm at all was done, the patient subsequently wrote a letter to MQAC complaining about the EAV device.

MQAC charged Dr. Ames with “moral turpitude” (yes, the same charge used against sex offenders and child molesters), violations of interstate commerce (which is a federal, not a state responsibility) and intrastate commerce, and unprofessional conduct for using a device which the Commission alleged was simultaneously “ineffectual” and capable of causing harm to the patient! (No one has ever been hurt by an EAV device; many people, but of course not all, have been helped by the information it yields.)

Although the charge of “moral turpitude” (which of course was made public) and violations of interstate and intrastate commerce were later dropped, and no patient was harmed in any way, the Commission suspended Dr. Ames’s license for five years! In a perfectly transparent attempt to force Dr. Ames to practice “conventional” medicine (against both his conscience and the best interests of his patients), MQAC stayed the suspension on several conditions: that he meet with the Commission and submit to interrogation every six months at a location over 200 miles away, and that he send in chart notes from ten allergy patients every three months along with a signed affidavit that he is not using his EAV machine.

For comparison, let’s take a look at the penalties handed out by the Commission to “mainstream” physicians involved in actual cases of injury to a patient, or even death. Except for the text in brackets, the two examples below are verbatim from the Washington State Auditor’s report:

Violation/Conduct

[MD #1] failed to appropriately treat a sickle cell crisis in Patient A. Patient A suffered significant, permanent neurologic injury.

Sanction Imposed [by MQAC]

• Submit paper of no less than 1,000 words, with references, regarding current recommendations for prevention and treatment of stroke in pediatric sickle cell patients.
• Reimburse costs to the Commission in the amount of $1000 within 90 days.

[Auditor’s] Comments

Per the sanction guidelines for practice below the standard with significant patient injury, the range is suspension for 5 years to indefinite suspension or permanent revocation.

Violation/Conduct

[MD #2] performed a laparoscopic oophorectomy [ovary removed through a small incision in the abdomen] on Patient A. [MD #2]’s laparoscopic procedure resulted in perforation of the small bowel. This is a rare but recognized complication of this procedure. [MD #2] was not aware of the complication at the time of discharge. [MD #2]’s system of follow up contact with the patient during the first post-operative hours was insufficient to learn of the patient’s signs of distress in time to effect life-saving repair surgery.

Sanction Imposed

• Respondent shall submit a paper of no less than 1000 words within 90 days on trochar [a surgical implement] injuries related to endoscopic procedures and response systems for bowel, ureteral, or bladder injury.
• Within 90 days, submit a policy regarding postoperative follow-up on outpatient surgery patients, and a plan for, or description of, the implementation of this policy.
• Pay $1000 for the administrative costs incurred in this case.

[Auditor’s] Comments

Sanction does not appear to be appropriate because per sanction guidelines, the sanction range for practice below standard with patient harm is probation or suspension for 2 years to suspension for 7 years to revocation.

We have written before about the problems at state medical boards that range from incompetence to bias to attempts to enforce monopoly medicine to outright corruption. For example, see our reports on the much-investigated Texas Medical Board. You would think that Washington State would be a place that would be accepting of integrative medicine, with its emphasis on diet, supplements, and lifestyle, as a supplement to conventional drugs and surgery. But think again. The Commission’s decades-long vendetta against a giant of contemporary medicine is a black mark against the state.

MQAC should be ashamed of itself for mindlessly attacking Dr. Wright on ridiculous grounds, for blaming him for its own mistakes, and for an arrogant refusal to follow its own rules. It took a lawsuit to start to turn the Texas Medical Board around, and it will probably require a lawsuit against MQAC to get its attention. ANH-USA has begun consulting with our legal counsel.

Meanwhile, if you are a Washington resident, you can help. Action Alert! Please contact your governor and your legislators about MQAC blaming—and threatening Dr. Wright with penalties—for a problem MQAC itself created! You can in addition call 1-800-562-6000; your call will be routed to your state senator and your two state representatives. The MQAC hearing begins on March 18, so please send your message today!

The post Washington State Medical Board Endangers Public Health and Safety first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

This new language creates the mechanism for the Dietetics board to harass and undermine unlicensed practitioners as they have been doing in other states.

In the absence of any significant, or vetted, documentation of harm to the public from non-RD practitioners, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has adopted strategy of filing complaints to convince legislators of the need for exclusionary laws. This new language creates the mechanism for the Dietetics board to harass and undermine unlicensed practitioners as they have been doing in other states

Contact your elected representatives in Indiana TODAY and let them know that the Dietetic Association—which is funded by the junk food industry—will not monopolize the nutrition profession in Indiana!

Click Here to Take Action

The post Urgent Action Alert – for Indiana Residents! UPDATED first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

The state’s attack on Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski is finally over. And some states are even passing laws that protect integrative physicians.

I was called in for an “interview” with a senior investigator and a seasoned cardiologist who does professional questioning at these interviews. I will admit I was treated with dignity and respect. I was questioned on ALL my oxidation methods, the science and rationale, since I did them all with this patient, including direct intravenous gas administration. I was questioned on the supplements, on informed consent, and even charting and signing off on notes….

Then [the investigators] got a chance to review a case with an identical cancer that I was simultaneously treating. This patient was 20 years older (76), and his colon cancer, with huge [metastases] to the liver, was terminal. He had only a few weeks (at best) to live….The board’s cardiologist looked at the scans and blood tests I showed him that proved a 100% remission of terminal end-stage cancer, and shook his head side to side, exclaiming, “That’s just unheard of!”

Fortunately, the case was closed—in Dr. Rowen’s favor. This would probably not have occurred without the protections provided by the California CAM statute. It’s especially significant since this was one of the first times that oxidation treatment was reviewed by a major state, and accepted as a reasonable integrative treatment.

The post Texas Medical Board’s Lawsuit against CAM Cancer Pioneer Dismissed!! first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

The FSMB is an elite, highly influential, secretive private organization. We also believe that it is thoroughly corrupt. Action Alert!

The post Is the Federation of State Medical Boards Behind the Brutal Attacks on Integrative Medicine Practitioners? first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

Eight integrative doctors are under attack in Louisiana. Help them with our Action Alert.

Louisiana’s neighbor, Texas, has an infamous state medical board, and you may recall our story last November about Stanislaw Burzynski, MD, PhD. Dr. Burzynski developed (using his own money) a nontoxic gene-targeted cancer therapy called antineoplastons. It has been shown to effectively help cure some of the most “incurable” forms of terminal cancer. In the 1980s, the Texas Medical Board charged him with breaking a law that didn’t actually exist, and tried to revoke his medical license. Numerous investigations later—including an appearance before the Texas Supreme Court—found no violation of any law or standard of care.

The FDA, the pharmaceutical industry, and the National Cancer Institute, knowing how promising Dr. Burzynski’s therapy was proving to be, tried to duplicate his invention, then tried to steal his patents—but failed. Now the Texas Medical Board is making yet another attempt to revoke Dr. Burzynski’s medical license which, if successful, would result in the closure of his clinic, the abandonment of all his patients, and would forever end any possibility of antineoplastons gaining FDA-approval.

Now it is coming to a head—a date has been set for the beginning of the court case: April 11, 2012.

Dr. Burzynski’s fight was chronicled in a stunning documentary film, Burzynski: The Movie. More info on the documentary can be found at the film’s website, while the movie itself can be viewed online for a limited time. ANH-USA sent DVDs of the Dr. Burzynski documentary to all the members of the Texas legislature, as well as to Texas Governor Rick Perry—and his copy was signed by the film’s director!

If you are a resident of Texas, please write to the Texas legislative Oversight Committees and Gov. Rick Perry, and tell them to stop the TMB’s harassment of Dr. Burzynski.

The post Louisiana State Medical Board Disgraces Itself (Plus an Update on Dr. Burzynski in Neighboring Texas) first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

The pioneering cancer doctor is a target once again. But you can help stop the attack.

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The post Breaking News: Outrageous New Attack on Dr. Burzynski—New Action Alert! first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

The HPV vaccine is not the only issue which ties Governor Perry to special interests and “dirty deals” in medicine.

It was Governor Perry who made each and every appointment to the current Texas Medical Board, even reappointing six of them after the scandal broke.

In 2007, Perry reappointed Roberta Kalufut to the board, even though she was specifically charged in the AAPS lawsuit as follows: “[Kalufut] arranged for her husband to file anonymous complaints against other physicians, including her competitors in Abilene [and] worked inside the TMB, with other defendants, to discipline doctors based on anonymous complaints filed by her physician husband.” Kalufut resigned in 2008.

It might seem that ANH-USA is piling onto Perry. But we aren’t political partisans—we have no involvement in the GOP nomination process nor are we endorsing anybody. What we are concerned about is crony capitalism in medicine, which underlies the present medical system and leads to so many bad outcomes, including the legal suppression of integrative therapies, along with exorbitant costs, needless suffering, and unnecessary death.

It is clear to us that Gov. Perry is part of this problem, and voters need to understand that he doesn’t extend his professed small government stance to medicine. Indeed, his overall small government persona seems to be masking a bloated, big government approach to healthcare—one tightly allied with special interests.

The post Perry and the Texas State Medical Board first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.