Sincerely,

Laura Combs

Dear Complementary and Alternative Medicine Practitioner:

As you know, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practitioners had quite a scare in the 2011 legislative session regarding Senate Bill (SB) 31, “Clarify the Penalty for the Practice of Unauthorized Medicine.” Senate Bill 31 would have made North Carolina’s practitioners felons. Fortunately, Laura Combs, a private citizen, learned about the bill less than 24 hours before it was set for final approval and launched a campaign to remove the felony provision. Laura’s campaign was successful, and we are able to continue to practice without concern about being charged with a felony.

Senator Mansfield, the sponsor of SB 31, stated during the 2011 session after the felony provision against practitioners was removed from his bill that he wants to address other concerns he has with our professions in an upcoming legislative session (almost certainly the 2013 session when new bills can be introduced). This statement is alarming, as he is a known antagonist of CAM who helped defeat a CAM bill in 2011.

Shortly after the threat of SB 31 was addressed, the North Carolina Colon Hydrotherapy Safety Association’s (NCCHSA) former lobbyist, Dick Carlton, contacted NCCHSA to inform us that another bill threatening colon hydrotherapy and the other practitioners’ professions was making its way through the legislature.

Senate Bill 467

The second threat to practitioners was SB 467, “The Naturopathic Doctors Licensing Act.” According to the original bill, colon hydrotherapists, homeopaths, aromatherapists, herbalists and others would have to be licensed NDs in order to perform their healing practices. If they practiced without being licensed NDs, the bill would have created a new method to charge them with a misdemeanor.

Because of our concern about the ND bill’s impacts on colon hydrotherapists, we contacted Laura and learned that she was a lobbyist when she lived in Florida, she loves this type of work and was eager to help us for a very reasonable fee. As a lobbyist for NCCHSA, Laura quickly got up to speed and convinced the NDs to remove colon hydrotherapy from their bill and remove the individual threats to the other practitioners’ professions. Because of Laura’s persuasiveness and the ND’s openness to addressing the threats, we did not see a need to have Laura launch an effort similar to her campaign against the felony provision in SB 31. In essence, the threats were removed without requiring any action from you.

What’s Next

The effort to address the threats to practitioners caused by SB 467 was costly and unexpected for our organization. We are grateful that our efforts paid off and that a closer relationship with the NDs has developed.

Mutual support in the CAM community is imperative if we are going to increase our profile and reduce the threats from the Medical Society. As you know, the Medical Society remains very antagonistic to many CAM professions.

In the spirit of mutual support, we are asking for a small donation from you to help replenish our funds and fund future efforts to protect our professions. If you are able to help us, please send donations to:

NCCHSA

c/o Alternative Health Center of Cary

919 Kildaire Farm Road

Cary, NC   27511

If you have any questions, please contact Darlene Holloway at 919-380-0023. Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Darlene Holloway,

President of NCCHSA and

NCCHSA Directors

SB 31

First, an update on SB 31, the bill that would have made North Carolina complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practitioners felons, as sponsored by Rep. Mansfield. Rep. Weiss attempted to amend the bill to remove the felony provision as applied to CAM, but unfortunately her amendment ran into a state constitutional issue. The bill was sent to conference committee and has yet to be scheduled for discussion. Representative Mansfield, the bill’s sponsor, told me that the conference committee will move forward once the government’s lawyers hammer out the Constitutional issue, and he did not have a projected time of when that would occur. Representative Weiss reassured me that her understanding is that the intent of her amendment will be implemented. I will continue to monitor this bill and let you know if any additional action is needed.

NC Naturopath Doctors Licensing Bill

This has been another interesting piece of legislation. Naturopathic doctors have been attempting licensure for over ten years to assure the highest quality practitioners and treatment for patients. The supporting materials for the bill, which include examples of supposed Naturopathic practitioners who are poorly or not properly trained causing severe harm to patients, illustrate that licensure would be beneficial for the client. The bill has some problem spots, though, and I have been working with the Naturopathic doctor who is the lead on the legislation to get those problems addressed. I am hopeful that they will be.

The Naturopathic Doctors Licensing bill, if properly amended to address the problems that I and others in the CAM community have identified, will not only be a benefit to the Naturopathic community, but it could also serve as a rallying point for the CAM community. I am seeing first hand while lobbying at the NC legislature the power that the North Carolina Medical Society holds over the legislators. It is one of those things that you read about and know, but you don’t really get it until you start actively participating. Hopefully a properly amended bill will sail through the legislature, but it may need some public help similar to what we did with SB 31. I will keep you posted if your voices are needed.

Health Freedom Legislation

My work this spring has shown me how much Health Freedom legislation is needed in NC. Again, it is one of those things that you read about and know, but you don’t really get it until you start actively participating. After finishing up my work this legislative session, I am going to seriously explore how to put a bill forward in 2013 to have health freedom in North Carolina. There are many paths to pursue from a Health Freedom perspective, but my focus is ensuring that our CAM practitioners can practice free from the threats such as those put forward in SB 31. An effort to pass Health Freedom legislation in 2009 failed dramatically, and I intend to start my research there.

We are going to need tremendous unity of the various CAM modalities and strong public support if some form of Health Freedom is to become viable in North Carolina. Just take a look at what the NC Medical Society positions during the 2009 legislative session: http://www.ncmedsoc.org/non_members/pac/Scope-of-PracticeWhitePaper.pdf. While working to defeat (and now amend) SB 31 as a private citizen and working to amend the Naturopathic Doctors bill as a lobbyist (I am actually getting paid for this one!), it has become very clear to me how fragmented the CAM community.

I emphasize the need for unity for several reasons. First, those modalities that are licensed in NC (chiropractic, acupuncture, massage, for example) have lobbyists who were aware of SB 31 before I learned about it and all of us derailed it. Those going for licensure in 2011 with the help of their lobbyists (midwifery and naturopathic doctors) knew about SB 31before we derailed it. It appears that none of these professions reached out to warn the unrepresented and unlicensed CAM professions that they could actually become felons and many of us would lose our favorite practitioners because they would no longer be practicing. To be fair, most of the unlicensed professionals do not have a presence during the legislative session, but still, an informal outreach effort could have occurred and opposition to the bill could have been mounted earlier.

This lack of communication and community is completely the opposite of what I experienced in Florida when I lobbied the state legislature on environmental issues. Every Friday during legislative session, the different environmental interests would meet and report on what their legislative issues were, how they needed help, and how they could help the causes of other groups. It was a tremendously powerful and unifying experience. That type of cohesion is needed in North Carolina around health freedom.

In order to achieve cohesion, I anticipate holding some type of Health Care Freedom summit and figure out why the different professions aren’t communicating better.

Unlicensed CAM Umbrella Organization

There needs to be an umbrella organization representing the unlicensed CAM community so that they will have better protection against legislative attack, such as we have seen in 2011, and stronger presence in the decision making that affects the CAM community. I will try to figure out how to bring that together.

The Canary Party

A new political party, The Canary Party, launched a couple of days ago and is quickly gaining traction. This new party is dedicated to the health freedom effort that I am hoping to bring to NC. I am going to be reaching out to the organizers of this party to see how my efforts can support their cause and how they might help us in North Carolina. One of its founding members is Dr. Sherri Tennpenny, MD, a champion for vigorous health and leading opponent to America’s currently embraced disease paradigm. She recently linked to my blog to help fight the Chapel Hill/Carrboro vaccine contest program: win a laptop or i-Pod if you get vaxed, and the more you get vaxed the greater your chances of winning. You can read more here if you are interested: http://movingstronglyforward.typepad.com/moving_strongly_forward/2011/05/update-school-district-contest-potential-cover-up.html.

Final Thoughts

I have developed a fairly good relationship with Natural News, who has taken up the SB 31 fight and the Chapel Hill school vax fight. If we decide to go for Health Freedom in NC, perhaps they will support us again. It is amazing how far a message reaches once Natural News promotes it.

Please feel free to let me know any thoughts you have on these issues.

Thank you all for reading, and here is to a wonderful summer!

Laura

Laura Combs

www.movingstronglyforward.typepad.com

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