Health Facts
Researchers from Harvard Medical School studied the health care practices of U.S. adults and estimated that 425 million Americans used providers of unconventional care in 1990.1 Americans made more visits to unconventional providers in 1990 than to all primary care physicians--425 million compared to 388 million visits.2 A follow up study showed that number increased to 629 million in 19973. It is time Legislators and Congressmen recognize the desire of the public in this trend. They must realize that they cannot continue the miscarriage of justice in prosecuting the users and providers of alternative health care and education.
We learned, from the 1999 report, 'To Err is Human'4 from the Institute of Medicine, that up to 98,000 of us die each year because of medical errors.5
The United States' third leading cause of death is that caused by State Licensed Physicians. Every year the toll is 250,000 deaths. Of these deaths, the estimates of errors and adverse effects caused by iatrogenic* damage include 106,000 harmful effects caused by medically prescribed drugs. 6-7
Therefore the fourth most common cause of death are regulated, prescribed, correctly researched and used drugs. Yet until the 1999 report, we never heard of these deaths, and outside of medical journals, still do not.
160,000 deaths per year! That’s a Boeing 747 full of people crashing every day! That means 50 times the number of people killed in the World Trade Center attack are killed by properly used prescribed drugs every year.
These figures do not include the thousands of people whose quality of life is adversely affected by drug-induced diseases. These people return to their doctors to be treated for the side affects of the drug they are taking and are prescribed another drug to alleviate the side affect… and a vicious circle begins as they become invalids as a result of the medications.
Fortunately, many who find themselves caught up in drug-induced disease discover there are safe alternatives to drugs. They avail themselves of the services of, usually non-state licensed, therapists who are trained in providing or teaching about alternative therapies… and they find their way to health, and pain is alleviated. They are able again to enjoy ‘quality of life’.
The State Legislatures who passed health freedom Acts, found that
these non-medical natural health services do not pose a known risk
to people’s health and safety, and that restricting access to those
services due to technical violations of the Medical Practice Act is
not warranted.
1. JAMA. Volume 328:246-252 (4), January 28, 1993
2. http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-246.html
3. JAMA. 2000 Feb 16, 283 (7):884-6
4. Kohn L, ed, Corrigan J, ed, Donaldson M, ed.
To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System.
Washington, DC: National Academy Press; 1999.
5. JAMA, Vol. 284 No. 4, July 26, 2000, Barbara
Starfield, MD, MPH, Is US Health Really the Best in the World?
6. Lancet.1998;351:643-644, Phillips D, Christenfeld N,
Glynn L..
Increase in US medication-error deaths between 1983 and 1993.
7. JAMA.1998;279:1200-1205., Lazarou J, Pomeranz B,
Corey P.,
Incidence of adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients.
* Iatrogenic: Induced in a patient by a physician's activity,
manner, or therapy.
It is time to pass nationwide Health Freedom Acts.
We are a diverse group of people, consumers and practitioners of various modalities of natural, alternative health care modalities. The basic tenet of ARHFC is that if a traditional health care practitioner has clients who are happy with the care they are receiving, be it alternative, traditional, complementary, or conventional, that practitioner though they may not be state licensed, has the right to practice and those clients have the right of access to them.
Won’t you join us in our work to bring about those rights?
Attached are membership applications to ARHFC (click
here to go to membership application). We need to educate our
Legislators about alternative therapies and of our desires
concerning access to the practitioners of those therapies.
We want to be free, if we so choose, to select an unlicensed health
care practitioner as our alternative therapist. Working together we
can generate the legislative reforms to achieve that freedom.
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."
Winston Churchill