Year: 2009

I earned an N* degree a few years back. But, pending legislation under consideration in North Carolina may make my degree illegal. If the bill under consideration passes, I will be unable to use the degree in Naturopathy, as it will be illegal to use the 14th letter and the 4th letter of the alphabet together, one after the other. Welcome to health freedom according to North Carolina! If you want to stop this craziness, please consider contacting your representative and ask them to vote AGAINST licensure for Naturopaths!

Find out more at this link: Classical Naturopathy!

From the NC-CHF:

The Consumer Health Freedom Act, HB 842 will allow alternative health professionals the freedom to advertise and practice their occupation legally. It will give consumers the freedom to choose the alternative services and practitioners they prefer.

It is estimated that more than half of Americans use alternative products, many self-prescribed and often without guidance from skilled health professionals. This bill will open the door to alternative health care services provided by trained practitioners — services currently not offered by most medical doctors. Many experts believe broad access to alternative treatments will substantially reduce health care costs while improving the health of the population. Studies show that consumers pay for these services out of pocket.

Alternative treatments have been provided safely for centuries without substantial risk of harm to the public. Legalizing them formally will assure even safer and more professional provision of these services in our state. The bill requires that practitioners give consumers information about their education, professional training, and certification, and to refrain from certain acts and services, such as prescribing drugs or performing surgery, x-rays, etc.

North Carolinians seek out alternative products and services in increasing numbers. However currently very few alternative practitioners dare to practice openly in North Carolina because, under current law, they could be charged with “practicing medicine without a license” and risk criminal penalties. This is because the North Carolina medical licensing law has a very broad definition of what constitutes “the practice of medicine.”

The North Carolina medical practice act currently restricts to licensed physicians: “to prevent or diagnose, correct, prescribe for, administer to, or treat in any manner or by any means, methods, or devices any disease, illness, pain, wound, fracture, infirmity, defect, or abnormal physical or mental condition of any individual.” This excludes alternative professionals not licensed as medical doctors or other medical specialties.

It is easy to understand how existing law excludes alternative treatments in favor of conventional medicine. Most medical doctors do not offer homeopathy, naturopathy, herbal treatments, nutritional therapies or other natural, traditional and innovative therapies. The Consumer Health Freedom Act will make these services more widely available.

Eight other states already have health freedom laws — Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Rhode Island — and at least twenty-two other states have introduced similar bills. What can you do to help make North Carolina the ninth health freedom state?

The most important thing right now is to get the word out to everyone that you know – your whole personal e-mail list – that the NC Health Freedom Bill, sponsored by the NC-Citizens for Healthcare Freedom, will be heard this Tuesday, April 21st!

For more info, check out this web site: NC HEALTH FREEDOM NOW!

You need to contact YOUR legislators and representatives and tell them that you support personal health freedom of choice… and the use and availability of natural health modalities.

Share personal stories with them by way of e-mail and phone calls of the successes that you have had with natural health modalities.

YOU are the key to making this happen! YOU have the power to reach others and convince representatives of the benefits of natural health practices and our personal freedom to use these modalities in our lives, and our family’s lives.

Don’t let the Medical Establishment deny us our right to choose what form of health practice we can use on our own bodies!

You can also sign CHF’s Electronic Petition and encourage others to do so, as well!

Contact CHF for more ideas at:

Citizens for Healthcare Freedom
P.O. Box 12893
Raleigh, NC 27605

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Mike Causey,
Executive Director
Email: nchfreedom@aol.com
Phone: (336) 210-1947

REMEMBER: IT’S ALL UP TO YOU! PLEASE HELP US REACH ANY, AND EVERYONE, THAT BELIEVES IN HEALTH FREEDOM IN NORTH CAROLINA!

“New Rochelle, NY, March 9, 2009 – Chemicals present in cranberries and not the acidity of cranberry juice, as previously thought—prevent infection-causing bacteria from attaching to the cells that line the urinary tract, as documented in a report published in Journal of Medicinal Food, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com).”

“Urinary tract infections (UTIs) burden the healthcare system with more than $2 billion in treatment costs each year and are a common problem in patients with a urinary catheter in place. Adhesion of E. coli bacteria to cells lining the urinary tract is the first step in the development of a UTI. Chemicals found in cranberry products called proanthocyanidins (PACs) prevent E. coli, which is the cause of about 85% of UTIs and 90% of cases of acute pyelonephritis, from adhering to these urinary tract epithelial cells by affecting the surface properties of the bacteria.

Paola Pinzón-Arango, Yatao Liu, and Terri Camesano, from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Massachusetts, exposed E. coli grown in culture to either light cranberry juice cocktail or cranberry PACs and measured the adhesion forces between the bacteria and a silicon surface using atomic force microscopy. They demonstrated that the longer the bacteria were exposed to either the cranberry juice or the PACS the greater the decrease in bacterial attachment. In the article entitled, ‘Role of Cranberry on Bacterial Adhesion Forces and Implications for Escherichia coli -Uroepithelial Cell Attachment,’ the authors also concluded that this effect was reversible, and that bacteria regrown in an environment without cranberry juice or PACS regained the ability to attach to the model surface.

‘Cranberries, one of only three species of fruits native to North America, has a long history of medicinal food use. Native Americans used the fruit for the treatment of bladder and kidney ailments hundreds of years ago. The article by Camesano and co-workers is a milestone in the understanding of its mechanism of action,’ says Sheldon S. Hendler, PhD, MD, Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal, and Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Diego.

Journal of Medicinal Food is an authoritative, peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary journal published bimonthly in print and online. This scientific journal for leaders of the nutraceutical and functional foods revolution publishes original scientific research on the bioactive substances of functional and medicinal foods, nutraceuticals, herbal substances, and other natural products. The Journal explores the chemistry and biochemistry of these substances, as well as the methods for their extraction and analysis, the use of biomarkers and other methods to assay their biological roles, and the development of bioactive substances for commercial use.”

Vitamin D has been found to be very important on many fronts… and, indeed, there is an almost universal deficiency of this vitamin because people have been told to stay out of the sun. Since exposure to sunlight causes the skin to produce Vitamin D, this has become a big health issue. Now, a study has shown yet another benefit from Vitamin D… mental health acuity!

Vitamin D ‘is mental health aid’

“Vitamin D, found in fish and produced by sun exposure, can help stave off the mental decline that can affect people in old age, a study has suggested. UK and US researchers looked at 2,000 people aged 65 and over. They found that compared to those with the highest vitamin D levels, those with the lowest were more than twice as likely to have impaired understanding. Alzheimer’s charities said the research was interesting, but more work was needed to understand vitamin D’s role. Vitamin D is important in maintaining bone health, in the absorption of calcium and phosphorus, and in helping the immune system. The body makes vitamin D when it is exposed to the sun, or it can be obtained from foods such as oily fish, and those fortified with vitamin D, such as milk, cereals, and soya drinks. But older people’s skin is less able to absorb vitamin D from sunlight so they are more reliant on obtaining it from other sources.”

If you are considering supplementing Vitamin D, be sure that you get the form that your body can readily use, which is called “D3,” or cholecalciferol. A lot of synthetic Vitamin D supplements contain D2. Be careful to get the right kind!