CALIFORNIA HEALTH FREEDOM

By Maureen Shepard CCH

In Jan 2003, the California Health Freedom Act (SB577) became law. It is now codified as sections 2053.5 and 2053.6 of the Business and Professions Code.

The legislation states that millions of Californians are choosing alternative and complementary health care providers. Unlicensed providers were previously technically subject to prosecution for the practice of medicine without a license “even though there is no demonstration that their practices are harmful to the public”.

The Law further states:

“The Legislature intends, by enactment of this act, to allow access by California residents to complementary and alternative health care practitioners who are not providing services that require medical training and credentials. The Legislature further finds that these nonmedical complementary and alternative services do not pose a known risk to the health and safety of California residents, and that restricting access to those services due to technical violations of the Medical Practice Act is not warranted.”

The law also states that unlicensed health care providers cannot perform the following:

(1) Conducts surgery or any other procedure on another person that punctures the skin or harmfully invades the body.
(2) Administers or prescribes x-ray radiation to another person.
(3) Prescribes or administers legend drugs or controlled substances to another person.
(4) Recommends the discontinuance of legend drugs or controlled substances
prescribed by an appropriately licensed practitioner.
(5) Willfully diagnoses and treats a physical or mental condition of any person under circumstances or conditions that cause or create risk of great bodily harm, serious physical or mental illness, or death.
(6) Sets fractures.
(7) Treats lacerations or abrasions through electrotherapy.
(8) Holds out, states, indicates, advertises, or implies to a client or prospective client that he or she is a physician, a surgeon, or a physician and surgeon.

The health care provider must give the client a written statement disclosing the following:

(A) That he or she is not a licensed physician.
(B) That the treatment is alternative or complementary to healing arts services
licensed by the state.
(C) That the services to be provided are not licensed by the state.
(D) The nature of the services to be provided.
(E) The theory of treatment upon which the services are based.
(F) His or her educational, training, experience, and other qualifications
regarding the services to be provided.

For most of the alternative and complementary health care modalities, this law has successfully accomplished the intent of the legislation: to allow California’s consumers free access to the health care practitioners and modalities of their choice. For homeopathy, this has certainly been the case. I know several homeopaths who have moved to California specifically to take advantage of the protection offered by this law.

The situation is quite different for “touch modalities” – those alternative healing modalities that use touch as part of the treatment. These modalities include Bowen Therapy, Polarity Therapy, Reiki, Touch for Health, Jin Shin Do, Fedenkrais Method of Somatic Education, the Trager Approach to Movement Education, Body-Mind Centering, Cranial-sacral, Rolfing Structural Integration, Reflexology, and Body Talk.

These modalities have not been historically subjected to prosecution for practice of medicine without a license, even though they are healing modalities. Instead, they have been impinged upon by a multiplicity of municipal ordinances which have been enacted to regulate the practice of massage. Most of these massage ordinances broadly include any touch modality within their purview, forcing all touch modality therapists to obtain massage certificates, even though they don’t practice massage. They also are required to pay higher fees to the municipality and are subjected to other restrictions, sometimes being restricted from practicing in their home.

Although the intention of the California Health Freedom Act is clearly to allow freedom of alternative therapists to practice and the consumer to choose, the law does not specifically protect alternative and complementary practitioners of touch modalities from burdensome over-regulation by these municipal codes. These ordinances have the stifling effect of preventing some practitioners from advertising their services, and preventing others from practicing at all.

In September 2006, a World Health Freedom Assembly representing the Health Freedom organizations of 9 countries, and numerous other national and international organizations was held in St. Paul Minnesota. This Assembly adopted an International Declaration of Health Freedom. This document articulates the principals of Health Freedom that peoples of all nationalities can work toward.

One paragraph of the Declaration reads:

“There exist world-wide diverse healing arts, theories, practices, treatments, substances, and modalities that are deemed by the people to contribute to their health and well-being, whether by one human or by many, and they need to be protected and available to all members of the human family.”

The Declaration ends with the statement:

“The global adoption of these principles will strengthen the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world.”

Local and statewide efforts to free the touch modalities from over-burdensome municipal regulation can contribute to the realization of the principals of the International Declaration of Health Freedom by making those modalities more “available to all members of the human family”.