Minutus

Some of you may not have been following the natural health practitioner bill in NYS.
NY homeopaths have been unable to get it together to move forward on this or any other
bill despite efforts over the past 3 years. the Naturopathic community is pushing this bill
which has language that will negatively impact the practice of homeopathy. Please call
the state legislators from you district ASAP and ask that this bill not be voted on till
the language regarding exemptions is ammended.

tanya

Sent: 6/12/2006 4:35:33 PM
Subject: RE: SOS - stop the ND hearings
It’s the best we can do. Thanks for the input.
From: Vale, Shawn X -ND [mailto:Shawn.X.Vale.-ND@espn3.com]
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 2:43 PM
To: Johanna Antar; TSHNY_2004@yahoogroups.com
Cc: 'karen lawson'; Vale, Shawn X -ND; 'Melissa Sgroi'; 'H - Susan Leopold'; 'H - marina Braun'; 'H - Tanya Marquette'; dgubbay@comcast.net
Subject: Re: SOS - stop the ND hearings
I called just after Diane Miller who informed JR that Jill Skklar is faxing an amendment. There are a lot of chuckles at the other end of the phone since the bill is 3 days away from presentation. He says “no guarantee” for adding an amendment.

Shawn
To those who don’t know – Seems the sponsors of the ND bill (S1617B) are pushing to have the bill heard before end of session – it might be heard as soon as tomorrow (Tuesday 6/13) in the Senate.
The exemption language in the current bill is inadequate to protect the rights of all unlicensed N&C practitioners. Jill Light-Sklar is rewriting the exemption language and will speak to National to get it OK’d – the rewrite should make sure that ALL unlicensed natural & complementary practitioners are protected. When she has the language she will send it to me and I will pass it along.
In the meantime call Senator Volker’s office – 518-455-3471. You can ask for Craig Miller who will redirect you to JR Drexelius. Tell them you are representing a large group of _______ both in NY State and Nationally who are upset with the current language of bill S1617B and that you want to send in an amendment to be utilized in the bill before the bill is passed.
Pass this along to anyone who wants to help. As many people that can call the better.
No joke.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi Tanya,
Can you summarize what the bill says?
(I assume NCH has been involved?)
Shannon

actually nch is not involved as far as i know. this is a nys issue.
there have been a couple of groups, nyc, that have been struggling
to get a bill through that legitimatizes homeopathy in nys. for a time
there was lobbyist hired to do this work for us. however, there
has been a split in the community about whether to go for licensing
vs registry. and then there are many who are concerned that if they
put their names to the effort they will be targeted and put out of
business. as a consequence the homeopathic community got itself
left out of this current bill being promoted by the ND's.

here is the language that has been a problem and the changes being
proposed:

? 6581. Exemptions. Nothing contained in this article shall be
28 construed to affect or prevent the following:
29 1. A licensed physician from practicing his or her
profession as
30 defined under articles one hundred thirty-one and one hundred
thirty-
31 one-B of this title; a registered professional nurse or a
certified
32 nurse practitioner practicing his or her profession as defined
under
33 article one hundred thirty-nine of this title; or qualified
members of
34 other professions licensed under this title from performing the
practice
35 of their professions, except that such persons may not hold
themselves
36 out under the title naturopath or as performing naturopathy;
37 2. A student, intern or resident in, and as part of, a
supervised
38 educational program in an institution approved by the department;
39 3. Limit a person or practitioner from using, giving, providing,
sell-
40 ing or advising in the use of a product, including, but not limited
to:
41 general nutritional information, dietary supplements, homeopathic
reme-
42 dies, or other non-medical therapeutics that is within the
scope of
43 practice of naturopathic doctors as outlined in this article,
provided
44 such person is not using a title protected pursuant to this
article or
45 holding themselves out to be a naturopathic doctor.

It would read like this:
? 6581. Exemptions. Nothing contained in this article shall be
28 construed to affect or prevent the following:
29 1. A licensed physician from practicing his or her
profession as
30 defined under articles one hundred thirty-one and one hundred
thirty-
31 one-B of this title; a registered professional nurse or a
certified
32 nurse practitioner practicing his or her profession as defined
under
33 article one hundred thirty-nine of this title; or qualified
members of
34 other professions licensed under this title from performing the
practice
35 of their professions, except that such persons may not hold
themselves
36 out under the title naturopath or as performing naturopathy;
37 2. A student, intern or resident in, and as part of, a
supervised
38 educational program in an institution approved by the department;
39 3. Limit any unlicensed natural and complementary practitioner,
40 homeopath, herbalist, or other natural practitioner from practicing
or providing
41 services, or limit a person or practitioner from using, giving,
providing,
42 selling or advising in the use of a product, including but not
limited to:
43 nutritional information, dietary supplements, homeopathic remedies,
foods,
44 natural substances, or other natural therapeutics that is within the
scope
45 of practice of Naturopathic Doctors as outlined in this article,
provided such
46 person is not using a title protected pursuant to this article or
holding
47 themselves out to be a Naturopathic Doctor.
This clearly states that the ND bill will not limit any unlicensed n&c
practitioner etc from practicing as long as they don?t say they are ND?s.
the current version was to only cover the health food store clerks that are
asked advise on products and other already licensed practitioners
And instead of reading like this:
? 6578. Title and designation. Only a person licensed under this
36 article may use any or all of the following terms, consistent
with
37 academic degrees earned: "Doctor of Naturopathy", "Doctor of
Naturopath-
38 ic Medicine" or its abbreviation, "ND", "Naturopath",
"Naturopathic
39 Doctor" or "Licensed Naturopath". However, none of such terms or
any
40 combination of such terms shall be so used to convey the idea
that the
41 individual who uses such term practices anything other than
naturopathy.

It would read like this:

? 6578. Title and designation. Only a person licensed under this
36 article may use any or all of the following terms, consistent
with
37 academic degrees earned: "Doctor of Naturopathy", "Doctor of
Naturopath-
38 ic Medicine" or its abbreviation, "ND", "Naturopathic
39 Doctor" or "Licensed Naturopath". However, none of such terms or
any
40 combination of such terms shall be so used to convey the idea
that the
41 individual who uses such term practices anything other than
naturopathy.

Which protects the Clayton college and other traditional naturopathic
school graduates, who call themselves naturopaths.
tanya

I would think NCH should at least be informed, as what affects NYS
surely affects the rest of us!!! Also NASH? But anyway...

On the subject of "licensing vs. registry", let me share this
interesting story:
Some time back I saw a naturapath for "live blood analysis"--work with
a very cool microscope that views a blood spot unpreserved, and
"live"--you see the white cells eating things, the red cells streaming,
and whatever else is moving and living in your blood (can be quite a
zoo!). I was gushing about how I wished "regular" doctors would use
the things, because it's just a treasure trove of information about
"what's working" and why. She said that up until the year or so before
there *had* been several area MDs who'd bought them (quite expensive)
and were using them with patients--until an FDA fellow came around,
told them they had to get rid of the machines or they would lose their
licenses. So, the docs got rid of their machines... Then the FDA
fellow started going 'round to the naturapaths in the area, telling
them the same thing. The naturapaths just laughed--guess what, no
license to lose! So they are still using the wonderful things.

Registry I am a fan of--we *do* need "quality control" and evaluation
(also self-evalaution) procedures. But licensing--anything that ties
us yet more into "the powers that be" in our good ol' gov't, well, that
I have come to feel a bit more sour about. I'm not sure what the best
balance will be--how to maintain independence and yet also credibility.
Being UNITED, and working TOGETHER with other groups (stop dissing
other "alternative" therapies, not to mention stop dissing MDs, not to
mention stop dissing other homeopaths) would IMO be just huge steps in
the right direction. The ol' "united we stand, divided we are dogmeat"
thing.

Thanks for bringing this out!!
Cheers,
Shannon

i agree with you about licensing vs registry. i do not like licensing and
i dont think it guarantees quality performance. however, there are some
that think this licensing bill for the naturopaths will form the model for
all other protocols. that remains to be seen i guess.

i think the story about the live blood cell analysis machines was very
appropriate. btw, i had a live blood cell analysis done by a guy who
just had one of these machines; he was just interested. it was pretty
fascinating

tanya
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