Newsletters > February 2001 > Natural Health Community Must Unite, White House Commission Comes to Town

January 19, 2001
Natural Health Community Must Unite

March 2001 – The White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Comes to Minnesota for a Town Meeting

March 16 at the Humphrey Institute at the U of M, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

By Kathy Schurdevin, Classical Homeopath
President, MN Natural Health Legal Reform Project

Due to the public interest in unconventional medicine, President Clinton established the White House Commission on Alternative and Complementary Medicine by executive order on March 7, 2000. The commission, composed of no more than 15 members, was appointed by the President from representatives in health care and complementary and alternative medicine. The function of the Commission is to report, through the Secretary of Health and Human Services, to the President on legislative and administrative recommendations for assuring that public policy on Complementary and Alternative medicine maximizes its benefit to the American people.

These recommendations are to address the following:

a) appropriate licensing, education and training of health care practitioners in Complementary and Alternative medicine;

b) coordinated research designed to increase knowledge about Complementary and Alternative medicine products and practices;

c) provision of reliable and useful information on Complementary and Alternative medicine that can be readily understood and accessible to health care practitioners and the general public; and

d) to give guidance for appropriate access to and delivery of Complementary and Alternative medicine.

The Commission has been and is continuing to have meetings to address these issues. These meetings are held in Washington D.C., as well as throughout the country in the form of Town Hall Meetings. The Commission is gathering and analyzing data and their recommendations on public policy and legislation are due to be presented to the President in March 2002.

The Public Must Be Heard
The public can participate in the following ways:

1) By invitation only: the Commission may invite you to speak; you are given five minutes each to speak and written version is also provided for the Commissioners;

2) A public comment section, for which you must register in advance via website or in writing; must provide written version in advance; this oral testimony is limited to three minutes or 500 characters; lasts five minutes, with two minutes allowed for questions by the Commissioners;

3) Observation only: you can register to come to the meetings only to observe.

4) The Commission will take unlimited written testimony. Written comments will be accepted:

electronically by email to: whccamp@od.nih.gov;

fax: 301- 480-1691;

or mail to: WHCCAMP, 6701 Rockledge Drive, Suite 1010, Bethesda, MD 20817-7707.

Or phone them at: 301-435-7592.

If possible, please provide an electronic version on diskette when mailing written comment.

Registration is open on their website: www.whccamp.hhs.gov until seven days prior to the meeting. To find the registration on the web site: go to above site; click on meetings, then register and complete form.There is a detailed list of questions that the Commission would like addressed below the registration form. Please take note of the questions.

Note: You must belong to an organization in order to give oral testimony, i.e. MHA, MN Natural Health Coalition, etc.

It’s imperative that the Natural Health community make their presence known at the meetings of the Commission.

We Need Your Help
It is highly important that we make our beliefs known and help the Commission understand why we created the Minnesota Model, a unique approach to Complementary and Alternative health care that ensures freedom of access to ALL of the healing arts. We encourage all consumers and practitioners of natural health who wish to have a say in the future of health care in America to testify. Please register to testify for what you believe in. We hope to have at least 100 people or more registered to testify for this meeting.

If you are able to participate, please let us know. If you would like further information or assistance in preparing your testimony, please call Kathy Schurdevin at 952-474-9070, 1-877-518-5079, or email at Kashurdevin@cs.com.