Text Box: Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, George Washington’s physician, and Congressman is quoted as saying, “The Constitution of the Republic should make provision for medical freedom as well as for religious freedom.... All such laws (which restrict health choices) are un-American and despotic. They are fragments of monarchy and have no place in a Republic.” Text Box: If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as the souls who live under tyranny. — Thomas Jefferson Text Box: William Harvey - Father of Cardiovascular Medicine  William Harvey discovered the circulation of blood and is widely considered to be the father of medicine. A quote from John Aubrey which refers to a conversation with William Harvey is: “I have heard him [William Harvey] say, that after his book of the circulation of the blood came out, that he fell mightily in his practice, and that ‘twas believed by the vulgar that he was crack-brained; and all the physicians were against his opinion.” Text Box: Claude Bernard (July 12, 1813 – February 10, 1878) was a French physiologist, often referred to as the father of modern physiology, coined the term Milieu intérieur, or internal environment or homeostasis, the position that a balanced immune/ endocrine/ neurological/ psychological/ vascular/ detoxification internal environment prevents disease. Concerning the issue of authority vs. observation, he said: “When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must accept the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by great names and generally accepted.” Text Box: Barrette Article In this 48 page article* by law school professor Joseph Barrette, entitled "The Alternative Medical Practice Act (in New York State: Does It Adequately Protect The Right of Physicians to Practice Complementary and Alternative Medicine," which was published in the St. John's Law Review, the conclusion is: “The New York State Legislature enacted the AMPA (Alternative Medical Practices Act) of 1994 with the intent to protect “the rights of non-conventional physicians throughout the misconduct process” and to secure “the rights and freedom of patients to choose their own medical treatments.” However, the policy and practices of the BPMC, particularly through the OPMC (Office of Professional medical Conduct), and judicial construction have severely restricted the intended impact of the legislation. These practices and court decisions have indeed had a chilling effect on physicians who might consider integrating innovative medical care into their practices. Physicians who currently use any innovative medical care in their practices have been particularly vulnerable to charges of professional misconduct. Physicians who have been investigated and charged with misconduct by the OPMC have faced financial devastation, loss of reputation, and the eventual revocation of their medical licenses. Tens of thousands of patients have simultaneously lost their choice of medical treatment and physician. In addition, because of the limited availability of physicians who practice innovative medicine and the chilling effect of the risks associated with the practice of non-conventional medicine by others who may consider it, these patients will be severely limited in their future choice of medical treatment.” *Barrette, J A, (2003) St. John’s Law Review, volume 77, Winter 2003, number 1, pp. 75-122. (To review entire article click here) Text Box: The American Medical Association Support of CAM What does the American Medical Association have to say about the witch hunts against doctors who prescribe nutrients?  In this article published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, such physicians are likened to Galileo, who was prosecuted for his good science by a tyrannical Catholic church. Interestingly, this insightful article suggests that Galileo's "crime" was not due to the content of his writings, since Copernicus published similar data decades before Galileo in Latin. Galileo was prosecuted because he took the truth “to the streets” and published his good science in Italian, which bypassed the church censorship, and which therefore undermined the purpose of all bureaucratic tyrannies of all time, to restrict what the public is allowed to know. (To review entire article click here) Text Box: Petition In NY State, the Supreme and Appellate Courts essentially rubber stamp prosecutions of complementary/alternative medicine physicians and probably never even read the appeals at all.  Here is his 82 page appeal, which based on its merits and cogent arguments alone, could probably  have won in any court in any totalitarian country in the world, but not in New York.  (To view Dr. Gant's 82 page appeal to the Supreme Court, Appellate Division click here) Text Box: Reprint: Foundation for the Advancement of Innovative Medicine (FAIM) The website of the NYS Office of Professional Medical Conduct begins its report of the Charles Gant case by listing a series of charges brought against him in highly inflammatory and misleading language. Only if you really like reading long text on computer screens would you ever get to the part where it is revealed that the charges relating to the quality of his medical care have been overturned by an OPMC hearing panel. In fact, the hearing panel upheld Dr. Gant's methodology, which relies heavily on using nutritional supplements to treat many conditions by rebalancing biochemistry, most notably, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) in children. Further, they found that, contrary to the charges, Dr. Gant had done no harm to any of his patients: "The committee unanimously agreed that the Respondent's license should not be revoked. The record in this case established Respondent was not incompetent nor did his conduct amount to gross negligence. Nor did they find that his diagnostic or testing practices were an attempt to reap excessive financial gain. He was well versed in his type of practice and was not trying to take advantage of his patients. In mitigation of the findings of fraud, the committee notes that the use of erroneous codes was not done for the Respondent's financial benefit since his practice was one of fee for service." Dr. Gant was found guilty of minor record-keeping violations and his license was suspended for a period of six months, which can have a devastating impact on a physician's practice, his patients, and his staff. Further the decision would require him to hire a full time physician to "supervise" his practice which he could simply not afford, after spending over $300,000 defending his practice thus far. So the good doctor is packing it in and closing his New York practice for good. The hearing panel may not have intended that his practice end, but the system made sure it did. “The Flip Side of Your Right to Choose, Is Your Physician's License to Provide.” Text Box: This website would not be necessary were it not for the fact that physicans like Dr. Charles Gant continue to be attacked by the naïve and misinformed who read what appears on the surface to be some unsavory information about them on the internet which is published by a vile and discredited organization called the quackbusters (see The Bolen Report). Dr. Gant and many dedicated, competent pioneers have been prosecuted by various governmental agencies who have a mission to protect the status quo. We consider his prosecutions to be a badge of honor, not a disgrace. One only has to read with an open mind and reflect on the articles below to understand why he should feel honored to be added to the list of “public enemies,” along with the likes of Drs. Depok Chopra, Andrew Weil and Jeffrey Bland. Such political resistance to his life’s work defines how important it is. Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM, The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine click here) and Integrative Medicine threatens the so-called “accepted standard of care” which is largely based on covering up symptoms with drugs, allowing patients to remain sick or get sicker, and to become dependent or addicted to profitable drugs. The “healthcare system” is actually a disease maintenance system. Drug companies fraudulently misrepresent themselves through advertising, disinformation, biased education and propaganda, to trick consumers (and doctors) into believing that drug-induced symptom abatement means that one is getting well, when in fact it usually means that the underlying causes of their illness or disorder have worsened. Since CAM and Integrative Medicine practitioners like Dr. Charles Gant seek to heal their patients by reversing the underlying causes of disorders rather than covering symptoms up with potentially lethal chemicals, they represent a significant threat to pharmaceutical profits. Through all manner of political pressure and villainy, alternative and integrative practitioners like Dr. Gant are besieged in order to perpetuate widespread illness and dependence on drugs, thus protecting the financial basis of the so-called “health-care” system. Text Box: The Federation of State Medical Boards The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) sets forth policy for the state medical boards, essentially dictating to the state medical boards as to how they should regulate physicians and the practice of medicine. On the FSMB website, they publish a “Policy Document” (240.009) entitled Report of the Special Committee on Questionable and Deceptive Health Care Practices. In the first 4 paragraphs of the preamble in this document, “questionable” medicine, which obviously includes integrative and complementary/alternative medicine, is referred to as “deceptive, unproven, worthless, unsafe, improper, unlawful, fraudulent, incompetent and felonious.” The Federation of State Medical Boards further suggests that state medical boards coordinate with and among the following agencies in their respective potential areas of prosecutorial concern(s) to effective root out CAM physicians, as if they were criminals: Federal Trade Commission (deceptive/fraudulent health care promotions/claims); State Attorney General (consumer complaints/protection and deceptive/fraudulent health care promotions/claims); State Insurance Board/Commission (billing practices); Health Care Financing Administration (Medicare claims); U.S. Postal Service (mail fraud); U.S. Customs Service (import of unapproved/illicit drugs/devices); Food and Drug Administration (unapproved drugs/devices); and District Attorney (unlicensed practice of medicine and related criminal offenses). In other words, any physician like Dr. Charles Gant who is practicing integrative or complementary/alternative medicine, in the eyes of a healthcare regulator, is a criminal who is guilty before proven innocent. We believe that his regulatory fact is the single greatest impediment to widespread availability of integrative or complementary/alternative medicine to the public, who increasingly demands that physicians provide authentic healing interventions rather than simply covering up symptoms with drugs. But how many physicians will be willing to be branded as criminals and to be prosecuted by a medical police state by offering nutritional support and authentic healing services to their patients? Answer: Only the bravest and most committed. Regulators of so-called “healthcare” (actually disease management through symptom suppression) know that they are on the wrong side of history, and that ultimately their diabolical suppression of authentic healing practices must someday fall away like “chaff in the wind.” Until then, the disease management system must keep consumers ill, suppress their symptoms with dangerous drugs, enhance dependency on those chemicals simply to keep symptoms at bay and trick consumers into believing they are getting a “health” service, because maintaining pharmaceutical profits is all that matters. Those who resist such ignorance, pseudoscience and dishonesty are a threat to pharmaceutical profits and must be attacked, driven into economic ruin and discredited. This travesty happening in “healthcare” is exemplary of how wall street greed and villainy has driven the American economy into a serious recession—except that the problem here is more than wealth - peoples health is also being driven into the ground as well. Text Box:

Dr. Linus Pauling (1901–1994) was an American scientist, peace activist, author and educator.  He ranks among the most important scientists in any field of the 20th century.  Pauling was among the first scientists to work in the fields of quantum chemistry, molecular biology and orthomolecular medicine, a type of integrative medicine and CAM.  He is one of a small number of individuals to have been awarded more than one Nobel Prize and  one of only two people to receive them in different fields.  He has been heralded as the father of orthomolecular medicine. His paper (Science, 1968, April 19, 160(825):265-71) suggesting that varying the concentrations of substances normally present in the diet may control mental diseases, was attacked vehemently by organized medicine.

Text Box: PoliticsinHealing.com by Dan Haley The suppression and manipulation of American Medicine A former New York State Assemblyman who has spent a lifetime studying health and healing in America, Dan is a man uniquely able to tell the story of the damage greed and political influence has wrought on our nation's healthcare alternatives.  Dan has just completed and published a book written in clear and easy to follow language chronicling ten separate, well researched stories that will both shock and alarm you.  Text Box: Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (1818-1865) was a Hungarian physician called the "saviour of mothers" who discovered that the incidence of puerperal fever , also known as childbed fever, could be drastically cut by use of hand washing standards in obstetrical clinics. While employed as an assistant professor at the Vienna General Hospital in Austria in 1847, Semmelweis performed controlled studies on the effects of having doctors wash their hands with chlorinated lime solutions before delivering babies, which reduced the incidence of fatal puerperal fever from about 10 percent (range 5–30 percent) to about 1–2 percent. Semmelweis' hypothesis, that germs cause disease, was extreme at the time, and was largely ignored, rejected or ridiculed. He was dismissed from the hospital and harassed by the medical community in Vienna, which eventually forced him to move to Budapest. Semmelweis was outraged by the indifference of the medical profession and began writing open and increasingly angry letters to prominent European obstetricians, at times denouncing them as irresponsible murderers. His contemporaries, including his wife, believed he was losing his mind and he was in 1865 committed to an asylum (mental institution). Semmelweis died there only 14 days later after being severely beaten by guards. Text Box: The History of Medicine - An Historical Pattern of Brutality and Abuse The history of medicine has a dark side, replete with examples of brutality and abuse against innovators and healers which goes back hundreds of years.  In the 1600's, and probably way before that time, William Harvey, the father of cardiovascular medicine no less, was denounced for providing scientific evidence that blood actually circulates in the body. Any free thinker who breaks the bonds of conformity to obsolete approaches, especially those who provide controverting scientific evidence, is likely to be scorned and ostracized by arrogant medical communities.  In some cases, as in the Semmelweis example (on the left), they are driven into incarceration and beaten to death.  At least today, we have advanced to the point of only driving such physicians like Dr. Gant into bankruptcy and economic ruin, preventing them from getting malpractice insurance and subjecting them to the fascist propaganda of Quackbusters. Reminiscent of the "blackshirts" or "brownshirts" of European fascism, the Quackbuster goons and thugs carry out their popularized violence against healers at the behest of their governmental and corporate masters.  Today, medicine trudges blithely on writing its history for tomorrow, ignorant of the mistakes of its past, and doomed to continue repeating them. Text Box: Come join us in our struggle to protect honorable, innovative and competent physicians like Dr. Charles Gant in their fight against a corrupt healthcare system. It could be your physician who is next. Make a donation today to The American Association for Health Freedom. Click here