It’s being spearheaded by a secretive, private, and powerful organization called the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB). State-based Action Alerts!
Don’t be deceived. While this is a federation of all seventy state and territorial medical and osteopathic boards, it is not terribly clear who is behind it—we are guessing it is the American Medical Society working together with Big Pharma. Now it has succeeded in launching the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact. To go into effect, the compact required approval by seven state legislatures; so far, eleven states have approved the legislation, with bills pending in nine other states.
You will not be surprised to hear that the FSMB has historically been hostile to integrative medicine. Despite having no public funding, transparency, or accountability, FSMB also wields a tremendous amount of power over the practice of medicine in all fifty states. The organization has demonstrated its antipathy toward natural health since the mid-1990s, when it discussed altering the definition of health fraud to include alternative medical care! It would appear that FSMB considers innovative approaches to healthcare to be nothing more than exercises in “quackery.”
The stated intent of this legislation is to streamline the licensing process for physicians who want to practice in multiple states. That sounds good on the surface. Proponents also argue that the compact will address physician shortages in underserved areas and address a growing need for physicians after millions of new patients have entered the market following the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
You can consult our previous coverage for more detailed background, but here are and major problems with this multi-state compact:
- Increased fees: The compact allows the FSMB to drastically increase the fees it can collect as more states pass its legislation and more doctors take advantage of the streamlined process. A recent analysis found that, of 878,194 licensed physicians in the US, 79% of them held only one license. As another commentator put it, “Many dollars can be made by raising the number of active licenses.”
- Maintenance of Certification programs: The FSMB would require physicians seeking a license through the compact to participate in a credentialing process overseen by one of twenty-four approved medical specialty boards of the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS). While ABMS argues that its recertification process maintains high standards, many physicians see this as little more than a money-making endeavor—the American Board of Internal Medicine received more than $55 million in fees from physicians seeking certification—or as a way to screen out integrative doctors. Worse, these certifications are often used as a requirement for hospital employment.
- Lack of accountability: There is a stunning lack of accountability with the FSMB-created Interstate Commission to enforce the compact. While we’ve been critical of the actions of some state medical boards, at least there is some degree of process by which the public can weigh in when rules are created. But when one bad rule can affect at least seven different states, how can the public have any input? Considering FSMB’s record of enmity toward integrative medicine, we should be extremely wary of its legislation.
- Takes power away from the states: The FSMB claims its proposal “reflects the effort of the state medical boards to develop a dynamic, self-regulatory system of expedited state medical licensure over which the participating states maintain control through a coordinated legislative and administrative process,” and is therefore the “ultimate expression of state authority.” Such a claim, however, is frankly not credible—especially considering that the language of the compact clearly states that rules made by the Interstate Commission would have “the force and effect of statutory law in a member state.”
The points about expanding patient access to physicians also seem to be disingenuous. An observer put it this way:
If a doctor in Montana can now practice in Wyoming, some patients there may have access to another doctor. But, if the Montana doctor is spending time with Wyoming patients, then the doctor is spending less time with Montana patients. The net effect is likely to be close to zero. But, also notice that, if the Montana doctor had spare time there, then there is evidence of a surplus of doctors in Montana and not a shortage.
Let’s not forget FSMB’s close ties to Big Pharma. A few years ago we reported that the FSMB asked for $100,000 from the pharmaceutical industry to help create and distribute the organization’s new policy on pain medication to their 700,000 practicing doctors. The federation won’t say how much money it received from industry, but at the time estimated that it would cost $3.1 million for its campaign.
The main benefit of passing the compact, it seems, is not in improving the lives of physicians or expanding patient access to healthcare, but rather in lining the coffers of another unrepresentative bureaucracy. We must oppose this bad legislation.
State-based Action Alerts! Check below to see if your state has either 1) passed the compact or 2) has legislation pending, and send a message to your state representatives urging them to repeal or oppose the FSMB’s legislation. Please send your message immediately.
States where legislation is pending:
Maryland
Michigan
Nebraska
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Texas
Vermont
Wisconsin
States where the compact is enacted:
Alabama
Idaho
Illinois
Iowa
Minnesota
Montana
Nevada
South Dakota
Utah
West Virginia
Wyoming
Other articles in this week’s Pulse of Natural Health:
TPP a Disaster for Natural Health
Coca-Cola Scandal: Emails Prove Deception
“Agent Orange” Herbicide Pulled by EPA
I do not have time to figure out what any of this means, but my simple logic is that anything advertised I avoid, and the more profits they make, the less I will trust. (Love of money is the root of all evil . . . I Timothy 6:10)
So you avoid aspirin? Money isn’t all bad it is the attempt to get it and doing it morally wrong that is the issue. Not to try and hijack the thread look at D. Trump he is the persona of evil and he is also rich. How he got that way says more to his character than anything else. Yes and don’t bring up his father as the money helped shape Trump’s (lack) of character.
You seem to bring up other issues regularly.
Sorry I only started to post to this forum in the last week or so. Maybe you are thinking of someone else?
Yes, it seems that this site is now starting to attract attention of trolling crowd.
Yes,if you do your research, you will find those avoid aspirin avoid death a lot more often that those who take it. Do your research, and look indepth…don’t just read headlines of medical studies, you will find out that often the study has different results than the “summary” that doctors skim through.
Stop going to doctors.If you are healthy don’t go for “check-ups”. If you are retired and on one of the HMO’s that want you to come in every 6 months – don’t go. You’ll save the insurance co. lots of money that could be better used on people who are sick. Quit having such faith in them. They are only human and MD does NOT stand for Medical Deity!! Study your body – learn how it works. Study your diet – you are what you eat. When you have a diseased condition – do the research – you have a computer – make use of it. When you get prescription medication look up the side effects – these ARE the EFFECTS of the medication. They are all poisonous/toxic in one way or another and NEVER cure. (except for anti-biotics- and even that has been brought under scrutiny)
OMG! The MD’s will never forgive you for saying that MD doesn’t stand for medical deity. Especially those who are sure it does! LOL
Reading the article on the cost of useless and often toxic or fatal cancer treatment drugs, I was reminded of a 2 hour documentary titled “Hoxsey:
Quacks Who Cure Cancer” which went into great detail on Hoxsey’s herbal and dietary treatment for cancer. My favorite character in that documentary was a spunky little lady probably 50 years or so age who was being interviewed and was telling about telling her regular medical doctor that she was going to Hoxsey’s clinic. Her doctor said: What for. He’s not going to do anything but take all your money and leave you destitute”. Her reply to that was: “He can’t! You already did!” The origin of Hoxsey’s treatment was totally outside the medical field. His grandfather’s prize horse developed cancer and he turned it out to pasture to enjoy what time it had left. He was surprised that the horse was improving, instead of worsening, so he started observing it more closely and noticed that it was eating a lot of stuff that horses didn’t normally eat, so he passed the herbals information onto to others and the formula for it to his grandson, who had 70+ cancer treatment clinics throughout the USA, until the medical field harassed him out of business. His nurse, Mildred Nelson, took his formula and kept using it in Tia Juana, Mexico. Since Mildred died a few years ago, they have changed its name to Biomedical Clinic to distance itself from Hoxsey, but still using his treatment.
I have read that the above documentary is available under a different name at Project Hope, but haven’t been able to confirm if it is.
I had a friend who was HIV+ and spent a fortune on medication (probably quackery type) and in the end really didn’t help. He would have been better off with the mainstream medication. This doesn’t prove anything except when the mainstream medications do work they can and do save lives. How many lives were lost due to fools chasing bad meds?
I know big pharma tends to be bad but most of their medications do work and you have a better chance with them than the quacks.
Holistic treatment has a higher rate of success,is less costly & most important doesn’t make the patient’s life unbearable.
Yes, it is amazing that the fraud is allowed to continue so readily. If the extremely expensive drug helps the person live 6 weeks it is touted as a miracle. To the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, and the poor patient dies anyway.
Chemo is amazingly toxic, we have lost almost a dozen of friends in the past 4 years to chemo.They were fine BEFORE all the toxic medicating, they had a small bump somewhere. Enter chemo – 3 months later they were dead.
Best6 advice ever given-don’t go or they will find something wrong with you.
I only go if I lost some function or am bleeding.
Have a happy shortened life.
I’m 71 & play tennis frequently….
Great for you! Now about the Alzheimer’s patients out there maybe medical help is out there.
Obamacare will grant them euthanasia.
That is an outright lie and even republicans have acknowledged it. Just like the Planned Parenthood tapes were heavily edited to make it appear that babies had been murdered.
I was being facetious,Obamacare will discontinue treatment which will be the same thing. You are sadly deluded about PP,on their best day they are baby murderers.
If ricbee stays off the recommended low fat, high sugars, and GMOs , there will be no Alzeimers, as there was hardly any dementia PRIOR to the touted low food diet. Nonexisten in my parents generation – the Alzheimer’s.
Would you please go TROLLING somewhere else, where they like you, ps2os2 ?
The medical industry kills. Overdiagnosis >Overtreatment >Iatrogenesis (shortened and miserable life on drugs).
Your gross over simplification of the issue shows that you do not have any idea about the issue.
Not quite true. Every single time I enter an MDs office I get MISDIAGNOSED. So not going gives me a much better shot at good long healthy life. And by the way, I don’t ever plan to retire, so you don’t come back at the customary about sucking up long years of Social security. I will work as long as I live.
Happy to hear you don’t need doctors. Plenty people need them as there are sick people out there.
I used to listen to doctors , and do what they told me. It kept me solidly sick much of the time. One day I woke up, and stopped listening to what they told me ! Surprise, I got healthy. I realized that job security for docs are people coming back for more drugs, and more tests, and many of those tests have bad side effects , such as mammograms, and other radioactive tests.
So I don’t do any of it, keep myself healthy. Doing the opposite of what the docs told me to do.
The first time I was sick as a baby was from allergy to cow milk, and they shot me up full of antibiotics. Then it took years of week immune system, until I build my system up after I stopped listening to them, and taking their vile antibiotics.
Cure? Funny concept. Antibiotics kill. Oh, by the way, you cure hams. That means adding salts so dead matter doesn’t rot. You are on the right track! Health promotion is the key to success. Eat well, think well, move well is what I’ve been told.
Seek a competent “natural” practitioner if you wish to maintain or improve your health…
That sounds close to witch doctor. Seriously live a life that suits you.
Are you paid to dispute anything that is not white powder medicine. Or are you just a self appointed jerk! get a life!
ps2os2 may be a troll…or a fool.
I read a lot of his other posts online,and he may be BOTH.
Thanks for the confirmation.
Everybody has their own opinion and when opinions diverge then it becomes a discussion. Some of you are so sure you are right you are just as bad as the anti abortionists (God is my side) so everybody else is wrong.
I am not paid for anything and thank you I have a life. What gripes me more is that people aren’t more trusting of their medical providers. If you don’t like an opinion go somewhere else, either that will confirm the 1st doctors diagnosis or it won’t.
You ps2os2 sound quite misinformed. I used to work for a certified practitioner who used to accept those who were proclaimed as good as dead (2-3 weeks to live) by Sloan Kettering hospital, the so called cancer death towers in NYC.
My practitioner treated the entire patient,as he was not an MD, so he was not allowed to treat cancer. When these “Dead” patients walked into Sloan 3 months later, they were given a clean bill of health. The hospital was happy, as the got much money for all the tests to tell them they had no more cancer, the patient was happy, the only one who cried was the funeral parlor.
And you in you infinite ignorance and fear liken it to a ‘witch doctor”. Hm.
My doctor(s) do not over prescribe. I have had several doctors write out a script for 10 pills and on the other hand a heart specialist which I see goes over my medications with a fine tooth comb and he takes me off some that other doctor prescribes. There are *maybe* 1 or 2 pills that are iffy and when ever I go to see my Dr he goes through the meds with me . He also has access to all my doctors notes and tests and works up, charts etc etc etc. I am getting excellent care.
My neighbor just went into the hospice and while I have sympathy for him his wife is a doubter from way back and makes him eat “healthy” choices. I would never want to live in an environment that is so “healthy”.
My biggest *BITCH* is that a lot of the meds sound alike and look alike sand I have to be extra careful when I fell my weeks pillbox.
You take drugs; why are you even here?
I thought it would be nice to give the other side.
Wow, you are on 30 plus meds, and call it NON overprescribed. It seems to amount more than many consume in actual food.
Actually its 2 small hand fulls twice a day. As long as I take water with them its not too bad.
well, people are just going to have to use some on line time to visit sites like “Know the Cause” to learn better prevention by better nutrition, as well as sites with natural cures for many things, making good use of alternative medicine. Your nutrition will improve if decrease grains, but use whole grains when you do. Also as one person put it, eating the rainbow improves one’s nutrition as long as you make sure the colors comes from the natural foods – not from food colors, m&ms and twinkles.
Do you mean the “American Medical Association”?
Sounds like they are renaming the AMA, or maybe they are just starting up a 2nd one world global government, aka the new world order, to join them in trying to put all who not taking orders from the new world order out of business in the medical field.
Perhaps now is a good time for all to write, call or e-mail their state medical boards to remind them that MD does not stand for medical deity and they have no right to deny any adult the right to choose their preference for medical care, nor any parent to choose their child’s medical care. Don’t know about the rest of you, but I think it is disgraceful and criminal that children are being kidnapped and forced to undergo chemo by the doctors, hospitals and courts, when the parent desires to have their child treated by less harmful and damaging treatment with a much better chance of a cure and a much better quality of life after treatment.
No one has the right to force any undesired medical treatment on another human, especially when the usual slash, burn and poison protocol for cancer treatment is not very effective, rarely or never cures, but always leaves one in a debilitated state of health, poorer quality of life and a shortened life span – as well as leaving the entire family financially destitute.
WHERE AND HOW DO YOU EXPECT A PERSON TO “TAKE ACTION” ON THIS?
I just posted, above you, the way we can destroy the AMA & Big Pharma cancer industry
ps2os2 – Which Big Pharmaceutical Company employs you or pays you? I am not tempted to take any of the medicines advertised on TV. Many of them have Death as a side effect, so Rx drugs will shorten your life not lengthen it! Natural Medicine cured a bone infection I had (Osteomyelitis) which is considered incurable by Modern Medicine. I have taken myself off all Pharmaceutical Drugs and feel a great deal better for it. Modern medicine and Rx medicine has no intention of curing problems that you might have, it merely masks the symptoms! However the symptoms return when you stop taking the Rx drug. MD then prescribes more of the same and then something else to mask the symptoms of the side effects. This then shows up new side effects and yet another medicine is prescribed etc. etc. Natural Medicine and a change in Nutrition would in many cases cure the symptoms. The only losers would be the Pharmaceutical Companies and those that receive kickbacks for prescribing their “Poisons”; Throw in the tax man as an additional beneficiary!
Since you didn’t reply to my message, I did not see your reply because I don’t sit by
the computer and look for all updates.
I am not employed nor do I have stock in *ANY* drug company.
I do take prescribed medications (quite a few in fact, 30+).
Some of them are reasonably benign and some of them serious. One is for high blood pressure and one for AFIB. Others for various aliments I have. I have been in the hospital several times in the last 10 years. Most for life threatening ailments and a few for trivial issues. My last heart related issue was for AFIB and they “kicked” me out of the hospital because Medicare said they would only allow 3 days (or was it 2) and of course while leaving the hospital I went back into AFIB and they had to readmit me. One of the more serious hospitalizations was for an occurrence (I have forgotten the name sorry) and I was hospitalized for 2 weeks and it took me 3 months to get over effects of the medications (steroids) that they gave, so believe me I know the bad side effects of medications.
I would not have survived without steroids but the side effects were almost as bad as the issue I had. So believe me when I tell you that medication can be the difference between life and death.
Is big pharama (as some of you call it), bad? Yes and no they do produce life saving medications for the most part and yes *SOME* are bad.
I will let the experts decide which are good and which are bad as I am not an expert.
I do like the AMA’s new position about taking drug marketing off of TV. Its a step in the right direction. When it comes down to it, a doctor is no different than a mechanic he can steer you in the right direction but he can’t help it if you get in a car and kill someone.
Poor soul, being on 30 + prescribed meds you hardly have any of your own soul left ! A friend was on 16 meds, most of them prescribed for the side effects of the first 3 and all she could talk about then were the NAMES of her meds…Nothing of her own spirit was left. Her new doctor weaned her off all but 2 meds, and now she can communicate mostly as her own old self…Very funny and living girl, but turned into a zombie on those dangerous toxic drugs.
Stay away from doctors unless you really need them! Get the diagnosis and or testing and go to natural medicine.