Many people trust that their Medical Doctors can tell them anything that they know which could help them get well. But that is not true. Doctors in most states must follow the acceptable and prevailing “standards of care” used by their profession. Even if they learn something new that is not already considered the standard of care, and they attempt to utilize it, they could lose their license.

It was thirty years ago when I first learned about this problem, and I was aghast. Could my doctor have recommended a different approach for my health issues? A friend of mine invited me to go to a meeting where three doctors would be speaking about being investigated for helping their patients. I went. And as I sat in the back of the room listening my blood started to boil.

One of the doctors who spoke was Dr. Keith Sehnert MD. He was well known in our state for helping women heal from chronic yeast infections. Almost all women can relate to this issue. I listened to his practical ways of dealing with this through diet and emotional support avenues and was inspired. I learned that he had written a number of seminal books which I was eager to read. Years later, after this meeting, I learned that they attempted to take his license away claiming there was no such thing as chronic yeast infections. His office was raided with officials demanding that he share his patient’s medical records. He had stood in front of the file cabinets and refused to give them up.  Later, on Christmas Eve, a package arrived at his door and his family put it under the Christmas tree. When they opened it, it was a subpoena for the records. The good doctor was threatened with loss of license but instead, very sadly, he chose to retire.

Another healthcare practitioner was a dentist from Iowa, Dr. Larry Hanus DDS. He had told a patient that there was mercury in their dental fillings and that mercury was a toxic substance. Because he spoke to his patient about this, his license to practice dentistry was taken away. Well, I had a Chemistry degree before I went to law school, and everyone knew that mercury is one of the most toxic substances on the planet. What I did not know at the time was that all of my silver dental fillings had mercury in them. I wanted more information immediately. Years later, after helpful legal challenges on the subject of mercury in dental fillings, Dr. Hanus was able to reinstate his license and to this day has a successful holistic dental practice.

This meeting had inspired me, and I began to design a possible legal solution to this problem. Maybe we could pass a law in our state that would protect our holistic doctors. At that point I heard about a woman in New York, Monica Miller, who had single-handedly gone to her legislature to change the law when her holistic Medical Doctor’s license was being challenged because she practiced homeopathy. The case of her doctor, Dr. George Guess MD, was a direct assault on homeopathy, and Monica was determined to change that. Because of her work in New York in 1990, New York became the first state to attempt to protect holistic doctors. It was a simple and powerful change, just adding the word “unconventional” to the statute. But sadly, this small change was not enough to prevent future complex challenges and protect all doctors doing complementary and alternative medicine. Hopefully, New York will one day pass more comprehensive legislation to protect their doctors.

Over the years I have reviewed many cases:

• • • Dr. Sinaiko in California who chose to successfully treat an ADHD patient with diet instead of recommending Ritalin.

    • Holistic doctors using chelation therapy for heart and systemic conditions.

    • Doctors who recommended medical exemptions to full vaccine schedules for children.

    • Doctors who began to use compounding pharmacies and off-label use of drugs successfully.

And, over the years, over twenty-five states submitted and passed legislation to protect their holistic doctors. Many of the new laws spelled out when a doctor could use complementary and alternative medicine. However, most of the new laws were problematic in that they always still stated that the doctors had to follow the standards of care. This has produced much confusion in the law. However, the good news is that in 2023 Utah successfully passed a protective law that allows doctors to go outside of the best practices under certain conditions, and we are celebrating their success!

Many people have become aware of this issue because Covid brought a whole new challenge to it. In the past few years, hundreds of good doctors have been investigated and lost their licenses for such things as recommending Ivermectin and other useful agents to combat illness, and for giving out medical exemptions to vaccine requirements.

In response to this extremely important ongoing issue, our organization has finalized a State Model Draft for Expanded Practice to have ready for state groups who want to pass comprehensive law to protect their doctors and the amazing tools that they have to help their patients get well. Learn more about the Expanded Practices Act. If this is an issue that you want to get involved with in your state, please contact us at National Health Freedom Coalition. We would love to hear from you.