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CAMA|
Georgia
Alternative Practitioners
to be
Placed
Under the Medical
Board
By
Marge Roberts
As
many of you know,
CAMA has been
meeting with a
task force of
the Medical Association
of Georgia (MAG).
Our mission was
to script CAM
(Complementary/Alternative
Medicine) legislation
that both parties
could support,
a noble but elusive
goal. Our first
meeting was in
January 2001,
when MAG asked
and CAMA agreed
to delay introduction
of our Freedom
Bill until 2002
so that we could
jointly draft
a bill over the
summer. After
numerous delays,
we did meet several
times last fall
with various bill
versions passed
back-and-forth.
Although the MAG representatives (lawyers, lobbyists and MDs) were most gracious, their major focus was the control and regulation of CAM Practitioners. The 2001-2002 session is now history. We did not succeed in developing joint legislation. Among the differing views, MAG's acting Executive Director reaffirmed that they would consider nothing short of a Board as acceptable oversight for alternative practitioners. We shared our misgivings concerning the formation of a Board: it was not needed; it would increase costs to the state, consumer and practitioner; it would not be approved by the legislature; it would not be supported by GORRC (you must show that the Board is necessary to protect the public - which is one of the reasons they did not support the recent attempt to license massage therapists). We were then told that perhaps we needed to consider putting alternative practitioners under the Medical Board. The precedent was set in Georgia when acupuncturists were placed under the Board's control in 2000. CAMA unsuccessfully opposed this legislation. We were concerned that it would set the stage for allopathy to regulate all of CAM. It appears that the concern was well founded. Whether the Georgia Medical Board would agree to control all of CAM or just choose those they want to control and eliminate/ignore the rest is an unknown. Now we must ask ourselves as both practitioners and consumers: Are we comfortable with CAM being controlled by those whose philosophy and approach to health/disease is diametrically opposed to that of most CAM therapies? Do we support attempts to convince the bureaucracy that CAM is dangerous in order to justify creation of a Board? Are we comfortable pursuing the formation of a CAM Board knowing that it may end up, as the acupuncturists did, under the Medical Board? As consumers, do we want to be restricted in our choice of practitioner, forced to choose among those approved by the Medical Board?
If
the answer is
no, then we need
to ACT now.
The legislature
will make laws
with or without
us.
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