Special Edition on FDA's Proposal to Regulate
Complementary & Alternative Medicine
Natural Health Newsletter from Alternative Health Insurance Services
April 2007
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A Personal Note From Steve Gorman, President of Alternative Health Insurance Services, Inc.
There is a lot of information and options being distributed regarding the threat posed by the FDA's Guidance for Industry on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Products and Their Regulation by the Food and Drug Administration.
Many see it as a threat to their freedom to select the type of medical care they receive and to use vitamins and supplements, and some organizations are pushing consumers to respond to the FDA.
In order to provide you with a balanced and accurate assessment of this situation, we are presenting you with information provided to us by John Weeks in his publication, The Integrator. Weeks is a 20-year veteran reporter and organizer in the field of complementary and integrated health care.
This special edition of our newsletter only addresses this one issue since April 30 is the current deadline to provide comments on the proposed guidance to the FDA.
Our May newsletter will be distributed a little later than normal as we do not want you to feel intruded on by too much communication from us.
I hope you find this information useful.
Sincerely,
Steve Gorman
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In recent weeks, a growing crescendo of concerned queries reached the Integrator about the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) document entitled Guidance for Industry on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Products and Their Regulation by the Food and Drug Administration. Reports put the number of responses to the FDA at close to, or exceeding, 100,000.
Is the FDA really trying to squelch health freedoms, stamp out dietary supplements, put alternative therapies and natural health care under the control of allopathic doctors and harm religious practices? Are these claims grounded?
Others ask: What does the FDA Guidance really mean?
The Integrator contacted legal and policy experts, the FDA, and an alphabet soup of organizations - AAHF, ABC, AANP, AAAOM, IMA. Also contacted and researched were organizations and individuals that are principal flame throwers in fomenting the public response.
The question quietly arose as to whether the bigger long-term challenge to "health freedoms" is anything new in this FDA Guidance or, instead, the possibly mis-directed stimulation of popular fury. We all know what Aesop taught about crying wolf.
Here is an attempt to get to the bottom of the claims and counter claims. Hope it is useful. - John
More ...
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The Elaine Anestos Gorman Foundation
We have established The Elaine Anestos Gorman Foundation for the purpose of raising consciousness about inflammatory breast cancer (IBC).
IBC is an advanced and accelerated form of breast cancer usually not detected by mammograms or ultrasounds. Some women who have inflammatory breast cancer may remain undiagnosed for long periods, even while seeing their doctor to learn the cause of their symptoms. The symptoms are similar to mastitis, a breast infection and some doctors, not recognizing IBC, will prescribe antibiotics. If a response to antibiotics is not apparent after a week, a biopsy should be performed or a referral to a breast specialist is warranted.
Within the past week, IRS has approved The Foundation's application for tax exempt status. With that approval, we were able to commence operations and created the website for the Foundation, which can be found at www.RememberElaine.org. There is enough information there to meet our primary goal of informing people about IBC, but we will be adding more content and links in the coming weeks.
While I find it difficult to share many of the private minutes I had with Elaine, I would like to share how the domain name selected for The Foundation's website was determined. Whever I was leaving to go anywhere, Elaine would usually say "Don't forget me". While trying to determine what would be a good domain name for the website, that memory hit me and it was obvious what the domain name had to be.
I hope you will share this website with many people and help us make more people aware of this deadly and little known disease, which is on the rise.
I would like to thank those who stepped up to the plate to be directors of The Foundation and those of you who have provided me with support and comfort during the most difficult time of my life. Most signifcantly, I want to remember and acknowledge Elaine, who changed my life in so many positive ways. Thank you, thank you, thank you! It is my hope that we can save some lives in her memory.
Sincerely,
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FREE ACUPUNCTURE & CHIROPRACTIC BENEFIT
Alternative Health Insurance Services now includes a free benefit for our individual and group clients that provides up to 20 acupuncture and/or chiropractic visits per year with a $20 co-payment for each visit. This complimentary benefit is a bonus for doing business with us and is included with most of the health insurance plans we offer.
We have contracted with Landmark Healthplan of California, Inc. to provide a combined chiropractic and acupuncture benefit that utilizes Participating Chiropractors and Acupuncturists. A directory of these providers may be found on the Landmark website at www.LandmarkHealthcare.com or from Alternative Health Insurance Services.
Participants will have a co-payment of only $20 per visit and can receive up to 20 visits per year. Treatments must be medically necessary to treat an injury or illness. After an initial visit, subsequent visits need to be pre-authorized by Landmark. Each participant will receive a Schedule of Benefits and other materials that fully describe their benefits, limitations, and exclusions.
This benefit is being provided at no cost to California clients of Alternative Health Insurance Services who are actively participating in a permanent health insurance plan where commissions are being paid to either Alternative Health Insurance or Steve Gorman. These benefits are being provided only to each primary policyholder and their spouse/partner.
This program is only available as a complimentary benefit to clients who have purchased their health insurance plans through Alternative Health Insurance Services and can not be purchased as a "stand-alone" benefit.
NEW VISION BENEFITS are now available from America's largest provider of eyecare coverage. Normally these benefits are only available to employees of large companies, but you can participate through our special program. For more details, click on the Vision Benefit link on our website.
Information in this newsletter is obtained from various sources and you are encouraged to conduct further research into any areas that you find interesting. Nothing contained in this newsletter is intended to recommend any treatment or therapy. Our intent is solely to share articles, information, and data that we believe is of interest to you. Some of the articles contain links where you can obtain additional information related to the subject of the article.
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