As we have reported previously, when integrative practitioners treat the whole patient, their treatments often challenge traditional models of medicine. State medical boards are aligned with the American Medical Associa- tion’s brand of allopathic medicine. Because of this, they have historically been biased against complementary and alternative medicine—to the point that they not infre- quently target practitioners specifically for practicing a higher standard of care.

But the tide is turning, according to attorney Jacques Simon. Simon represented Bill J. Rea, MD, in a stunning legal victory against the Texas Medical Board (TMB). The suit has helped shift bad board practices in Texas.

Jacques Simon has an outstanding success rate defending integrative medical doctors in these types of proceedings. He is one of four attorneys in the US who collaborate and specialize in this area. (The others are Alan Dumoff, Algis Augustine, and Richard Jaffe.)

Dr. Rea is a leading researcher and clinician in the field of environmental medicine and chemical sensitivity. For the past thirty years, he has treated illness caused by food and wide-ranging environmental factors such as air and water pollution. In 2005, the Texas Medical Board filed a number of charges against Dr. Rea, challenging his testing, diagnosis, and treatment — everything he does. They even claimed that Dr. Rea was injecting his patients with diesel fuel and harmful chemicals, a charge that was patently false.

After three long years in court, Simon was able to prove that the Board’s claims were unsubstantiated. Instead of revoking his license, the Board lamely told Dr. Rea to present a revised informed consent form to patients saying that his therapy is not “FDA approved”.

If you are a physician and under investigation, it is important to make no statement whatsoever to investigators or officials without the presence and approval of a lawyer. As Simon told us, “When an investigation starts, it is important for the physician not to make the mistake of thinking they are the authority in the field. Pick up the phone and call an attorney who specializes in these types of proceedings.” (Feel free to contact ANH-USA for a recommendation.)

Simon noted that the TMB has targeted integrative physicians in the past, but this has shifted in the last two or three years, and it appears they now investigate an equal number of traditional MDs. This is due in part to procedural actions taken by Dr. Rea through the course of his ordeal, which including filing charges against the board itself.

Texas has strong due process protections for doctors, but those rules are not always followed. ANH-USA is working to get a bill introduced in the Texas legislature that will provide physicians with redress if the board doesn’t follow its own rules. Jacques Simon notes that the more doctors fight back (and the more the boards are educated), the better the landscape will become in state medical board proceedings. Meanwhile, state laws and regulations are constantly changing, and it is important to remain vigilant.

ANH-USA has just released an 80-page report, “Know Your State’s Medical Board: An Integrative Medical Practitioner’s Guide to Understanding the Legal and Regulatory Environments in the 50 States.” Across the nation, state laws and regulations do not always adequately protect practitioners’ due process rights in medical board disciplinary proceedings, so we have created a guide and checklist to provide a general sense of the legal protections, or lack thereof, available in each state in the country. The report is available as a PDF document, and may be downloaded here (PDF).

Literature: ANH, Milestone Victory: Texas State Medical Board’s Attack on Leading Integrative Doctor Beaten Back, December 21, 2010

Copyright © 2010 Alliance for Natural Health USA (ANH-USA). Permission granted to forward, copy, or reprint with date and attribution to ANH-USA. Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Related articles:

• European Solidarity Letter to Texas Senate
• Dr. William Rea recognized as expert for BP Oil Spill Victims
• Charge against the well known German neurologist Dr. Binz

Ancient food source may offer neuroprotection

Nutritional supplementation with Spirulina, a nutrient-rich, blue-green algae, appeared to provide neuroprotective support for dying motor neurons in a mouse model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, University of South Florida neuroscientists have found. Although more research is needed, they suggest that a spirulina-supplemented diet may provide clinical benefits for ALS patients.

A spirulina dietary supplement was shown to delay the onset of motor symptoms and disease progression, reducing inflammatory markers and motor neuron death in a G93A mouse model of ALS. Spirulina, an ancient food source used by the Aztecs, may have a dual antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effect on motor neurons, the researchers said.

Their study is published (pdf) in the current issue of The Open Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Journal (3:36-41).

“ALS is a degenerative motor neuron disease,” said the study’s lead author, Svitlana Garbuzova-Davis, PhD, DSc, assistant professor in the Department of Neurosurgery and Brain Repair at USF. “Most available treatments relieve symptoms without altering the underlying disease. However, evidence for oxidative stress has been associated with ALS and, in our past studies, we demonstrated potent decreases in markers of oxidative damage and inflammation in aged rats fed diets supplemented with spirulina or spinach. In this initial study, the diet supplement was fed only to pre-symptomatic mice. Further studies showing the diet supplement’s effect on the lifespan of symptomatic ALS mice are needed to prove the treatment’s effectiveness.”

Specifically, when the USF researchers tested compounds found in blueberries and spirulina for effectiveness in animal models of stroke and aging in past experiments, they noted neuroprotective effects of the nutritional supplements.

The current study compared ALS mice receiving a spirulina-supplemented diet over a 10-week period with mice that did not receive the diet supplementation. The spirulina-fed ALS mice showed reduced inflammatory markers and motor neuron degeneration over that period.

“The focus of our future ALS experiments will include motor neuron counts and an examination of lifespan following dietary spirulina supplementation in symptomatic ALS mice,” said study co-author Paula C. Bickford, PhD, a professor in the USF Department of Neurosurgery and Brain Repair and a senior research biologist at the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital in Tampa.

Reference:

University of South Florida (USF Health), Blue-green algae tested for treating ALS, 21-Dec-2010

Related articles:

• Black rice rivals pricey blueberries as source of healthful antioxidants
• Breathe easy: A natural fruit compound may help Asthma

A new treatment has been developed for sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSHL), a condition that causes deafness in 40,000 Americans each year, usually in early middle-age. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Medicine describe the positive results of a preliminary trial of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1), applied as a topical gel.

Takayuki Nakagawa, from Kyoto University, Japan, worked with a team of researchers to test the gel in 25 patients whose SSHL had not responded to the normal treatment of systemic gluticosteroids. He said, “The results indicated that the topical IGF1 application using gelatin hydrogels was safe, and had equivalent or superior efficiency to the hyperbaric oxygen therapy that was used as a historical control; this suggests that the efficacy of topical IGF1 application should be further evaluated using randomized clinical trials”.

At 12 weeks after the test treatment, 48% of patients showed hearing improvement, and the proportion increased to 56% at 24 weeks. No serious adverse events were observed. This is the first time that growth factors have been tested as a hearing remedy. According to Nakagawa, “Although systemic glucocorticoid application results in hearing recovery in some patients with SSHL, approximately 20% show no recovery. Topical IGF1 application using gelatin hydrogels is well tolerated and may be efficacious for these patients”.

Reference:

1. Takayuki Nakagawa, Tatsunori Sakamoto, Harukazu Hiraumi, Yayoi S Kikkawa, Norio Yamamoto, Kiyomi Hamaguchi, Kazuya Ono, Masaya Yamamoto, Yasuhiko Tabata, Satoshi Teramukai, Shiro Tanaka, Harue Tada, Rie Onodera, Atsushi Yonezawa, Ken-ichi Inui and Juichi Ito, A Topical insulin-like growth factor 1 treatment using gelatin hydrogels for glucocorticoid-resistant sudden sensorineural hearing loss: a prospective clinical trial, BMC Medicine (in press)

• During embargo, article available here
• After the embargo, article available at the journal website Biomed Central

Related article:

Peripheral and Central Auditory Dysfunction Induced by Occupational Exposure to Organic Solvents

Dr. William J. Rea, founder and director of the Environmental Health Center-Dallas (EHC-D) and world renowned specialist in treating chemical injury, has been featured in several articles of late about the health effects of the BP Oil Spill on cleanup crews and local residents.

The latest, “BP blamed for toxification” by Dahr Jamail of Al Jazeera, details how the 1.9 million gallons of toxic chemical dispersants used to break up the oil released by the explosion at one of BP’s deepwater oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico last summer has caused a wide array of disturbing symptoms in people exposed to the chemicals. The article states “Pathways of exposure to the dispersants are inhalation, ingestion, skin and eye contact. Health impacts include headaches, vomiting, diarrhea, abdom- inal pains, chest pains, respiratory system damage, skin sensitisation, hyperten- sion, central nervous system (CNS) depression, neurotoxic effects, cardiac arrhythmia and cardiovas- cular damage.

The chemicals are also teratogenic, mutagenic and carcinogenic.”

Also being reported in other articles* is the onset of Toxicant-Induced Loss of Tolerance (TILT) – another name for Chemical Sensitivity, a disabling condition that makes life very difficult for sufferers who react to very low levels of chemicals, mold, and other substances. As chemical use in our culture is so ubiquitous and deeply woven into the fabric of daily life, managing the illness can be a life-long struggle.

BP Oil Spill Protest Banners © Infrogmation

Dr. Rea is an expert on Chemical Sensitivity, having treated many thousands of patients with the condition (including those exposed to toxic chemicals in crude oil and dispersants) since his treatment center opened in 1974. Regarding the BP Oil Spill victims, Dr. Rea explains his treatment approach:

‘We first try to eliminate people’s symptoms, and that is organ specific,’ Rea explained at his clinic, which is one of the oldest and most advanced centres in the world for addressing health as it relates to the environment. ‘We try to lower their toxic load by giving them intravenous nutrients, oral nutrients, sauna, and have them live in quarters that are less polluted, eat organic food and have them get safe drinking water.’

Rea has treated many people from the Gulf that have been made sick by BP’s toxic chemicals.

“I have multiple concerns now about people in the Gulf being affected by these chemicals,’ he said. ‘First, they are all fatigued and not able to work. When your muscles are all fatigued and tired, it’s hard to function. People are getting cloudy brains, others are having heart problems because of the chemicals. Others have broncho-spasm and asthma from this. Others bloat and get sleepy after eating, diarrhea, constipation, irritable bowel syndrome and other gastrointestinal problems.”

Dr. Rea stresses that it is critical to remove patients from the area of contamination in order for treatment to be effective.

In Ricki Ott’s article “BP, Governments Downplay Public Health Risk From Oil and Dispersants” published by Huffington Post last July, she reminds us that Dr. Rea treated some of the sick Exxon Valdez cleanup workers as well.

Planet Thrive is proud to host Dr. Rea’s free question and answer column and welcomes questions from those affected by the BP Oil Explosion tragedy, as well as those suffering from other forms of chemical exposure.

Source:

Planet Thrive, Dr. William Rea recognized as expert for BP Oil Spill victims, November 10, 2010

Related articles:

• Evidence mounts of BP spraying Dispersants
• Oil Spill: Kids in the Gulf
• * Huffington Post: Gulf Coast Oil Spill Work
• * Southern Studies: Tilt the Illness afflicting Workers exposed to BP’s Oil Desaster
• * WOAI: Mysterious Illness plagues Gulf Oil Disaster

PORTLAND, Ore — According to new research conducted at Oregon Health & Science University, yoga exercises may have the power to combat fibromyalgia — a medical disorder characterized by chronic widespread pain. The research is being published in the November 10 online edition of the journal Pain and will appear online Thursday, Oct. 14.

“Previous research suggests that the most successful treatment for fibromyalgia involves a combination of medications, physical exercise and development of coping skills,” said James Carson, Ph.D., a clinical health psychologist and an assistant professor of anesthesiology and perioperative medicine in the OHSU School of Medicine. “Here, we specifically focused on yoga to determine whether it should be considered as a prescribed treatment and the extent to which it can be successful.”

In this study, researchers enrolled 53 female study subjects previously diagnosed with fibromyalgia. The women were randomly assigned to two research groups. The first group participated in an eight-week yoga program, which included gentle poses, meditation, breathing exercises and group discussions. The second group of women — the control group — received standard medication treatments for fibromyalgia.

Following completion of the yoga program, researchers assessed each study subject using questionnaires and physical tests. The results were then compared with testing results obtained prior to the yoga classes. The members of the control group underwent the same evaluations. In addition, each participant in the yoga group was urged to keep a daily diary to personally assess their condition throughout the entire program.

Comparison of the data for the two groups revealed that yoga appears to assist in combating a number of serious fibromyalgia symptoms, including pain, fatigue, stiffness, poor sleep, depression, poor memory, anxiety and poor balance. All of these improvements were shown to be not only statistically but also clinically significant, meaning the changes were large enough to have a practical impact on daily functioning. For example, pain was reduced in the yoga group by an average of 24 percent, fatigue by 30 percent and depression by 42 percent.

“One likely reason for the apparent success of this study therapy was the strong commitment shown by the study subjects. Attendance at the classes was good as was most participants’ willingness to practice yoga while at home,” added Carson. “Based on the results of this research, we strongly believe that further study of this potential therapy is warranted.”

As an outcome of this study and Carson’s previous research showing yoga can be helpful with cancer-related pain, next June the OHSU Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine will be sponsoring a training course for U.S. and Canadian yoga teachers who want to build their skills for working with individuals who have chronic pain.

Literature:

Oregon Health & Science University, OHSU research suggests yoga can counteract fibromyalgia, 14-Oct.-2010

Futher Environmental Medicine Matters Articles about Fibromyalgia:

• Quality management is required in the diagnosis of fibromyalgia and MCS
• Unanimous Vote for Research Center for MCS, CFS, FMS, GWS in New Jersey
• New Criteria Proposed for Diagnosing Fibromyalgia
• Fibromyalgia Patients Show Decreases In Gray Matter Intensity