California Citizens for Health Freedom Integrative Cancer Bill

It is a felony in the State of California for a medical doctor to treat cancer with anything except surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation. It is punishable by fine, loss of license, and imprisonment! This means that the citizens of California are being denied services to treat cancer if they are not in the mainstream bag of tools. Thousands of cancer patients who live in California are forced to leave the state to obtain the treatment they want and need in neighboring states such as Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico where it is legal, or travel out of the country to Mexico, Germany, Switzerland or many other places. Most people with cancer cannot afford to do this. 

It is an outrage that anyone is denied cancer treatment that is scientifically grounded but illegal. The turf war between oncologists and CAM practitioners is the focus of attention rather than finding ways to integrate safe therapies that could help people with cancer, especially when the treatments available don't work. It is a sad scenario when treatment success in stage 4 cancers is only about 2% for a 5 year survival with conventional therapies and there are no other options because of partisan laws. There are many MDs in California who have the knowledge and skill to help many of these patients with five year survival rates that can be as high as 30-50% at 5 years, but are unwilling to offer it for fear of serious legal action from their medical board. 

Fortunately, there is an organization that is working to change this partisan law that must be to the liking of the pharmaceutical companies that make billions of dollars from treatments that are all too often outrageously expensive, ineffective, and treacherous. It is called California Citizens for Health Freedom (CCFHF), and it is headed by Frank Cuny. Achievements of CCFHF include licensing of naturopaths in California and setting up their own board, passing legislation making it legal for MDs to practice integrative medicine in California so long as they don't dissuade patients from mainstream treatments and they don't cause them harm, and making it possible for midwives to practice in the State of California. CCFHF has also blocked considerable legislation that would have made nutritional medicine illegal, and has come to the rescue of many MDs who practice complementary and alternative medicine and are threatened by their medical board with loss of license for doing so. It is now a legal requirement that the California Medical Licensing Board review all cases against MDs with board members that have training in the field involved in each case. 

You can learn more about CCFHF at www.citizenshealth.org, or go to NaturalNews.tv  for two short videos explaining what CCFHF does and more about the bill that will be presented to the California Legislature in the coming months. If you want to make a donation to this fine organization, it would be tax deductable and much appreciated. We simply cannot withhold scientifically based treatments for cancer because of turf wars or from partisan laws that favor the pharmaceutical industry and conventional oncologists. 

Len Saputo, MD