Current Health Freedom Issues at the Minnesota Capitol
Updated May 2008

We want to thank everyone for actively pursuing their respective state lawmakers pertaining to current legislation. Please keep the emails, phone calls and letters rolling as it is important to continue communication with your State Senator.

To Find Your State Senator.

These Senators deserve a huge thank you.  They listened to your calls and emails and supported us with their vote on HF 1724.

• Senator Jim Vickerman
• Senator Steve Dille
• Senator Michelle Fischbach

To Find Information on HF1724, 

Civics 101 – Need a little refresher on how a bill becomes law

Ensuring Consumer Access to Holistic Healing Practitioners

Minnesota Natural Health Legal Reform Project Spearheaded Legislation for Consumer Access to Complementary and Alternative Health Care Practitioners
Mn Stat. 146A - 2000

Minnesota had a problem similar to most other states in the nation: existing laws nearly a century old meant that no one, licensed or unlicensed, could legally practice alternative healing methods. 1) If a person were a licensed health care practitioner, they were required to follow the prevailing standard of care for their profession, so using alternative methods of care could put them at jeopardy of losing their license. 2) If they were an unlicensed practitioners of a healing modality that had never required licensure, then they were guilty of practicing medicine without a license, and could be criminally prosecuted at any time.

Indeed, in 1996, a leading naturopath was charged with practicing medicine without a license, despite an absence of any consumer complaints, a holistic dentist lost his license for advocating mercury-free dental fillings, and a holistic doctor was severely harrassed by his board.

For those practitioners helping their clients with preventative and wellness therapies that were so safe that licensure was not indicated, the risk of criminal prosecution was real. The medical practice act forbids the practice of medicine to anyone unlicensed, and the practice of medicine was defined as "offers or undertakes to prevent, diagnose, correct, or treat in any manner or by any means, methods, devices, or instrumentalities, any disease, illness, pain, wound, fracture, infirmity, deformity or defect of any person."

Minnesota Natural Health Legal Reform Project, a grass roots consumer group, suggested a novel approach to ensure that Minnesotans could have access to the healers they wished, by enabling the practitioners to have an exemption to the medical act. Working with legislative authors Senator Twyla Ring, DFL, and Rep. Lynda Boudreau, GOP, and the Minnesota Department of Health, legislation was crafted. that passed overwhelmingly. Legislators found that Minnesotans really care about access to their favorite natural health practitioners!

The product was MN Statute 146A, the Complementary and Alternative Freedom of Access Act, which:

• Gave an exemption from the medical practice act to those unlicensed practitioners of natural healing modalities that complied with the requirements in the statute.
• Forbid unlicensed natural health practitioners to use healing treatments that caused an imminent risk of significant harm
• Created a list of prohibited conduct to which practitioners must adhere
• Created a new Office of Unlicensed Complementary and Alternative Health Care Practitioners in the Minnesota Department of Health to receive complaints and take actions if indicated
• Required unlicensed practitioners to give their clients a Client Bill of Rights, including disclosure that they were not licensed practitioners, their education and training relating to their healing practices, and the phone number of the officein the MN Dept of Health if there should be complaints.

During the initial problem-solving, the group first considered creating licensure for all natural healers. We thought we would license naturopaths, homeopaths, herbalists, massage therapists, Shiatsu practitioners, yoga teachers, healing touch ... As we began to consider creating all of these separate scopes of practice, we started to realize the absurdity of that approach! If a person is licensed as a homeopath, he can’t advise a client to take vitamin C - that would be the nutritionists’ exclusive domain. If a person is licensed to do Qi Gong, she couldn’t suggest some herbal echinacea, without the herbalists crying foul! Nor could an herbalist do a simple hands-on energy healing. We started to realize that creating all of these separate boxes would exclude any healing practitioner from imparting the wide range of safe, non-toxic, centuries-old therapies that work together to restore health.

We learned that natural health care, which works by gently strengthening the body’s ability to heal itself, does not fit into the old paradigm of licensure. Licensure exists to protect the public from health care procedures which carry a risk of harm – treatments such as surgery, radiation, and pharmaceutical drugs. Our research showed that these gentle, non-invasive, non-toxic natural healing services had a very low incidence of adverse effects, and it was not wise to restrict these services to only a few practitioners. Gentle, safe modalities of natural health care should always remain in the public domain.

Statute 146A has worked well in Minnesota. Minnesota consumers have access to the healing practitioners they desire, and they have the information needed to make informed choices. Minnesota has become a model for other states seeking to ensure access to all healing choices. Six states now have health freedom exemption laws; and 19 additional states are working toward the passage of similar health freedom acts.

After 11 years, the Minnesota Natural Health Legal Reform Projectcontinues to work to maintain and secure the public's free access to the modalities of healing of their choice. The citizens of Minnesota value the ability to choose from the wide range of differently educated practitioners that exist today, and the rich heritage of the natural healing arts contributes to the good health and wellness of Minnesotans today.

The Minnesota Natural Health Legal Reform Project is a 501[c]4 non-profit political action organization.
MNHLRP; PO Box 315; Rosemount, MN 55068; Email mnhlrp@charter.net; (651) 322 - 4542