A Call to Action by Dannion Brinkley My friends, I come to you through Art Bell asking for you to take action. Asking for you to stand up as American Citizens and be heard. I have said to you many times to be mindful of legislation and to have your voice heard. We are at a junction where we as American Citizens have an opportunity to move health care forward by having our voice heard. I am asking for your help in seeing that alternative medicine research has an opportunity to move forward. As you know, I have fully integrated complementary and alternative therapies into my own health regimen and because of that I, even after lightning injury, heart and brain surgeries, I am alive and very active today. I have been fortunate because I have had access to many alternative practitioners and researchers. Every American should have the opportunity to determine whether or not they want to include complementary and alternative therapies in their treatment options. Only through rigorous and extensive research can the safe and effective integration of complementary and alternative therapies take place in this country and good information from reliable soures and the therapies themselves become available to everyone.
Every year, the United States Senate and House of Representatives develop appropriation bills to fund the activities of the various departments of the Federal Government. The Department of Health and Human Services' Appropriations Bill is scheduled to go to Committee next week. This means that the members of the Subcommittees on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations from both the Senate and the House will sit down together and look at the Senate and House versions of the bill and bring the two bills together into one bill. The Senate has incorporated a measure to elevate the Office of Alternative Medicine to become the Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. In order for this to happen, Congress must be aware that it is what the people want-- they need to be aware of your opinion. Every day there is more information about alternative therapies in the media and on the Internet - their uses and their potential dangers. What is needed to determine efficacy and safety is quality rigorous research and access to research results. Research and information dissemination takes focus and funding. Congress, in part because you the people were heard, created the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) (then known as the Office of Unconventional Medical Practices) in 1991 with a $2 million budget. Over the past 7 years the budget has grown to $20 million and now requested to be $50 million. Research is progressing slowly. More is needed and can only happen expediently with the advancement of OAM to a Center with a budget and personnel to accomplish the mission - to investigate and evaluate alternative and complementary therapies and make those research results known. Making OAM a Center gives it autonomy - it means that it would have grant making authority. Currently, OAM as a part of the Office of the Director of NIH must go through one of the research Institutes or Centers to provide grant funding, clearing each grant through that Institute or Centers advisory council, acceptance to do so is not required or guaranteed. For example, an alternative medicine grant to investigate an alternative cancer therapy, after being deemed by the OAM staff to be of scientific merit and appropriate for funding by OAM, must be processed through the National Cancer Institute and be cleared by that Institute's Advisory Board - a board that does not have any alternative medicine experts. Currently the AMPAC, (the Alternative Medicine Program Advisory Council) - the only HHS council on alternative medicine, whose members are alternative medicine researchers, practitioners, and patients, does not review alternative medicine grants and determine whether those grants should be funded or not -which is one of the primary activities of other NIH councils. The Center Bill was originally submitted to the Senate as: S.2420 - A Bill to establish within the National Institutes of Health an agency to be known as the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The bill was sponsored by Sen Harkin, the co-sponsors to date are: Sen Hatch, Sen Daschle, Sen Craig, Sen Mikulski, Sen D'Amato, Sen Moseley-Braun, Sen Grassley, and Sen Wellstone. WHAT CAN YOU DO? Get involved. Do you want alternative medicine research to advance? Do you want OAM to become a Center? If you do, let your Congressional Representatives know. Call, fax, e-mail. Be polite, be brief and clear in your communication and include your name and contact information. Identify yourself as an interested constituent. Contact your own representatives as well as those on the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies. Thank you very much for your help. Art and I will report back to you very soon on how we faired with this legislation. Dannion Brinkley - October 1, 1998 To view legislation see S.2440 at Thomas.Loc.Gov Scroll down to near the end to click on "Subpart 5 -- National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine" Reference S.2420 at Thomas.Loc.Gov which seems to be added to the above bill. Rowland Net Art Bell Talk Reading Room News and Announcements ######################################### The Philosopher's Stone http://earth.vol.com/~voltron// ######################################### -- The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver. To join or quit silver-list or silver-digest send an e-mail message to: silver-list-requ...@eskimo.com -or- silver-digest-requ...@eskimo.com with the word subscribe or unsubscribe in the subject: line. To post, address your message to: silver-list@eskimo.com List maintainer: Mike Devour <mdev...@id.net>