Ralph's Blog

Thanks to Eric for asking this question. I’ll try to be short but you asked for it. This is a big topic. PLEASE, forgive typos, I am in a hurry. Yes, I always think about and have positive suggestions for what I criticize. So, here goes:

First repeal ObamaCare completely. It is not about healthcare, it is about government control over people’s lives. The government that controls the health of its people controls its people. Never forget that. See previous post on the absurdity of ObamaCare. Come on, 16,000 IRS agents? The Surgeon General becoming part of the military? 2 other regiments of Pretorian Guard units? Taxes on tanning beds? That’s not about healthcare.

Next, lets look at the uninsured.  There are those uninsured by choice. They prefer it. Why?

Some are young, healthy, and cannot justify the expense. Most get by just fine.

Some have found that insurance will not pay for the services they would seek and/or use.  Specifically alternative providers and methods.

Some are wealthy and can afford to completely self-insure, even against catastrophic illness or accidents, so why give insurance companies thousands a year? (I am NOT in this category.) Leave these people alone, they are not the problem.

Probably un-pc to mention, but the uninsured numbers are inflated due to illegal aliens. While some consider border crashing a right, it is not. Laws should be enforced until they are changed. But that is a another story.

Point being, the numbers are not as significant as they appear. But, that is no consolation to someone who needs care, cannot afford it, and has no coverage. SO, what to do?  Here’s my suggestions.

Understand healthcare is not a right, it is a responsibility, each individual’s responsibility. If it is not, it means I am responsible because someone else (or their parents) choses to smoke, drink, skydive, eat at Burger KIng, whatever. Screw that. People who chose high risk behavior should pay the price for it, not have their risk spread out over all of us. Individual responsibility must be created in people’s minds. The notion that people can do whatever they want and when their body fails someone else should pay for it is not only morally wrong, it is a lot of the reason for the dis-health walking the streets today. However, this attitude is the foundation of allopathic medicine, which can only thrive if there is ever increasing dis-health. If wellness broke out it would be an economic disaster to our current system.  There must be an attitudinal shift to health & wellness and it must be forced down people’s throats if necessary. Not to restrict free will, but if you want to dance you should have to pay the fiddler.

The true solution is to make coverage, or the ability to pay for care, affordable again. When I was born, everyone could afford healthcare and few had insurance. Now few can afford healthcare and everyone almost has to have insurance.  This is not an accident, it is by design. It is a brilliant scam to scare the public into buying insurance, create a huge pool of money, and draw from it. Insurance companies make money as it passes through their hands. The allopaths can constantly increase their rates and thus insurance costs must go up, and around goes the wheel. Then make sure people keep getting sicker and sicker and it is a gold mine for the allopathic-insurance cartel. This cycle must be broken. (NOTE: ObamaCare facilitates the cycle with government funding and mandatory participation.)  .  

There are two main sides to address, the patient and the providers.

Patients:

First, create a system of health savings accounts, with unlimited contribution levels and every dollar contributed eligible for a 100% tax credit. This would apply to either the individual purchaser or to the business (employer) who contributes to the employee’s fund. People can then “shop” for care, compare prices and purchase the best options for themselves. Unused funds accumulate year to year. (This would be a huge boon to alternative providers.)

For people who cannot afford to contribute to such a plan, based on income and circumstances, the government, that’s the taxpaying (working) citizens, will contribute to fund plans for those people, administered through state governments using some form of controlled debit card.

Because savings accounts might not be built up enough to cover a catastrophic health event, insurance companies would offer “umbrella” policies that would reimburse savings accounts for catastrophic, or even minor events, depending on the coverage one purchases. Again 100% tax credit to the individual or employer. The indigent would be covered by government subsidies.

Insurance companies would be allowed to market a wider menu of products nationally (across state lines). True, unrestricted competition is good. (John D. Rockfeller said, “competition is a sin,” and thus began the era of the cartels. Our current medical system is a cartel of the allopaths, the pharmaceuticals, insurers, and government. Government is always a player in cartels.)

All billing for care must go through the patient’s savings account and must be approved by and paid for by the patient. Insurance would reimburse the patient, never the provider. This would virtually eliminate the billions lost to insurance fraud. Counselors and advisors can be provided for those who cannot figure it all out. Of course they will get corrupted and soon be on the take but it would be better than the current system.

Providers

Cost efficient systems of care must rise to the top of the medical food chain. Allopahty must be relegated to crisis and trauma care - which they are the absolute best at. Alternative providers of the patient’s choice should be able to be reimbursed from the patient’s health savings account. Likewise alternative remedies and procedures.

The allopathic medical monopoly, granted and enforced by state governments must be broken and open market competition between all providers encouraged. Freedom to practice acts should be passed in every state. If you hurt somebody you should get punished big time, but no harm - no hassles.  In conjunction with this, Freedom of Choice in healthcare legislation should be passed in every state and no one should be forced to submit to forced healthcare of any kind against their will. 

Providers should be able to advertise rates and services openly. Success and failure rates would have to be posted publicly for hospitals and providers providing surgical, radiological, and pharmaceutical care. Again, encouraging competition.

Government regulations like HIPPA and other oppressive, expensive government regulations would be repealed.

State boards would be forbidden from persecuting providers who use or recommend alternative procedures.

The malpractice system needs to be changed, but in some way that still protects the injured while allowing providers to practice without constant fear of being sued for trying to help someone. Too much money is currently wasted due to CYA tests and procedures.

Reduce as much federal regulation as possible and delegate government oversight to state and local agencies.

Additionally

Women face more healthcare challenges than men and this should be considered, There may need to be some form of local or state government operated or subsidized clinics to provide contraceptive care, OBGYN services, etc. for this very important and special needs group that is currently under served as health in future generation begins here. No government funding of abortion, as is currently the case.

Something has to be done about the degradation of the food supply. We are what we eat and health begins with nutrition, not medications. Strong organic standards must be established,  rigidly enforced, and given priority over conventional food production. 100% accuracy in food labeling, including clear labeling of irradiated and GMO foods. Extensive safety studies must be done on all GMO food plants and animals as well as any mass treatments such as fluoridation. (No, there has never been a safety study done on fluoridation, but that’s another story.) No vaccine should be required until extensive safety studies are completed and published. (But you could take it prior to safety studies if you want.) Mercury should be banished from healthcare.

Finally, incentives must be given for health & wellness, either to individuals or to providers, maybe both. This can be done through tax incentives, lower umbrella policy rates, education from early ages, or other creative ideas. 

In summary, create open competition, less regulation, incentives for wellness, and a safety net for those who need it, but never a hammock. This coupled with an improved food supply, increased education and awareness and you will see a dramatic decrease in healthcare costs, an improvement in services delivered, and overall improvement in the health of the citizens. What do you think?

This quote does the best job of summing up ObamaCare I have ever read.

“Let’s get this straight. We’re going to be ‘gifted’ with a healthcare plan we are forced to purchase, and fined if we don’t, which purportedly covers at least 10 million more people without adding a single doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a congress that didn’t read it, but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a president who smokes, with funding administered by a Treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, for which we’ll be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that is broke.” -

Dennie Gartman

Is there anything wrong with this picture, or is this a good thing?

What da’ ya think?

Canadian researchers, of course what do they know?  only our FDA and USDA researchers can really asses GMO safety according to out government’s current (Obama) administration and the rest of the world should just trust USDA Sec.Tom Vilsack, but just the same,

scientists from the University of Sherbrooke, Canada have detected the insecticidal protein Cry1Ab in the blood streams of pregnant and non-pregnant mothers as well as in the fetal blood. This is a peer reviewed study and will be publishes in the journal Reproductive Toxicology soon, unless Monsanto buys them off. GMO advocates say this protein breaks down in the human gut and poses no threat, but son-of-a -gun, there it is in the blood stream.

Who do you trust?  Monsanto, the USDA, the US-FDA, , et all, or peer reviewed Canadian research?

You folks in California now have something more important than Arnold’s love child to care about.  There is a ballot initiative that if passed would require the labeling of all foods that contain GMO ingredients. Support this effort, please.  Lead the nation to honesty in food labeling. 

For more information see the Organic Consumers Organization website or this page:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_23212.cfm

You’ll have to copy and paste it, it is not an active link here.

Have a healthy day!

Soil Life and Mammal Fertility Being Destroyed.

NOTE: This post is a continuation of my column in the April issue of Massage Today on this subject.  This IS serious folks.

COL (Ret.) Don M. Huber
Emeritus Professor, Purdue University,
APS Coordinator, USDA National Plant Disease Recovery System (NPDRS) has written former Iowa Governor, now Secretary of Agriculture (USDA) in the Obama administration a letter pleading to stop the approval of anymore GMO crops. It seems a new pathogen has been found in Round-up ready products that can affect both plants and mammals (humans are mammals – that’s you.)  His letter concludes: “I have studied plant pathogens for more than 50 years. We are now seeing an unprecedented trend of increasing plant and animal diseases and disorders. This pathogen may be instrumental to understanding and solving this problem. It deserves immediate attention with significant resources to avoid a general collapse of our critical agricultural infrastructure.”

A general collapse?  Whoa – that is serious. Even global warming is not projected to cause that kind of catastrophe.

This new pathogen, a fungus, about the size of a medium-sized virus, can reproduce and is now linked to sudden death syndrome in plants as well as sterility and spontaneous abortion in animals. So it kills plants and makes mammals sterile. Well, that should do it. The population control folks should love this. Do you realize that this potentially means we could be the last generations of humans? GMO foods were suppose to end famine. Guess if there are no people there won’t be any famine.

I live in Iowa and right now we are using the world’s best farmland to grow gasoline using the most chemical intensive farming methods ever. Food prices are skyrocketing as we turn food crops into fuel, which we have plenty of in the form of petroleum.  New petroleum reserves have been found right here in North America that dwarf the middle east reserves. But, we are growing fuel instead of drilling for it to stop global warming. Meanwhile, the glyphosate (Round-up) is destroying our soil, water, and now the health of plants and animals. The GMO foods you are now unknowingly eating are taking a toll on your health. This is no joke. It is deadly serious.

Our culture justifies human suffering in the name of profit.  Monsanto and other chemical companies are doing everything possible to keep the lid on this. The Obama administration is approving new GMO foods that even the Bush administration rejected. Some change. If this goes on there won’t be much hope.

Meanwhile our congress argues over a few million dollars for Planned Parenthood. But hey, we killed the Wicked Witch of the East so happy days are here again.

Friends, it is time to get active about this. The entire letter and article is at:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_22625.cfm

The Organic Consumers Organization is spearheading the fight against Monsanto. They are an excellent source of information. They deserve your support.

Your help is needed. The health, maybe even the survival of your grandchildren depends on it, and time is of the essence.

Japan & Iodine

The following post has NOT been approved by the FDA or any government agency and likely never will be.  These words are not intended to be used for the treatment of disease or medical conditions.

This post is meant to create awareness, not to cause panic, fear, or harm in any way. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

There is a possibility that the USA could be showered with radioactive fallout from the damaged nuclear reactors in Japan.  Your exposure risk is greater the closer you are to the west coast.

I went to massage school in New Mexico where they have been dealing with exposure to radioactive materials since WW II. The natural health community has found several things help protect people from radioactive exposure.  They are:

Iodine – most people are deficient in iodine anyway. WHO says 72% of the world’s population has iodine deficiency disorder. Just because you do not have goiter (extreme iodine deficiency) you can still be sub-clinically deficient. Having sufficient levels of iodine protect the body from radiation poisoning, especially radioactive iodine poisoning. Radioactive iodine is being released into the atmosphere from the Japanese reactors. If you pay attention you have heard Japan is distributing iodine tablets – a cure for radiation poisoning. However, as a cure it is a bit late to prevent the damage.  Taking it before exposure and getting levels up is a better way to go as it helps prevent absorption (poisoning) when exposed.

The US RDA for iodine is 150 mcg. Dr. Guy Abraham, iodine researcher at UCLA School of Medicine says 12.5 milligrams per day (12,500 mcg) is the optimal dose.  12 – 14 mg is safe but 20 mg and over becomes dangerous and can depress thyroid functioning. Ramp up to 12 mg level over a few weeks.

Supplements are about he only way you can get this much.  Our soils are too depleted for much iodine to be in our food. They put it in salt but tell you not to eat salt and you shouldn’t eat enough iodized salt to get the RDA.

 Body urine pH need to be between 6.3 - 6.6 for efficient iodine acceptance. This is the narrowest pH band-width of any mineral. Probably another reason so many are iodine deficient. Check your urine pH with litmus paper. Body pH is another story for another day.

The government-medical cartel has suppressed information and RDA levels of iodine and vitamin D.  They know if people had plenty of these two nutrients, wellness could break-out and that would be an economic disaster.

Seaweed is a good source of iodine but how much of it can you eat and enjoy doing it?

Kelp:  Powered kelp can be put in soups, on salads, sandwiches, etc. However, there is no way to know what kind of iodine dosage you are really getting, so a good thing to use, but I wouldn’t bet the ranch or my health on it.

A good colleague in AZ just reported to me that she upped her iodine and has newfound energy and mental clarity.  You might feel better too and protect yourself from radiation poisoning. Iodine helps support good thyroid function and the removal of many heavy metals.

Antioxidants: Other factors to consider include upping your antioxidants to help the body deal with the free radicals caused by radioactivity. There are lots of antioxidant supplements on the market. If nothing else take plenty of Vitamin C.  A, C, E, combinations are better and with selenium, zinc, etc are best.

Salt & Soda Baths: In New Mexico they found that salt and soda baths helped people exposed to radiation.  Take 1 pound of non-iodized sea salt and 1 pound of baking soda and put it in a bath tub – draw a bath as warm as you can enjoy and soak for 15 – 20 minutes.  Then wash and rinse off. It is believed to help pull radiation and toxins out of the body.  Pretty cheap and easy; It’s relaxing (always a good thing) and might help you feel better.

Once a week is fine, but if radiation levels are high, every day is a good idea.

The USA may or may not get a significant dose of radiation from Japan.  Depends on the winds and how bad the disaster gets. As I write this, it is getting worse and worse. If a core is breeched then we have to worry about uranium and plutonium as well as the iodine and cesium. It appears that is happening. Better to be prepared and protected.  Some health food stores are reporting 50 calls per hour for iodine. Hopefully supplies are adequate and stores will be re-stocked soon. Get it while you can.

The natural disaster in Japan is not only a devastating loss of life and property, but possibly a major ecological disaster as well if there are core meltdowns. They will affect the ocean as well as the land. Japan’s government now admits there is significant health endangering radiation exposure. The US 7^th Fleet was pulled back due to radiation levels off the East Coast of Japan. Levels were described as no more than a day in the Sun or a plane trip. Come on, the Navy is out in the Sun all day. It’s bad and getting worse. There is now conflicting information as to how long the radiation lasts once released and if it will reach the USA. Conflicting to me means either they don’t really know or don’t want us to. Remember -  Nothing is true until it is officially denied. Always remember this.

To give you an idea of how hard Japan got hit:

The most powerful weapon ever devised by our fiendish minds was the Soviet-era nuclear device nicknamed “Tsar Bomba.”  At close to 50 megatons, Tsar Bomba packed a wallop more than 1000 times the destructive force of all the bombs with which we slammed the door on World War II COMBINED. Last week’s Sendai earthquake in Japan was a seismic event which registered 9.0 on the Richter scale. That’s the energy equivalent of almost ten times the force of Tsar Bomba. Gives one a sense of humility for the Powers of Nature and the Forces of the Elements, or it should.

Hope this helps you take care of yourself. Your welcome.

Be Well!

 A great musician has left us.  Richie Hayward, co-founder and drummer of the jam band Little Feat passed over from pneumonia August 12 while waiting for a liver transplant. Guess he didn’t have the status or money of David Crosby or Phil Lesh. Or maybe it just wasn’t to be. Little Feat lived hard & played hard. They were a musician’s band.

Richie was originally from Ames, IA. He was only a year older than me, so still a young man. When in High School, he would set his drums up on the gym floor at pep rallies and he would get the entire gym up and shouting. I saw his early band The Noblemen, a R&B Horn band, my first year in college at ISU. They went to CA briefly and broke up. He stayed and made it. Richie and Little Feat were a strong influence on my playing, and on both Rural and The Deputy Dawg Band. Both bands played covers of Little Feat songs.  I got to see them twice, once with Lowell George.  The night Lowell George, original lead guitarist of Little Feat died, The Deputy Dawg Band was playing at the Stagecoach in Mason City, IA. Someone came in during the middle of our second set and told us they had just heard it on the news. Don Myers, our lead guitarist spontaneously broke into Dixie Chicken which we had dabbled with but never played before in public.  It was an inspired jam and became a regular in our set lists.  We still play it during our reunion concerts.

 May Richie’s body RIP. His beat will go on as will his Soul. Music never dies. Thanks Ritchie, for all the grooves.

 A great musician has left us.  Richie Hayward, co-founder and drummer of the jam band Little Feat passed over from pneumonia August 12 while waiting for a liver transplant. Guess he didn’t have the status or money of David Crosby or Phil Lesh. Or maybe it just wasn’t to be. Little Feat lived hard & played hard. They were a musician’s band.

Richie was originally from Ames, IA. He was only a year older than me, so still a young man. When in High School, he would set his drums up on the gym floor at pep rallies and he would get the entire gym up and shouting. I saw his early band The Noblemen, a R&B Horn band, my first year in college at ISU. They went to CA briefly and broke up. He stayed and made it. Richie and Little Feat were a strong influence on my playing, and on both Rural and The Deputy Dawg Band. Both bands played covers of Little Feat songs.  I got to see them twice, once with Lowell George.  The night Lowell George, original lead guitarist of Little Feat died, The Deputy Dawg Band was playing at the Stagecoach in Mason City, IA. Someone came in during the middle of our second set and told us they had just heard it on the news. Don Myers, our lead guitarist spontaneously broke into Dixie Chicken which we had dabbled with but never played before in public.  It was an inspired jam and became a regular in our set lists.  We still play it during our reunion concerts.

 May Richie’s body RIP. His beat will go on as will his Soul. Music never dies. Thanks Ritchie, for all the grooves.

Someone has declared July as Self-Love Month.  Why only July I ask ? But if you have to pick one, why not this one I guess?
Here are the 5 points of the Self-Love Star. 

1. SELF-WORTH- Fill your own cup first. When you have a full cup you can be generous with others. Ask: Do I value my needs? Do I prioritize “me” time?
2. SELF-NURTURING- Nourish yourself. Ask: How do I love myself today? 
3. SELF-EMPATHY- Have compassion for yourself. Feel and express your emotions. Trust your intuition. 
4. SELF-EXPRESSION- What bold thing would you share with the world if the fear of judgment or rejection wasn’t holding you back? 
5. SELF-ACCEPTANCE- Forgive yourself. Accept that you are doing the best you can with the resources you have.


Love yourself, so you can better love others.  But more importantly, so others can better love you.

Beware the MTBOK my Friends - Part 2

 More on the MTBOK - I received these questions from a colleague.  They are good questions and of course I give excellent, educational answers.  I thought it was worth sharing with those of you who care.  If you are not in the massage or healthcare profession, this won’t mean much to you.  The previous post contains introductory info on the MTBOK if you are interested or you can see it yourself at www.mtbok.org.

Hey ‘Ralph, Thanks for the connection to your blog.  I did receive the AMTA e-mail announcing the release of Version 1 of the MTBOK and I read the document there.  I thought it was rather ‘ho hum’ until I got to the Scope of Practice part.  Then the hair on the back of my neck stiffened. 

   What does “prescription of therapeutic strengthening exercises” mean?  ( in the Not Included section)   This would be telling your patient to do 10 sit ups a day, or any other exercise to strengthen muscles that have to do with their condition. Recommending TheraBands, Exercise Balls, Rubber Bands, etc. Especially giving a page showing a particular exercise and saying how many to do. Any muscle-bound idiot at a health club can give anyone any exercise, but not a massage therapist.  Why not? Because our own profession says we can’t.  After all, we don’t want to be helping people too much.  This is a sell-out to the PT lobby.  Every profession has been sold out from within.

 Do the items in the “Not Included” section mean ‘not included UNLESS you have certification/licensure in those specific areas?  There is some debate about this.  There is a line or two somewhere that implies that we can work above the scope they define if we have certifications or training.  Well, were are those certifications??? Who decided what enough training is, short of a certification program?  Is an “in-house” certification program valid, as in from Doug Nelson, or me, or Upledger?  Who are we to certify anybody in the eyes of “The Stakeholders”? Initially, this will do nothing to anyone that is in a licensed state.  We will be governed by our scope as written in statute and rules.  However, FSMTB is part of the MTBOK project.  As they integrate MTBOK language into state rules and statutes, it will then reduce out scope.  However, it is worse.  What if you hurt someone and the patient sues or just files a claim?  You can bet lawyers will run to the MTBOK to show that you were out of your scope of practice.  Now the court has to decide what rules.  Statute should, but judges and juries are strange.  AND - if you can be  shown to be out of your scope, you have no insurance coverage.  So, if there is a real claim against you, our own (AMTA) lawyers could try to prove you are outside your scope so they can avoid a claim.  After all, that is what insurance companies do - try to avoid paying claims.  Since you are an AMTA member, and AMTA is a stakeholder in MTBOK, will MTBOK be adopted by AMTA and used to determine scope for insurance coverage,instead of individual state statutes?  I have no answers, but I think they are reasonable questions with potentially devastating answers to those of use who practice “therapy”.   To bodyrubbers and relaxation therapists, the vast majority of our profession, it doesn’t matter.  This is a non-issue to most therapists.  However, to those of us who do clinical massage, this has the potential to slowly shut us down.  Boo - hoo for us.  What is worse, is our own profession will be denying the public access to the full potential of soft - tissue therapy. 

After reading the Scope of Practice--Not Included sections the first time I thought I would be out of business if these things were written into our license law.

EXACTLY - that is why I am so up in arms over this.  It could wipe “Clinical Massage Therapy” off the map.  ”Teach less, Do less, Insure less” appears to be our new professional motto.  They will probably leave the relatively few of us who do clinical massage alone for the most part, as we will be retiring, dying or quitting relatively soon. As schools are forced to teach less and less, soon therapy will just fade out and be forgotten.  

Thanks again for the link to your blog.  Very Interesting. 

Later, 

Ken
You are welcome Ken.  Thanks for sharing these very good questions and giving me an opportunity to point out more of the dangers of MTBOK.  Read it and weep.
Ralph 

NOTE: This post is primarily for Massage Therapists

Dear Colleagues - 

Never has there been such a threat to the practice of therapeutic (clinical) massage as the current Massage Therapy Body of Knowledge project (MTBOK).

MTBOK is financed by the two major insurance vendors of our profession, AMTA and ABMP, along with the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards, NCBTMB, and The Massage Therapy Foundation.

The proclaimed purpose of MTBOK is the:

• Definition of massage therapy

Describing the Field (primarily to enhance understanding and appreciation of the profession by those outside the profession)

Scope of Practice

Terminology

  • Competencies of an entry-level massage therapist (knowledge, skills, abilities)

A noble sounding task for sure.  I have no problem with the concept.

The “Stakeholders” above created a committee or work group or whatever it is called of 8 very talented people. They are:

Megan Lavery

Kevin Pierce

Susan Salvo

Michael Shea        

Steve Schenkman

Dawn Schmidt

Nancy Schmitt

JoEllen Sefton

 I know several of these people personally and do not doubt their good intentions. In no way am I attacking or criticizing them personally.  However, I seriously question parts of their collective work, especially when it comes to scope of practice, as it is potentially very dangerous to those in our profession who practice “clinical” techniques

.

If you care about the massage/bodywork profession you need to read the proposed standards, the MTBOK second draft, about to be shoved down our throats. The AMTA Board of Directors will vote to approve the current version of the document in Mid-May.  The plan is to unveil it at the Foundations’s research conference this summer.

See the document at http://www.MTBOK.org

Of course you don’t have time to read the entire document, but please just read the scope of practice section, what is and isn’t to be our scope of practice. Its only about 3 or 4 pages. Then use the comments form and let them know what you think, yeah or nay.

Let me give you some previews of our proposed scope of practice.

   Specifically the following are outside of our scope of practice:

Line 375 - We can no longer sell herbal and other over the counter medications. That would be Bio-Freeze among others.

Line 377 – No Inter-anal massage  (Very important for pelvic floor conditions including a somewhat common muscle condition, piriformis syndrome, is not in our scope according to the proposed MTBOK.)

Line 382 – Ear candling no longer allowed

Line 383 - NO Ultra-sound, electro-therapy, etc. (Sorry FL, all the work you have done to expand out scope is being sold down the river by the MTBOK.)

Line 386  - No use of Chinese herbs.

Line 387 – No Moxibustion

Line 388 – no western herbalism

Line 389 – no diet and nutritional counseling or recommending supplements, vitamins, or other nutraceuticals.  (The dieticians tried to suppress this and failed in most states, now the MTBOK is doing it to us.)

Line 392 – Exercise, including personal fitness training, Tai Ji Quan, QI Gong, and prescription of therapeutic strengthening exercises is not in our scope.  (The PT’s will love this clause.)

Line 399 – No Homeopathy including Bach Flower Remedies

Line 401 – No Colonic Irrigation or any other form of internal hydrotherapy. (So best not be advising your patients to drink water if you want to stay within your scope.)

Line 402 No intentional use of techniques to evoke an emotional response in the client.  (So, since relaxation is an emotional response, I am not sure what is left that we can do. According to the International Association for the Study of Pain, “Pain is an emotion, expressed as a feeling, and is therefore a psychological experience resulting from physical stimuli.”  Better not ever cause pain of any kind.  Better not decorate your office to elicit the emotional response of calm, peaceful, safe, etc. Better not use music; it is a powerful emotional stimulant.)

I am not sure what will be left of our scope of practice that is useful or therapeutic, especially considering line 402. Maybe if you just rub some lubricant around gently and no one complains, you may be within our scope of practice.  MTBOK should be stopped, thrown out or dramatically changed, at least in the scope of practice section. 

Of course none of this will really affect you until a complaint or lawsuit is filed and you find you have no insurance coverage because you are beyond your scope. Since the FSMTB is on board, they will adopt it, state by state over time. There goes your license if you’re outside your scope. States with good laws and expansive scope will be reigned in.  The allopaths (PT’s, MD’s, Dieticians, etc.) are going to love MTBOK.

As an alternative profession, why are we following the traditional, failed medical model?  Why are we giving up so much of the good we can do?  To save our insurance vendors money and time, that’s why. 

There will be no challenges by the allopaths to our scope if it is this limited. Licensing laws that only restrict and tax us will now be easy to pass.

Follow the money trail and you will clearly understand MTBOK. The less a school has to teach, especially in a hands-on classroom, the more money they make. It appears the educational standards in MTBOK are being set up to facilitate and maximize “distance learning”.  Put your hands on your monitor. The education standards are a large part of the document.  They include the encouragement of evidence based procedures, lines 1297 - 99 (more on this abomination in a future post) and being sure the entry-level therapist has good “digital literacy skills.” including search engines and on-line databases, so important in the delivery of a quality massage.   See lines 798 – 815.  How has the profession of massage survived until now without these skills?  Will every massage school have to have a computer lab?  We don’t need massage therapists with digital literacy, we need therapists with palpatory literacy.

 Think about this: The less an insurance vendor has to insure against, the fewer claims and the more profit they make from our dues premiums.  The smaller and more limited our scope of practice the better – for them.  Too bad for the public, and us.

The document says it is just trying to establish entry-level standards.  Almost everything it eliminates from our scope of practice was taught to me in entry-level massage school.  Who gets hurt by this?  The public. Who benefits?  The schools and the insurance vendors.

The document hints that therapists who obtain advanced training or certifications can practice what they know, but I predict that if a malpractice claim is filed against you, you can bet the MTBOK will rule.  Lawyers will flock to it and wave it high. Watch for extra cost insurance riders to be marketed.  These are very high profit.

Most professions and their associations are doing everything possible to expand their profession’s scope of practice.  Not massage/bodywork.  Our new motto seems to be “To teach less and insure less.”  Follow the money trail. Who suffers most is the public, as they are being deprived of the care massage therapists should potentially be able to provide.

Take Action

If you like MTBOK, you should let them know.  However, if you do not, if you see the potential damage to our profession’s scope of practice, be sure and let them know.  This is the second draft. The final is yet to come.  There is time to salvage this if enough people care. Do you?