Taking Back Our Power

Taking Back Our Power
The following was submitted to Massage and Bodywork Magazine in response to an article about medical massage therapy. For a complete understanding, please read the article at http://www.massageandbodywork.com/Articles/FebMar2007/medicalmassage.html.

Kudos to Deane Juhan for an excellent analysis of the current state of affairs regarding medical massage. I wish to comment on the “strictly uncoincidental” American Medical Massage Association (AMMA) link to the American Medical Association. He is correct in linking the attempt of the AMA to defraud the public about the benefits of holistic therapies. Many people don’t know that Medical Freedom was an original vision of the Founders of America.

“History can often yield insights into our dilemmas. Health care is no exception. The Founders of America envisioned a health-care system based on principles of the dignity and liberty of every person. They were:

1. A right to work. England’s system of guilds and licenses kept many people out of the healing arts. America would allow anyone to become a doctor or to open a healing school or clinic.
2. A right to choice. America would permit a variety of healers and healing modalities. Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Constitution and the “Father of American Psychiatry”, believed that Americans should enshrine the right to medical freedom in their Constitution, much as the right to freedom of religion is expressly guaranteed in that document. Rush is reported to have argued that "Unless we put Medical Freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship . . . to restrict the art of healing to one class of men, and deny equal privilege to others, will be to constitute the Bastille of Medical Science. All such laws are un-American and despotic and have no place in a Republic ... The Constitution of this Republic should make special privilege for Medical Freedom as well as Religious Freedom." (1)
3. A limited role of government to protect the right to contract and to prevent fraud. Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution reads, “No state shall ... pass any ... law impairing the obligation of contracts.” Laws against fraud were to protect the health consumer. The government was not to play favorites and could not pay for, restrict, or subsidize any group or healing method.” (2)

Why was this not included in the Constitution of the United States? I’m still looking for the history of that.

The history of the AMA is that it engaged in a deliberate propaganda war against what it termed “irregular” practitioners starting in 1900. “The main purpose of a medical society/association is to provide political pressure to adopt laws that would kill the competition.” (1) For more information on what the AMA doesn’t want you to know about it, go to http://www.newstarget.com/008845.html , “What the American Medical Association hopes you never learn about its true history.” (3) In this excellently researched article, you will discover that the AMA continues its campaign to kill the competition over 100 years later.

I shudder to think what would happen if the AMMA is successful in its propaganda campaign against “fringe” massage and bodywork modalities. I am trained in and use almost all of the “fringe” therapies they list in their position statement with great success and benefit to my clients. As a “therapist of high caliber desiring professional recognition for what [I] am able to do”, I am not willing to stand by and let that happen. For my part, I educate my clients, as well as the public, through my newsletters, website, and blog. I encourage everyone to do the same. Through grassroots efforts that include all of the massage associations and the public we will be able to achieve the ability to be a respected part the healthcare team functioning in a multidisciplinary environment, just as Deane Juhan envisions.

Debra Redman, LMT, NCTMB
Atlanta, Georgia

(1) The Wellness Directory of Minnesota, http://www.mnwelldir.org/, History of Medicine
(2) Dr. Lawrence D. Wilson, “Healing the Health-Care System” (2001), http://www.fff.org/freedom/1201e.asp
(3) Jessica Fraser, “What the American Medical Association hopes you never learn about its true history”, (Thursday, June 23, 2005), http://www.newstarget.com/008845.html