Dr. Fred Hui is an integrative medicine practitioner in Toronto, Ontario. I’m one of his biggest fans. Since my initial interest in intravenous vitamin and chelation therapy, Dr. Hui has been an instrumental figure in my career. His complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) treatments have been a game-changer for many of my family, friends, and clients over the past 20 years (check out How I Saved My Mother’s Life as an example).
Well, it looks like the CAM treatments that Dr. Hui offers are under attack and may no longer be available in Ontario. Take a look at this message that I received the other day:
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) has recently announced its intention to make drastic changes to its ‘Complementary and Alternative Medicine’ (CAM) policy. If adopted, the new policy will restrict physicians in Ontario from providing the CAM treatments you are currently receiving from me. It will be extremely difficult (even impossible) for CAM physicians, like myself, to practice without the fear of being unjustly disciplined by the CPSO. As a patient, you should have the right to access the care you need and want – whether it is a conventional treatment or an integrative / CAM treatment. The new policy robs you of this autonomy.
Under the revised policy, Ontario physicians will be effectively prohibited from using natural approaches to treat patients because they are not considered “evidence-based” therapies. The new policy specifies that physicians must only provide treatments that are supported by scientific evidence, such as randomized controlled trials and case-control studies. The issue is that natural substances and other non-patentable treatments will rarely obtain the financial backing to allow for costly, large-scale randomized, controlled trials to be conducted. Simply stated: if there is no patent to obtain, there is no incentive to finance the required ‘evidence’.
There are a number of other changes in the revised policy that create a hostile and unreasonably burdensome environment for CAM physicians. One example is the CPSO’s proposed removal of the current policy’s reference to section 5.1 of the Ontario Medicine Act, which protects physicians who provide treatments outside of conventional medicine. This provision states, “physicians shall not be found guilty of professional misconduct or incompetence solely on the basis that they practice a therapy that is non-traditional or that departs from the prevailing medical practice.”
I am encouraging you to take action to ensure your access to CAM treatments is not cut off. The CPSO has invited input on the proposed changes before March 15, 2021. It is anticipated that the revised policy will be adopted by the CPSO in May/June 2021.
Our collective voice will be louder and better heard if we join together.
Click HERE, HERE, and HERE for some instructions on what you can do to ensure your voice is heard. It’s critical that we work together to protect our rights to access integrative medicine. By coordinating our efforts, our collective voice will be louder and more powerful.
You or a loved one may really need these treatments one day. You shouldn’t be denied that right! Please share this article with as many people as you can.
