What is the health freedom movement?

Overview

The term “health freedom movement” gained currency in the United States during
the 1990s amid public debate about proposed legislation concerning
dietary
supplements. The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act
(DSHEA) was signed into law in 1994 by U.S. president Bill
Clinton, who welcomed the act as a victory for consumers. DSHEA did represent a
significant step forward for freedom of choice in health care. Putting the onus on
the U.S. Federal
Drug Administration (FDA) to prove a given supplement’s
potential danger, rather than obliging supplement manufacturers to provide proof
of their products’ safety and efficacy, the legislation largely exempted dietary
supplements from federal regulation.

As always, the health freedom movement made for strange bedfellows. DSHEA had been supported by both Democratic senator Tom Harkin and conservative Republican senator Orrin Hatch. More recently, the health freedom movement has been embraced in the United States by the Texas free market libertarian representative and presidential candidate Ron Paul and in Great Britain by the heir to the throne, Prince Charles.

One reason the movement remains so decentralized is that its primary goal is
opposition to regulation, which is by definition site-specific. Another is that
the movement is adamantly opposed to centralization, which is viewed as inimical
to the very notion of choice. Trade blocs, it is argued, tend to promote the
interests of business, particularly those of agribusiness
and the pharmaceutical industry, over those of individual countries and their
citizens. Of particular concern is the Codex Alimentarius Commission, a body
established in 1963 by the United Nations. The stated goals of the commission are
protecting consumer health and ensuring fair trade practices in international food
trade. In 2005, the commission adopted the Codex Alimentarius, guidelines for
standardization of dietary supplements that quickly raised the suspicions of the
health freedom movement, suspicions that were fueled by the European Union’s (EU)
adoption of the Food Supplements Directive (2002), aimed at tightening rules
concerning sales of vitamins and other dietary supplements.

Key Objectives

The movement strives for freedom of choice in every area of health care,
including mainstream and conventional medical treatments. Nonetheless, activists
driving the movement tend to favor medical alternatives such as orthomolecular
therapy and naturopathic medicine. Unfettered
access to all manner of vitamins, minerals, herbs, and other supplements unites
them, as does their general mistrust of pharmaceutical manufacturers. Like
advocates of antiaging medicine, health freedom activists argue for the
nutritional prevention and treatment of chronic diseases, advocating the use of,
for example, high dosages of vitamins C and E, despite a dearth of research
supporting such therapies. Any restrictions on supplements are viewed as favoring
the pharmaceutical industry, which many believe has a vested interest not in
promoting public health but in perpetuating disease.

A corollary to the movement’s demands for freedom of choice in nutrition is its
belief that persons should be free to opt out of overarching government health
programs, such as water fluoridation, mandatory childhood
vaccination, national electronic health records, and the sharing of genetic
information without patient consent. In March 2007, then Virginia governor Tim
Kaine signed legislation allowing state citizens over the age of fourteen to
refuse medical treatment for ailments such as cancer, heralding a victory for
health freedom. In 2010, the states of Idaho and Tennessee passed legislation
challenging a new federal mandate requiring uninsured citizens to purchase health
insurance; these laws, too, are by-products of the health freedom movement.
Skeptics claim, however, that such victories are hollow and pernicious.

Because the movement cannot legitimately pursue its goals in what would otherwise be the proper forum (science), health freedom turns to the political arena. Laws like the foregoing, critics argue, succeed only in further disenfranchising sick, poor, frightened, and desperate persons who pursue unproven medical treatments not because they wish to exercise their freedom of choice but because they have, or have been led to believe they have, no other options.

Bibliography

Alliance for Natural Health International. http://www.anhinternational.org. An organization based in the United Kingdom that was originally founded to challenge the European Union’s Food Supplements Directive.

Institute for Health Freedom. http://www.forhealthfreedom.org. A think tank established in 1996 and dedicated to promoting public policies supporting personal choice in health care in the United States.

Miller, Kevin P. We Become Silent: The Last Days of Health Freedom (2005). A short documentary film about health freedom directed by Kevin Miller, a longtime movement activist whose 1994 film Let Truth Be the Bias helped to marshal public support for the DSHEA Act in the United States. Available at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=451097355502728465#.

Walker, Martin J. “A Bibliographic History of the Health Freedom Movement.” Available at http://www.laleva.org/eng/2005/08/martin_walker_a_bibliographic_history_of_the_health_freedom_movement.html. This Web-based bibliographic essay is a rare extended written narrative about the health freedom movement.