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Preserve Our Medical Freedom
One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence was, Dr. Benjamin Rush, a physician, educator and politician. Dr. Rush was a member of the Continental Congress and was a member of the Pennsylvania Convention that ratified the US Constitution. He became a professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania , among other things, and was a founder of the first American Antislavery society. Rush Medical College in Chicago is named after him.
In addition to Dr. Rush's stellar career in medicine he had one very insightful idea that he wanted added to the Constitution that unfortunately was not. Dr. Rush believed that the right to Medical Freedom should be etched into the Constitution and was as important as the right to Freedom of Religion. His thoughts were unbelievably accurate given today's political climate. The following is a quote from Dr. Rush's argument before the American Continental Congress:
"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."
Sadly, the right to medical freedom was not inserted in the Constitution, and today we have the government, medical and pharmaceutical groups working together to limit our medical choices. For example, did you know that it is illegal in California for a doctor to prescribe anything but chemotherapy, radiation or surgery for the treatment of cancer? It's true.
The good news is that there is a new bill pending in the US Congress that can start reversing this process and give us an increase in medical therapy choices. It's called The Dietary Supplement and Healthy Meal Replacement Tax Parity Act -H.R. 1545 THIS BILL, IF PASSED WOULD ALLOW THE DEDUCTABILITY OF SUPPLEMENTS AS A MEDICAL EXPENSE ON OUR FEDERAL INCOME TAX FORM.
This bill recognizes the health benefits, including disease prevention, of these supplements and meal replacements, and would allow them to be deducted as medical expenses. Right now, they cannot be deducted on federal tax forms.
Please email your Congressional Representatives in Support of this bill.
In the words of Thomas Jefferson - "If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in a sorry a state as the souls who live under tyranny."
Copyright by Cynthia Drasler, MBA. Permission is granted by Cynthia Drasler to reproduce this newsletter in whole or in part only if Cynthia Drasler and Organic Excellence is credited as the source.
