Colorado Natural Health Consumer Protection Act-Part 4

C.R.S. 6-1-724. Unlicensed alternative health care practitioners - deceptive trade practices

Prohibiting recommendations to discontinue care or prescription drugs from health care professionals

The Colorado Natural Health Consumer Protection Act addresses and prohibits certain practices in the alternative health industry that are detrimental to consumers seeking health care. One overtly common practice is to malign modern medicine. This can happen in any client-practitioner setting, but the practice becomes overt and public when it is stated in a book or on a website. Most commonly, practitioners describe prescription drugs as synthetic, chemically based, produced in a laboratory, and only suppress symptoms, which can cause vital energy to be diverted or cause toxic conditions. Many times prescription drugs and medical doctors are denigrated as part of a billion dollar industry that conspires to keep people from being healthy and is ignorant of the diseases that practitioners in the alternative health industry routinely diagnose and treat.

Beyond the apparent adversarial and unprofessional nature of these claims, the real issue is one of trust, or lack of it, in the client-practitioner relationship. Clients trust practitioners to have their best interests in mind by providing honest, reliable information regarding their health, however, practitioners put client's health at serious risk when they offer personal opinions in an attempt to discredit modern medicine, which suggests to clients that it might seem reasonable to discontinue prescription medication or treatment from a health care professional.

The Colorado Natural Health Consumer Protection Act addresses this issue by prohibiting practitioners from recommending the discontinuation of a course of care, including prescription drugs that are recommended or prescribed by a health care professional. However, there is a fine line between maligning modern medicine and recommending discontinuation of modern medicine treatment. That line is clearly crossed when practitioners claim that whatever they sell, be it supplements, essential oils, organ repositioning, or whatever, is safer and more effective than modern medicine's prescription drugs.

Modern medicine's prescription drugs save lives and yes, suppress symptoms, a very important aspect of patient care, and really are produced in laboratories, which results in standard doses and scientifically studied effects and side effects. Practitioners cannot make any of these claims about the alternative health industry's supplements, essential oils, or herbal products.

Consumer's interests are best served by honesty and openness wherever they seek health care, including complementary and alternative health care.


The Colorado Natural Health Consumer Protection Act is here