Hey Chiropractors! Did You Know That The National Health Federation Has “Had Your Back” Since the 1950s and 1960s?
By Katherine A. Carroll, NHF Executive Director
“Scott Tips, NHF President since 2007, interviews the then-oldest-living past NHF president, Charles Crecelius, now deceased.
The 1955 origins of NHF are shared by the man who assumed the presidency directly after NHF founder Fred Hart.”
In one of his last interviews, almost five years ago, former NHF President Charles Crecelius remembered and spoke with conviction about how the NHF fought long and hard for the chiropractic profession, which was being harassed non-stop by the State Medical Boards and the Boards’ masters, the American Medical Association (AMA), which wanted to suppress this worthwhile healing practice. He also reminded us of strong efforts to ban frequency devices and of medical-mafia spies even tailing the NHF. This is historic footage of the origins of health freedom that can be viewed on the NHF website.[1] And NHF is still fighting for our chiropractic and other health rights more than six decades later!
What It Was Like
Offices were roughly searched in police raids, expensive equipment seized and stolen along with confidential patient records, and chiropractors arrested and led off in handcuffs with jail the ultimate destination. Patients were intimidated, harassed, and forced to give names and addresses as though they were accomplices to some heinous crime to Food and Drug Inspection representatives, State Medical Board inspectors, and local police. And these words really fail to convey the sheer terror inflicted upon these men and women who were simply trying to serve their fellow man.
These Gestapo-police-state tactics were all un-American procedures even by today’s slack standards and were employed against a healing profession seeking to truly heal – chiropractors in America, the land of the “free.” In some cases, even the license to practice was revoked! When organized political medicine is on the accusing side, the accused is smeared, discredited, misquoted, and maligned before he is even found guilty. This was the toxic and highly charged environment into which the then-young National Health Federation (NHF) – formed in 1955 – stepped in to champion chiropractors and other alternative disciplines six decades ago. The same base tactics are in full operation today among many professions, including those medical doctors who have crossed over into integrative medicine, several even on the NHF Board of Governors.
The NHF Defended Chiropractic from Its Beginning
Many chiropractors do not know that NHF championed their nascent profession since the 1950s. In fact, most weren’t even born yet and simply entered a profession without knowing the historically significant role that the then-only health-freedom organization, NHF, played in creating the regulatory environment that now allows chiropractic to literally even exist as a legitimate profession.
Lately, NHF has been on a mission to get priceless and rare old bulletins scanned and available to the public as an online extension of the NHF Memorial Library. Our Office Manager Monique Davalos and Webmaster Anne Mortensen have teamed up to make these historical documents available to the public on the NHF website. Original documents can be viewed at the NHF offices and home of the NHF Memorial Library in Duarte, California.
For example, in August 1955, the front page of the Bulletin of the National Health Federation reported gestapo-like raids of chiropractor’s offices in “flagrant violation of personal liberties.”[2] An inspector from the State Medical Board, FDA representatives, and the Long Beach Police participated in violating the constitutional rights of six chiropractors and their patients. NHF, already skilled in fighting these types of health-freedom battles, took on this travesty of justice. “We see here the hand of organized medical monopoly seeking to destroy its opposition.” This incredible account is well worth reading directly from the historical record on the NHF website. You will find the historical bulletins listed under HFN Magazine’s tab on the home page. Our NHF Bulletins record the still-ongoing fight to protect chiropractic in 1962.
Another example can be found on page seven of the December 1962 issue of the Bulletin of the National Health Federation where there is a fascinating article by Charles O. Pratt, then-NHF Washington Counsel, titled “Chiropractors and Nonmedical Doctors Have Professional and, Legal Rights Under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.” [3]
It is hard to believe today what Mr. Pratt documented in 1962 (well, maybe not that hard to believe), “[NHF] has received many serious inquiries from chiropractors from Maine to California, including Alabama, Maryland, Michigan and Vermont, concerning instructions which they have received from their state and national professional associations and societies to destroy their electronic devices, and/or to give up their right to use and sell dietary food supplements in their practices.”
The instructions usually state, in effect, that the local, State, or Federal officials of the Federal Food and Drug Administration have “requested,” “suggested” or “ordered” the destruction of the device, implying that such action would “avoid” embarrassment and ridicule to the chiropractor that could result from seizure of the device, court action and press releases describing the devices as “worthless,” “dangerous,” and the use thereof as “medical quackery,” “together with all the attendant libelous publicity available through the press releases.”
In 1962, NHF Assistant to the President Clinton Miller summarized legislation that NHF presented (S-1322 and S-1055) to amend the Federal Employees Compensation Act to include chiropractors’ services. [4] Comb through the many historic, precedent-setting bulletins in the online NHF Memorial Library and you will find that there are many more interventions and battles recorded, all of which detail how NHF helped to create the current regulatory environment that allows chiropractic to escape the narrow-minded charges of quackery and move into the respected and highly esteemed profession it is today.
NHF’s proven track record fighting false claims and the attendant far-from-professional name calling are well documented. We still challenge Wikipedia, which falsely insists NHF is an organization of quacks supporting quacks. Ironically, this is how NHF was born as our founder, Fred Hart, was himself branded a “quack” and had an early frequency device forcibly removed by the AMA.[5] Retaliating after his beloved wife Eva became the literal sacrifice, dying without the use of a frequency device akin to those commonly used today, Fred Hart founded the NHF and here we are 64 years later, still fighting and winning.[6] But the tactics of our opponents never change as they struggle to preserve their lucrative monopoly over the medical field.
NHF has stood on the front lines of not only chiropractic battles but many other emerging or alternative professions, including MDs harassed by the AMA. NHF demands personal sovereignty, individual liberty, and the right of everyone to choose his or her practitioner and treatment. It is a vital part of NHF’s three-fold mission statement:
- To provide expert and positive representation in all matters relating to health and health freedom at international Codex Alimentarius meetings as the only health-freedom organization actively shaping global policy to protect food, beverages, nutritional supplements, and our general health.
- To protect the health rights and freedom of individuals and healthcare practitioners, including access to safe foods, beverages, and nutritional supplements in therapeutic values for optimal health as well as freedom of choice in healthcare practitioner and therapy.
- To educate consumers, producers, healthcare professionals, and government and other leaders about health and healing modalities and how to secure and preserve health freedom.
But What Has NHF Done for Us Now?
More recently, though, what has NHF done for the chiropractic profession? Scott C. Tips, President of NHF since 2007, has lectured to several chiropractic and alternative healthcare practitioner groups about how to protect their practice against the FDA and Codex Alimentarius, the latter of which sets food code for the World, including nutrient reference values and the right to use nutritional supplements. A major part of many chiropractic practices is nutritional supplement education and sales. It is frightening how many chiropractors are unaware of the dual threat of the FDA and Codex to severely restrict their ability to practice in these arenas.
Scott Tips is a food-and-drug specialist lawyer with 19 years of participation at Codex, a true veteran. In fact, it was Scott who took NHF from a domestic federation to an international health-freedom organization in 2000. Not only this, but the NHF is the only health-freedom organization with a seat at the Codex table with full privileges to actively participate in creating food and nutritional supplement guidelines and standards for international implementation.
NHF continues to champion the rights of chiropractors and alternative healer as well as their patients who seek them out. Join with the most powerful, leveraged health-freedom organization by going to the NHF website (www.thenhf.com) and preserve chiropractic and alternative health-care practitioners for future generations.
[1] YouTube Interview at https://youtu.be/yB5jChSMUXg.
[2]NHF Staff Writer, “Gestapo Methods Used in Raids on Chiropractor’s Offices,” Bulletin of the NHF, August 1955, at https://thenhf.com/2019/01/21/1955-august-nhf-bulletin/.
[3]Charles O. Pratt, “Chiropractors and Nonmedical Doctors Have Professional and, Legal Rights Under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act,” Bulletin of the NHF, December 1962, at https://thenhf.com/2019/01/21/1962-12-december-nhf-bulletin/.
[4] Clinton Miller, “Statement by Clinton R. Miller, representing the National Health Federation, submitted as testimony for the proposed legislation, S-1322 and S-1055, to amend the Federal employees’ compensation act to include the services of chiropractors,” Bulletin of the NHF, September 1962, at https://thenhf.com/2019/01/21/1962-9-september-nhf-bulletin/.
[5] Katherine A. Carroll, “One Man’s Battle Becomes a Movement,” NHF Website: See: https://thenhf.com/about-nhf/our-history-and-accomplishments/.
[6] Ibid.
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