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Iowa Health Freedom Coalition
March 7, 2004
Using peppermint drops without a license
By Justin Kendall
justinkendall@bpcdm.com
I have a drop of peppermint oil on my wrist. Judy Jellings tells me to rub my wrists together and inhale. She
insists this could change my whole day.
I rub and inhale. The scent is intoxicating, will be for a couple of days.
Peppermint oil is supposed to cure headaches, says Jellings, who’s wearing a sparkling “I love oils” pin on
her red sweater.
I don’t have a headache, but I want to see why Jellings; her husband, Dave, and a group of hypnotists, Reiki
masters, massage therapists and other members of the Iowa Health Freedom Coalition are urging Iowa
lawmakers to pass the Consumer Health Freedom Act.
The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Jack Hatch and Rep. Ed Fallon, would allow alternative and
complementary health-care providers to practice without licenses. It would also give people more choices in
their health care.
“Healing is a gift, and a right to persons who practice and persons who want to receive it,” nurse practitioner
Lisa Kamphuis says.
Idaho, Minnesota and California have passed similar health freedom acts.
Safeguards against quackery exist within the proposed legislation. Healers would be required to tell their
patients they are unlicensed, give their credentials, explain the treatment, and read a disclaimer saying the
state doesn’t have educational or training standards for this type of health care. They would also have to
inform their clients that they have the right to seek a licensed health-care provider.
They would not be allowed to perform surgery or give or prescribe X-rays or drugs. They also wouldn’t be
allowed to do anything to put people at risk of physical or mental injury.
With these proposed guidelines, healers claim that licensing is unnecessary and that the Iowa Administrative
Code too broadly defines the practice of medicine. The code says practicing medicine is diagnosing, treating,
operating or prescribing “for any human disease, pain, injury, deformity or physical or mental condition.”
Most of the healers at the Capitol last Thursday were unlicensed. Thus, their practices are in violation of the
state’s licensing laws for health-care providers and could face prosecution for practicing medicine without a
license, a specter they want to escape.
Legislators often ask healers why they need new legislation when there haven’t been any cases of
prosecution.
“Just because no one has been prosecuted doesn’t mean it can’t happen,” says Ray Thompson, a hypnotist
from Des Moines. “People should not live under a threat, be it a benign threat or not.”
Adds Linda Dietz, a certified hypnotist: “We need this bill so things that happened elsewhere don’t happen
here.”
Such as what happened to the farmer who cured Berkley Bedell, a retired U.S. Congressman from Iowa, of
Lyme disease. Traditional medicine failed to heal Bedell, so he turned to a Southwestern Minnesota farmer,
who cured him with an alternative treatment found in cow’s milk. The farmer was put on trial twice for
practicing medicine without a license, but the judges refused to convict him both times.
“If it had not been for that farmer and that treatment, I probably would not be here to write this letter,” Bedell
wrote in a letter distributed by coalition members. Later, he wrote the issue “is whether the public is going to
have freedom to make their own decisions in regard to their personal health, or whether a governmental
agency is going to dictate that decision to them.”
In 1978, the Jellings were in a car accident. Judy had lingering aches and pains. Then she met Willy Lansing.
Also a survivor of a car accident, he had been told by 13 doctors he’d never walk on his own. He had five
bulging discs in his back and a pinched sciatic nerve in his right leg.
He tried young-living oils and raindrop therapy, a stimulation of the nerves starting with the feet and moving to
the tailbone and spine. The inflammation in his leg disappeared. Four hours later, he was walking on his own.
This all comes to a head next week. The bill must be voted out of committee by Friday or it dies.
However, if the bill dies in the funnel, it can be revived next year.
If this bill can save a few lives, give people relief from what ails them and not endanger any lives, why not pass
it?
Hearing the testimonials of the Jellings and Lansing, reading Bedell’s story, I can’t help but think a little
peppermint oil would go a long way.
CITYVIEW - DES MOINES