John Weeks

June 7, 2020

FTC’s Crackdown on COVID Claims: Insights on Novel Regulation from the Integrative Canaries in the Coal Mine

News feeds for the natural products and integrative health practitioner fields have in recent weeks included a drumbeat of alerts on actions of the Food and Trade Commission (FTC) on what the agency considers inappropriate claims relative to COVID-19. A major natural health organization blasted the FTC’s efforts as practitioner gagging and censorship and is mounting a campaign to stop the activity. Others in these fields point to bullseyes some practitioners and companies have painted on their foreheads via gross over claims (“this mushroom will cure your COVID”) that laser-guide FTC’s actions. At a sober center amidst a tangle of issues – state/federal jurisdiction, free speech, provider-patient relationship, and the peculiar institution of in-office sales of natural products – sit Laura Farr and Rob Kachko, ND. They are the executive director and president, respectively, of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP). Among the multiple questions is whether naturopathic doctors and others in integrative medicine are “canaries in the coal mine” of a new, potentially widening push by the FTC and other federal and state agencies into the regulation of integrative and functional medicine practitioner offices.
May 22, 2020

NCCIH Director Langevin’s Brilliant Whole Person Health Plenary and the Call for Comments on the 2021-2026 Strategic Plan: Due June 30

The paradigm-exploring brilliance of the “whole person health” focus National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) director Helene Langevin, MD chose to kick off public comments on the agency’s 2021-2026 Strategic Plan sneaks up on you. In her virtual keynote, Langevin engages her audience with a fireside chat type conversational tone. She shares concepts under consideration since she left the directorship of the Harvard Osher Center for Integrative Medicine for her NIH post 17 months ago.  The highly-regarded basic science researcher starts, indeed, with basics. She shares that she and her staff are re-examining what they mean by the key words like “complementary” and “health” in the agency’s name. One slowly realizes that Langevin is quietly opening what may be the most significant exploration that the $33-billion NIH should be engaging in the present era in which even an acute challenge like COVID-19 reminds us is fundamentally damaged by chronic disease.
May 17, 2020

Should Integrative Medicine Organizations Endorse the WHO-Africa Statement on Traditional Medicines and COVID-19?

On May 4, 2020, the Africa office of the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a statement on COVID-19 deeply at odds with policies in Europe and North America. Of the hundreds of millions of dollars with which governments and foundations are spending on research, virtually nothing is directed toward potential traditional, complementary and integrative contributions. Media coverage of the widespread interest in such approaches, when it occurs, focuses on extremes. The Wall Street Journal led with cow dung, garlic and prayer and Nature with “cow urine, bleach and cocaine” together with the broadly dismissive “pseudoscience” and “bunk”. Scores upon scores of in vitro and other trials showing antiviral activity of herbs are dismissed.  In contradistinction, WHO’s statement models calmness and reason. The agency calls for research while warning about over-claims. Should WHO’s integrative, inclusive statement be actively endorsed by natural health and integrative organizations?
May 10, 2020

Lori Knutson, Civilian Medicine’s Top Integrative System Builder, Joins Former VA Leader Gaudet at Alice Walton’s Whole Health Institute: An Update

The surprising news last August that Tracy Gaudet, MD was leaving the Veterans Administration where she birthed the transformational Whole Health program was leavened on learning that Gaudet would partner with the world’s wealthiest woman, Alice Walton. Together they would form the Whole Health Institute with a goal of nothing less than to translate and build off the VA model in civilian health and medicine and spread it globally. Other than a brief announcement at kick-off, plans have not been public. Last week word arrived that the professional with the most significant experience in developing integrative strategies in civilian medical institutions, Lori Knutson, RN, BSN, HNB-BC, is joining Gaudet. Knutson will serve as the Institute’s senior director for health system redesign. I communicated with Gaudet and Knutson on this development. Gaudet shared additional insight into evolving plans that, like the rest of life, have been shifted by COVID-19.