Advocacy group urges Texas residents to sign health freedom petition to protect rights of patients, doctors

In an age where state and federal governments increasingly feel the need to curb health freedoms, a Texas-based advocacy group is asking residents of the Lone Star State to help push back.

The organization Texas Right To Know is urging citizens to sign a petition demanding more transparency from the Texas Medical Board as a way to better protect both patients and their doctors.

“We ask for Texas Sunset Commission members to approve the New Issues Previously Adopted by Sunset Commission and the Proposed New Recommendations from the Decision Meeting Material for the May 24th Sunset Commission Hearing. Our hope is that these recommendations will result in much needed law changes in 2019,” says the organization’s website.

The petition (which you can access here) supports several changes that will:

— Promote health freedom by improving the Medical Practice Act;

— Improve access to new and revolutionary treatment options that could save lives and that patients want to try;

— Protect the constitutional rights of doctors and their patients;

—  Ensure that physicians receive fair due process rights;

— Provide more accountability of and oversight of the Texas Medical Board.

“We support and stand with Senators Dawn Buckingham, Bob Hall and Kirk Watson and Representatives Dan Flynn and Poncho Nevarez and their bipartisan support of the recommendations submitted to the Sunset Commission,” the petitions states, directing people to pages 10-13 of “the Decision Material.”

The petition notes that the health freedom initiatives supported by Texas Right To Know aren’t simply for state residents but for anyone who seeks medical care in the state. “Let’s make Texas a true health freedom state to provide innovative treatments to heal diseases with education therapies to prevent illnesses,” the petition says. (Related: Texas: Is medical freedom in jeopardy?)

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TRTK states on its website:

We have been working with and interviewing numerous physicians, attorneys and members of the public who have reported egregious actions of the Texas Medical Board (TMB).  Reports include but are not limited to withholding or prohibiting evidence supporting the physician’s innocence, failing to comply and violating their own board rules, utilizing biased experts, and violating constitutional rights of physicians and their patients.  

Based upon interviews and research of court cases, it may be surmised that some of the problems also lie in how some of the laws are written.  From 2007 to 2016, only 9 of the 843 cases – a calculated 1% of the cases against physicians – taken to an administrative hearing sided in favor of the physician. In fact, the Texas Medical Board recently caused one administrative law judge to resign (in lieu of termination) after he made an extremely rare ruling against the TMB and in favor of the physician. 

“Every SOAH ALJ knows what happened. Every SOAH (State Office of Administration Hearings) ALJ (Administrative Law Judge) knows that from now on, when they rule against an agency, they will be provided no protection from the Chief Judge and most likely will be fired,” says Ron Beal, a law professor specializing in administrative law at Baylor University in Waco. 

“How does that sit well for Texas citizens fighting for their job that is being threatened by a regulatory agency? The entire SOAH agency has been ‘polluted,’ and it will take a miracle for the ALJs to continue deciding cases on the merits,” he added.

Thus far, TRTK notes, four cases have been brought before the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in the past year along regarding what the organization described as “egregious TMV violations of patients’ and doctors’ constitutional rights.” 

One case involves the raid of a doctor’s office by TMB officials without a warrant on behalf of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which was conducting an investigation.

In another case, the Fifth Circuit found that the TMB acted in “bad faith” in another warrantless search of a doctor.

Read more about health freedom at HealthFreedom.news.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources include:

TexasRightToKnow.com

Natural.news