The real truth of what happened!
May 5, 2000 by
Judy Adams
,CME
This is a “first-hand” account of exactly what has been going on in Florida regarding the use of lasers for hair removal.
I have physically attended every single minute of what I am about to share with you.
Now understand that our state statute had been changed the previous year and became effective on July 1, 1999.
This new law gave electrologists the right to use equipment that was cleared for hair removal by the FDA.
We requested that for 3 years, but because of the constant threat of outside interference we were always
denied the right to file a bill because it was determined to be a controversial issue. The Florida Electrolysis
Council was finally allowed to include this change in last year’s health department package and we were able to get this long overdue legislation passed.
Fern White-Winand, electrologist in Jacksonville, Florida, thought that she had successfully stopped this legislation by presenting misleading information to the BOM.
You can read her letter filled with incorrect information regarding her ‘heroic’ effort to get
this stopped in the spring/summer issue of the American Electrology Association
(AEA) newsletter, Electrolysis World.
On December 3, 1999, the dermatologists made their first appearance to our rule making procedures.
Dr. Mark Nestor, who is a dermatologist in south Florida,
attended his first BOM meeting to address electrologists using lasers in their practice.
Attorney Matt Weidner, executive director of the state dermatology association, accompanied him.
They had never shown any prior interest in tracking this issue and had not attended the rules
committee workshops where their input would have been more appropriate.
After all, that is what these committee meetings are all about.
This left us wondering just who called him to alert them of this activity. We had our suspicions!
We had been actively working on this in the public view for several months,
and the dermatologists had never indicated any interest until it was time to take the final vote. General supervision for electrologists using a laser was defeated before the entire Board by one vote.
It was then sent back to their rules committee for further recommendations.
At that meeting, one of the physician board members asked the BOM to defer their vote until the
dermatology community could be given the special consideration of more time to produce their input.
Due to our defeated vote, we were put on hold and that delay put us back into further rules committee meetings.
The dermatologists had been given the opportunity to block us from using lasers in our independent practices.
As a result of this, we have now completed two more rules committee workshops, which have taken an additional 6 months.
Dr. Nestor has attended at least 2 of the BOM rules committee meetings, and Mr. Weidner has attended them all,
including all of the full BOM meetings. The rules committee finally told them that they did not agree with his
insistence of direct supervision. The rules committee voted at their last meeting
in April 2000,
that they would compromise with the derms and give us in-direct supervision.
They further stipulated that our supervising physician had to be within a 20 mile distance from us,
carry $100,000 of malpractice insurance, and have a written protocol between the physician and electrologist
about how our procedures would be delivered. The electrolysis community is in complete agreement with their rules package.
We have been working on rule development with the BOM
for almost a year now, and we are very close to having it
finished. At their last full Board meeting they voted
unanimously to adopt the rules committee recommendation of
in-direct supervision. They
requested two more technical points (laser power parameters and
training credentials) to be added, and then they felt that they
would be satisfied. Our projections were to be finished and
ready to notice this rule to become law at their next regularly
scheduled meeting on June 2-4, 2000.
We all know that the AEA is absolutely committed to denying electrologists across the nation and the world the right to use a
laser for hair removal in their practice.
We know that they keep up with everything that is going on in Florida,
and we have seen the materials that they have been sending to the BOM in the last few months.
They have been copying their letters addressed to the BOM to Matt Weidner.
We have no choice but to assume that they have been working with the very people in Florida who share their same agenda.
If this is the case, then AEA is a part of what took place here in Florida during the last week of our legislative session.
They must take their just responsibility for their assistance to our adversaries.
Their interference almost cost us our independence with our needle electrolysis practice.
If we had not been paying someone to monitor the legislative session we would not have caught this,
and we would have become the only state in the union whose needle electrolysis laws would dictate that we be placed
under the supervision of a physician. It backfired on them this time.
In their ridiculous attempt to try and block laser technology from the hands of the best qualified individuals to do the procedure,
they almost killed the profession that they say they are seeking to protect! We called that a few steps backwards!
Here they are interfering with Florida, AGAIN! The vast majority of electrologists in Florida wish that the AEA
would just totally leave us alone, and stop trying to “help” us! This kind of help we just don’t need.
CHAPTER TWO
Late on Monday evening, 5/1/00, we received an email from Sandy Allen, ESF lobbyist.
She had been doing her job for us by monitoring the Florida state legislature.
It was the last week of the Florida legislative session, and she was there listening to the various health care bills.
At mid-afternoon that Monday, she heard an amendment being voted on, that had been filed the day before (SUNDAY!) at around 8:30pm.
Here is what that amendment said:
Subsection (3) of section 458.348, Florida Statutes, is created to read:
458.348 Formal supervisory relationships, standing orders, and
established protocols; notice; standards
(3) PROTOCOLS REQUIRING DIRECT SUPERVISION. --All protocols relating to electrolysis or electrology using
laser or light-based hair removal or reduction by persons other than physicians licensed under this chapter or chapter 459
shall require the person performing such service to be appropriately trained and work only under the direct supervision and
responsibility of a physician licensed under this chapter or chapter 459.
We jumped into action! This is a factual account of what happened during the Florida legislative session, 2000.
Involved in treading down those marble hallways for days, were:
Judy Adams-Legislative Liaison, Electrolysis Society of Florida (ESF)
Pres, Society of Clinical and Medical Electrologists (SCME)
Ginger Hutson-President, ESF
Hildegard and Jim Scott-both ESF board members, & SCME members
Michelle & Doris Williamson-both SCME board members, and Michelle is also an ESF board member Wally Roberts, SCME board member
Sandy Allen, ESF lobbyist.
Some of the people on this list gave up a whole week of work with no warning to plan for it, so we could try and salvage our profession in Florida.
Not to mention transportation, food and lodging costs!
By early afternoon Tuesday, the staff in Tallahassee came to the conclusion that this definition could
affect needle electrolysis.
Short wave is light, so our thermolysis and blend epilators are essentially “light-based” equipment.
In a strange effort to help us, they added the following language designed to keep our needle electrolysis work from falling under direct supervision.
All protocols relating to electrolysis or electrology using needle-type
epilation devices by persons other than physicians licensed under this chapter or chapter 459 shall
require the person performing such service to be appropriately trained and work only under the general
supervision of a physician licensed under this chapter or chapter 459.
Little did they realize that they were further harming us, by now requiring every electrologist in the state to pay a supervising physician
to come to their office and review their procedures and sterilization practices! What a nightmare!
The greedy attempt to circumvent the BOM’s decision on in-direct supervision was now going to harm the needle industry as well!
These two amendments passed through the House on its third and final reading on that Tuesday afternoon.
It was on its way to the Senate. We gathered together to launch our phone and fax campaign and put out the call for help.
On Wednesday morning we visited everyone that would listen to us.
One of our ESF members was able to get her friend and Senator, Ginny Brown-Waite to agree to sponsor another
amendment that would remove these two damaging amendments.
By early afternoon we knew that the only thing for us to do was sit and wait until the bills were heard which did not happen until the next day.
All of us but Ginger Hutson went back home to take care of affairs in our offices, and get things more organized there.
As soon as we left that afternoon, the lobbyists for the Florida Medical Association
(FMA) were showing pictures of skin damage done
by hair removal lasers to every Senator that would look at them. The inference was that these pictures came from a Florida electrologist’s office.
That was far from the truth because Florida electrologists have not been cleared to do these treatments yet.
The BOM had not finished promulgating rules for the new law that had been passed about a year earlier.
But the lobbyists certainly let them think that we had done the damage that was being shown in those pictures.
It scared the Senators to death. This scare tactic worked and the damage had been done whether it was truthful or not.
This is why we have a government in the sunshine.
There should have been committee meetings regarding this issue, and we were totally denied this process.
The lobbyist for the FMA reportedly told them in the House that this was a non-controversial issue and that there would
be no negative impact on any of the professions. Another interesting twist is that the attorney that wrote all of
this language for the amendments is married to one of the lobbyists for the FMA. It continues to get interesting, doesn’t it?
She had attended most of the BOM meetings where this was discussed, and had even had some laser work done during the
demonstrations that we presented. She definitely knew that this was controversial, and would impact us!
By the time we had a chance to get back on Thursday, things were deteriorating rapidly.
Bills that should have been heard were not being heard, and amendments were being placed on bills building ‘trains’ that had no end in sight.
Finding a sponsor for anything that we wanted to do was almost an impossible feat. Finally they chopped up
several bills that had important issues in them, and built one new bill. Senator Campbell instructed the staff that
language pertaining to electrolysis was supposed to be left out of it totally. What DID happen was the removal of the
second amendment that required general supervision for our needle practices. It was all supposed to have been dropped,
but ‘somehow’ that just didn’t happen for us. We are still wondering why. That bill passed as one of the last items
they took on Thursday night, with direct supervision for lasers still included in it. Senator Campbell told us that
he would not oppose an amendment to change the words direct to indirect if we could find a senator to sponsor it.
That night we spoke to several people in our search for help.
We finally found a very sympathetic ear with Senator Meek from Miami.
He had stopped for the day, was in his office, and had just lit up a cigar.
He spent at least 30 minutes listening to us—and none of us were his constituents!
His mother, Carrie Meek had been our friend many years ago, and he totally understood our issue.
He agreed to help us the next day, which was the last day of the session. It came up on the agenda, and he read the amendment.
He was met with opposition that mentioned the pictures that he had been circulated, and was asked by Senate Pres.
Toni Jennings to withdraw our amendment—which he did. Then he huddled around with other Senators on the floor,
and a few minutes later it was brought up again by Senator Webster! There was discussion that was both pro and con.
Pres. Jennings stated that they did not have time for this kind of debate at the end of the last day of the session!
Senator Meek stated that no committee meetings were held, and that this was filed in the middle of the night.
He spoke to this amendment 3 times and absolutely could not have done any more for us. Pres.
Jennings had already made the decision and she stated, “Senators, let sleeping dogs lie”.
She asked them to remove the amendment once again. We lost. It was over.
Our adversaries were able to pursuade the Florida legislature to do their dirty work for them,
so they could circumvent the BOM’s decision regarding supervision.
We are not out of trouble here. All we can hope for is that they don't want our needle business too.
Who does this profession have to thank for that? I certainly didn't have anything to do with this.
I have just been left with this mess to clean up, and the rest of this country should buckle their
seat belt and get ready for this to hit them also. It is apparent to me that the interference will
not go away until the appropriate membership demands it. Isn't it time to ask for some accountability
regarding this and ask our 'leaders' to stop dividing this profession over an issue that is not going to go away?
This is an issue that will surely impact the rest of the country. I respect everyone's opinion on whether they will
incorporate lasers into their practice, but they need to realize this: the physicians have found this cash cow,
and they do not care if they ruin our needle business to get it. We have to ban together across the entire US to
save ourselves. You see what they have done here in Florida, and it is obvious to us that they are being assisted
by one of our electrology associations.
Does it really matter if some of us choose to offer additional equipment in our practices to give consumers what they are
seeking? If we keep fighting about this as a profession, I think you can now see by this Florida precedent, just where we are headed.
We can't win with our legislators if we are not a cohesive group. This is an old story that I think we have all heard too many times.
So now, when you hear that SCME and certain individuals were to blame for the Florida situation, you will know the truth.
We were there. We were fighting for our profession’s freedom, and now are being blamed for what happened!
I will keep this updated as events occur! Stay tuned for Chapter 3!
LET'S ALL WORK
TOGETHER TO KEEP US ALL IN THE BUSINESS OF HAIR REMOVAL!
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