Iowa Massage Therapy Board one of many changes that will jeopardize Iowan’s safety

Jim wakes up early to feed the dozens of cows that roam his 80-acre farm in Eastern Iowa. Years of pouring heavy buckets of feed into troughs and working the land have taken a toll on his body. Alexander Collins is a Neural Reset Therapy practitioner and a licensed massage therapist and has been working with Jim for 14 years. “Jim still chuckles about it – he thought he would have to have surgery,” Collins said. Instead, he has improved his range of motion without costly and more risky surgery – by having Sunday morning massages in the quiet cornfields of his small farm.

Jim is one of many Iowans who have turned to massage therapy to relieve a variety of ailments. And since the Iowa Massage Therapy Board (IMTB) was established, it has helped ensure that Iowans receive safe therapeutic massages from licensed professionals.

Now, when I went to the Boards and Commissions Review Committee public hearing on Sep 6, the last thing I had imagined doing was writing about the IMTB. In fact, I hadn’t planned on writing anything. I was there to voice opposition to combining multiple offices that are currently under the Department of Human Rights into one entity to be moved under the Department of Health and Human Services. I was there to protest the theft of representation. Representation that my friends and colleagues had worked hard to build, in the form of community offices that appointed representatives that represent diverse communities in Iowa.

But I left the meeting with a whole new set of worries. I left with a feeling of impending doom with anything that involves putting myself into structures with elevators or boilers, as testimony described dangerous situations and the aftermath of a reduction of board and commission oversight.

Government should be cost effective. It should avoid redundancy. What it should not be is shortsighted, which is one of many adjectives that could be used to describe the governor’s agency reorganization bill, SF514.

“Some haven’t met in years, some have no board members, others have met their purpose – it is important to evaluate [progress] and the credentials of boards,” said Cassie Sampson is a licensed massage therapist and owner of East Village Spa, as well as Government Relations Chair for AMTA-IA. She and her colleagues are not opposed to hearing ideas about streamlining agencies. “We just want to be part of the conversation.”

Sampson testified on Sept. 6 about the unintended negative consequence that diluting the board will have on the industry in Iowa. Iowa has seen its fair share of fraud and trafficking cases.

IMTB members do important and comprehensive work by evaluating appropriate licensure, investigating complaints, and ruling on public disciplinary actions. “This allows law enforcement to do their job: Enter a business, verify license, match with a photo ID and if the license isn't current or is fraudulent, they have grounds for action,” Sampson said.

Massage therapy is gaining more widespread acceptance at the national level, as evidenced by the recent passing of the NOPAIN Act. The act seeks to increase access for non opioid pain management for Medicare recipients to address misuse of opioids, which includes massage “When the topic of Illicit "massage" businesses arises cities jump to pass ordinances that only hurt legitimate, law-abiding healthcare professionals,” Sampson said.

Collins also thinks the weakening of the board is reckless “I think it is a bad idea to not have oversight. We should have input from other therapy groups, shouldn’t be reduced down to one- or two-people’s perspective. Not a positive long-term point of view for fellows Iowans.”

One of his patients was overseas serving our country when an IED exploded 50 feet from a transport. Shrapnel lodged in his neck and hand, causing ocular migraines that will last for the rest of his life. He experiences intense ringing in the ears and earaches that makes it hard for him to get out. He describes the relief after his therapy as “walking out of fog and into solid ground.”

“If they do what they plan to do will take another decade to build back –it will upend massage therapy,” Collins explained. “My main concern is changing continuing education requirements and people pretending to be licensed when they are underqualified or unqualified- [they] can hurt people.”

It is important to regularly question how we do things, and more importantly, why we do things. Our boards and commissions exist to serve as advisors to help our government make decisions that cannot be handled by our state offices alone. We must find and appoint people who are best equipped to provide oversight and guidance for the services we trust to support the life we have built here in Iowa.

The purpose of government is established in the preamble to the constitution "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare…”

If it wants to function effectively, the Iowa government must face its irrational fear of people with experience and expertise.

Chris Espersen is a Gazette editorial fellow. chris.espersen@thegazette.com