An Interview With Julie Kline by Sydney L. Murray
Rarely are you able to access this much cutting edge information as well as long taught methods of healing in one location. But that was the dream of Dr. Wendell Whitman and his daughter Julie Kline. Sadly Dr. Whitman is no longer with us but his huge legacy is being proudly carried on by his remarkable successor Kline.
This March, for the seventh year, the Health Freedom Expo will return to Long Beach, California. Supported by a not-for-profit organization called the HealthKeepers Alliance, the Expo works to inform the public about both old and new healing modalities as well as information on many common diseases to best prepare those affected by them to handle them. Health Freedom also has many healing alternatives to traditional health care. Meet people making a difference in our world and learn how to live a healthier life!
Vision Magazine was fortunate to be able to speak with Julie Kline, who has been running the Health Freedom Expo since 2008.
Vision Magazine: Please tell us about your father [Dr. Wendell Whitman] and why he started the Health Freedom Expo.
Julie Kline: During his 65 years, my father faced several health challenges. He was a strong-willed man determined to, if not conquer, control those health challenges in order to live a full and vigorous life. Ironically, they became the very thing that motivated him to pursue not only a life-long study of natural health remedies, but propelled him to create ways for others to learn. He was committed to promoting natural health and assuming individual responsibility. He was firmly resolved to defend the public’s rights to have the best information in order to make their own health care choices and to support the rights of natural health care practitioners.
My father saw the big picture. From personal experience, he knew a gentle and natural approach to healing was often far more effective and much less expensive. By creating the HealthKeepers Alliance he was able to establish a not-for-profit organization to lobby against special forces. The HealthKeepers Magazine became the voice to educate readers [and] keep the public informed of new health modalities and legislative progress in Washington, DC. In 2004 he launched the popular Health Freedom Expos around the country to create a high impact forum.
Over the past two decades he saw the pharmaceutical industry move away from its original purpose of discovering and producing useful new drugs. He and his fellow health freedom pioneers banded together to oppose the marketing machine designed to sell drugs of questionable benefit, lobbied in Washington to maintain the public’s rights to choose, [and] used the Alliance, the magazine, and the Expos to expose Big Pharmaceuticals’ plans to co-opt institutions which stood in its way, including the US Congress, the FDA, academic medical centers, and the medical profession itself. Dr. Whitman pressed for better education and credentialing [and] encouraged the resistance of oppressive regulatory efforts of the AMA, FDA, and Big Pharma through lobbying and legislative information.
A graduate from Taylor University with a Bachelor of Arts degree, Dr. Whitman went on to earn a Masters of Divinity degree from Southern Baptist Seminary. When he became keenly aware of his purpose, he graduated from The Clayton College of Natural Healing with an ND Degree. As founder and President of Trinity College of Natural Health in Warsaw, Indiana, he was instrumental in providing excellent distance learning opportunities for thousands of people to learn about natural health. Many of his students went on to establish professional practices, providing much needed health alternatives in their own communities.
VM: How has the Expo changed in the last few years?
JK: The health freedom movement has grown right along with the natural and alternative health movement that was resurrected as a grassroots initiative in the early ’80s. At that time, many people who did not find satisfactory solutions to their health problem using conventional medicine resorted to alternative medicine and obtained effective results. Alternative medicine can be effective in many circumstances where there [are] little or no results when being treated with drugs or surgery exclusively. There is a general acceptance that its methods can be beneficial. Since the early 1980s, alternative medicine has become more and more popular, and although the medical profession does not officially accept it, more doctors accept that such methods can be effective in treating illnesses.
The continued grassroots swell of interest and subsequent financial boom has continued to fuel the natural health movement. Even in tough times, informed consumers are willing to spend their own money on their health care. With the current concerns of health insurance monopolies and the increasing distrust of concentrated power, people continue to look for better ways to improve and maintain their health and that of their families.
The Expo has steadily gained momentum and awareness since it began in 2004. The Expos have become more relevant to the public, in part because of the intense national attention focused on health care reform and the number of people who don’t have access to health insurance. We encourage people to stay well through educated choices. We continue to find and present the renowned leaders in natural health information, provide contacts to natural health practitioners, showcase exhibitors with leading edge products and information, and inform the public about legislation which affects their ability to choose safe and natural methods to maintain their good health.
VM: What is the biggest threat to being healthy in America?
JK: There are a number of things that interfere with living healthy in America today: poor quality foods; genetically modified foods; added chemicals to our air, food, water, and beauty products; environmental illnesses; increased stress levels; legislation that blocks access to information; [and] lack of education and ability to make informed choices.
My father’s vision, which we carry on today, is to help people take responsibility for their own health. We show the public how to walk through the flood of health information, let them know they have choices, endorse natural health practitioners, and defend the right to make informed choices.
At the beginning of 2008, citizen voters chose the topic of Health Freedom as one of the ten most important issues facing Americans. Since then the Health Care Reform Act was passed. There is still much disagreement about this legislation—what’s included and what is omitted and how it will impact natural and alternative health care education and freedoms. We continue to stay tuned to the current dialogues and debates; conventional medicine, by and large, does not acknowledge or support health freedom. Millions of Americans want access to care that includes the freedom to choose natural health, either alone or with conventional health care. This continues to have profound implications in the health reform debates.
The FTC is on a censorship rampage, trying to shut down the free speech of not just nutritional supplements companies, but any suggestion of alternative or natural cancer remedies. The swine flu “pandemic” raised the threat of mandatory vaccinations, even though there were serious questions about the effectiveness of the vaccination and dangerous side effects. The FDA continues to engage in more prosecutorial activity and has exacted heavier penalties against sellers of supplements and homeopathic drugs than ever before in that short span of time.
VM: Is our access to alternative care being hampered? Why?
JK: Yes. Think monopoly and follow the money.
VM: What can be done?
JK: Litigation and legislation. The solution lies in responding to these assaults on freedom with litigation, legislation, and education. The more the consumer knows, the less they are willing to subjugate themselves to substandard health care. Prevention is key. Consumers need to become their own health care advocate. The Health Freedom Expos provide annual education forums, at affordable prices, so they can do just that.
VM: What has been one of your proudest moments in the production of these Expos?
JK: After every Expo, I receive feedback from our attendees and speakers telling us how worthwhile it was to attend the event. They meet and speak with experts. Our attendees feel empowered and informed. Our speakers and exhibitors tell us they’ve made important contacts. I am most proud of the fact that we are an educational forum that improves people’s lives. And we make it affordable to everyone.
VM: How can different generations create more health and vitality in their lives?
JK: Share the information. Demand better. Support natural health practitioners, educate your family, spread the word. Like all grassroots movements, natural health education is passed on and out into the community. My hope is that educated and practicing natural health consumers will use what they’ve learned and share their newfound awareness with others. By passing on the information to family and friends, it becomes a part of the fabric of their lives. The more education and knowledge that’s passed on, the bigger the demand for high quality information and products, which expands the demand and creates a whole new market.
VM: What is your greatest passion?
JK: To carry on my father’s dream. To create an informed public. To make a difference in the practice and education of natural health consumers. To ensure that this education will be supported and available to all and, most of all, that it transcends generations.
VM: Who is or was your most memorable teacher?
JK: My father was and still is my most memorable teacher. Also, the pioneers of health freedom who influenced him and are supportive of our mission. Their energies are contagious. I am blessed to be in a circle of people who’ve devoted their lives to bringing natural health information to the public and are willing to back it up, both with their support and energy and also legislatively.
VM: Who are some of the speakers for the 2011 Long Beach expo?
JK: Actresses, activists, and authors Mariel Hemingway and Daryl Hannah; radio host of Coast to Coast George Noory; Consumer activist Kevin Trudeau; GMO activist, author, and film maker Jeffrey Smith; author and activist John Robbins; fitness expert Kathy Smith; attorneys Jonathan Emord and Charlie Brown; cancer researcher Dr. Christopher Wild; humanitarian and activist Dick Gregory; relationship expert John Gray; cancer expert Dr. Leonard Coldwell, to name a few.Julie Kline has been carrying on the Health Freedom Expo in her father’s place since 2008, and does so annually in Long Beach, CA as well as in Chicago, IL. The Health Freedom Expo in Long Beach will take place on March 25-27, 2011. For more information on the Expo, including details about tickets, directions, exhibitors, and speakers, please visit www.healthfreedomexpo.com or www.healthkeepers.net.