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Maury Silverman Remembered
By Lee Bechtel National NHF Lobbyist
May 22, 2010
Eight years ago, the National Health Federation hired Bechtel and Associates to perform Congressional legislative monitoring and lobbying. Having previous experience with the DSHEA law, and having worked with allied health-freedom groups, I was generally familiar with FDA policy and regulations, and the Congressional legislative process due to my lobbying for the Reagan and first Bush administrations as the Deputy Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Legislation at the Department of Health and Human Services, with experience with FDA legislation.
It was while attending Congressional hearings that I first met Maury, with an armload of papers. More important were the coffee breaks during hearings where a more substantive dialogue on health-freedom issues, and the science that clued me into the depth of knowledge, the Silverman library, and his road to and personal devotion to the health-freedom cause. What I lacked in substantive knowledge and institutional history with issues, Maury had. In turn, what he lacked in contacts with Members and staff, I had developed. So, as the years passed, and the Congressional legislative issues came and went, sometimes successfully and most times unsuccessfully, the professional respect and issue dialogue continued, via phone calls and numerous Maury e-mails.
Maury’s contributions to the Congressional advocacy efforts on behalf of trying to rein in the FDA, and educating people on Capitol Hill, were well known by others and me within the circle of people actively engaged in health-freedom issues on Capitol Hill. Among lobbyists and staff, when communicating, one of the questions were – Have you heard from Maury? Unknown to many outside of the Washington beltway, Maury was a fixture on the health-freedom issue scene. His lobbying strategy and approach to politically sell arguments and reasons were sometimes off base, but if a person were willing to closely listen and understand his reasons, based on the science and medical literature he had amassed, and were willing to share, a person would learn and could truly appreciate Maury’s personal commitment and passion to bring about greater access to complementary and alternative health-care treatments, and to protecting each person’s right to make their own health-care decisions, free of Federal bureaucratic interference.
Many people may not know who Maury Silverman was, or of his recent death; but I, for one, will always appreciate the opportunity to have known the man and his dedication and loyalty to the health-freedom cause.
