Beth Clay serves as the ICA Acting Executive Director and Director of Government Relations. A globally recognized expert in complementary and alternative (integrative) health policy, and a long time advocate for health freedom, Beth brings to the ICA a unique background of government, private sector and life experience. Beth has been a lifelong patient of chiropractic. Her first experience with chiropractic was with an ICA State Representative Assembly Member and her exposure to ICA’s mission and philosophy on health and healing helped set the stage for her life path. Beth has extensive experience internationally, living for three years in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and with business development consulting in the Middle East and the Caribbean in particular.
Beth began her US federal service at the National Institutes of Health, working administratively in the international, rare disease and alternative medicine activities of the Institute. She served as the first Committee Management Officer of the Alternative Medicine Program Advisory Committee. In 1998, she was invited by then Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in the US House of Representatives (Congressman Dan Burton) to join the staff and lead an investigation looking at the role of complementary and alternative therapies in the U.S. health system. Her responsibilities as Senior Professional Staff would be expanded to lead investigations of high priority matters ranging from autism spectrum disorders, dietary supplement regulation, to disparities in health care.
Beth is the primary author of two Committee staff reports – Mercury in Medicine and FACA: Conflicts of Interest in Vaccine Development. In her official capacity, Beth traveled to Russia, Germany, Canada and across the United States to represent and speak on behalf of the Chairman and conduct health related investigations. During her federal service, Beth served as a delegate on a WTO level Committee of the CODEX Alimentarius.
After leaving federal service, Beth re-entered the private sector as a government relations consultant focused on integrative health policy and business development in the Middle East. Beth has always been philanthropically minded with years of service as a hospice volunteer, advocating on children’s health matters as as a Commissioner for Human Rights in mental health. On behalf of the ICA, Beth co-Chaired the Integrative Health Policy Consortium (IHPC) Federal Policy Committee in 2018 and currently co-Chairs the IHPC Committee on Bioenergy and Health.