Policy Statement on Endorsements, Statements of Support, and Collaborative Endeavors [and related use of IFM name and logo]

Endorsement Policy

As a nonprofit educational organization, The Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM) does not endorse or approve any of the following:

  1. Specific medical products by brand name (e.g., brand name or trademarked drugs, medicinal foods, vitamins, supplements, or botanical medicines).
  2. Specific providers of healthcare products or services by name (e.g., laboratories or producers or distributors of medical products or healthcare equipment).
  3. Individual practitioners, whether MD, DO, ND, DC, or from any other discipline. Referrals to practitioners who have taken IFM training in functional medicine may be made to members of the public, but the fact that a referral is not an endorsement must be made clear.

IFM may provide statements of support for activities on which it has agreed to collaborate, such as sponsoring or co-sponsoring educational activities or projects, healthcare planning activities, research activities, publications, and other such activities that come within the scope of its nonprofit mission and goals. Statements of support may also be provided for non-collaborative projects that are of significant public benefit. Such statements of support will be supplied only where IFM has both adequately researched the collaborative activity and retains the right to withdraw support in the case that the activity violates agreed-upon boundaries or fails to reach acceptable standards of effectiveness and/or integrity.

IFM may provide its logo for use in collaborative activities with other nonprofit organizations, but will generally not allow the use of its logo where such use would provide a benefit to any for-profit organization. Such use must be recommended by the President and approved by majority vote of the Board of Directors. Passed by the Board of Directors (IFM) May 26, 2002.