Naturopathic "Medicine"

[deleted862527]

Why hasn't anyone attempted to introduce legislation to outlaw Naturopathic Medicine? Considering this area of 'medicine' has not been supported by scientific research from an evidenced based model, this puts the general public at a very high risk of misinformation, misdiagnosis, disability, and illness. Furthermore, a practice advocating against the use of vaccinations, contemporary medical testing, surgical operations, as well as pharmacological interventions contribute to significant patient morbidity and mortality. Imagine a cancer patient not being administered immunotherapy? Or a diabetic not receiving their insulin? The consequences are monumental.

I apologize for my rant here. I recently saw a post on Facebook from an uninformed acquaintance who accused allopathic and osteopathic Physician's of hiding a cure for cancer that can seamlessly be cured by a 'reset' of the body's physiology through natural homeopathic and herbal remedies, as seen in alternative medicine specialties and disciplines such as Naturopathic Medicine.

Let's say that I informed him by replying to his status that his beliefs on conventional medicine are very flawed, and using herbal remedies may exacerbate or contribute to the development of illness because the remedies administered are not properly sterilized.

Status? Removed

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Haha.

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[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Why hasn't anyone attempted to introduce legislation to outlaw Naturopathic Medicine?

Not only is it not outlawed, but California has a ton of regulation allowing them to practice, order tests, etc, and call themselves doctors of naturopathic medicine. Ah, the eternal wisdom of California.

 

[Goro]

9

Why hasn't anyone attempted to introduce legislation to outlaw Naturopathic Medicine? Considering this area of 'medicine' has not been supported by scientific research from an evidenced based model, this puts the general public at a very high risk of misinformation, misdiagnosis, disability, and illness. Furthermore, a practice advocating against the use of vaccinations, contemporary medical testing, surgical operations, as well as pharmacological interventions contribute to significant patient morbidity and mortality. Imagine a cancer patient not being administered immunotherapy? Or a diabetic not receiving their insulin? The consequences are monumental.

I apologize for my rant here. I recently saw a post on Facebook from an uninformed acquaintance who accused allopathic and osteopathic Physician's of hiding a cure for cancer that can seamlessly be cured by a 'reset' of the body's physiology through natural homeopathic and herbal remedies, as seen in alternative medicine specialties and disciplines such as Naturopathic Medicine.

Let's say that I informed him by replying to his status that his beliefs on conventional medicine are very flawed, and using herbal remedies may exacerbate or contribute to the development of illness because the remedies administered are not properly sterilized.

Status? Removed

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Haha.

Perversely, Americans have the right to be ignorant, risk their health, and get ripped off at the same time too.

 

[goatmed]

9

Perversely, Americans have the right to be ignorant, risk their health, and get ripped off at the same time too.

Perhaps, does it not make sense to limit the people who do the hurting and ripping off though? I think we don't allow random people off the street to claim they're MD/DO with that in mind. Would it not make sense to go at the very least one step further and have advertising limits akin to tobacco companies?

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Perhaps, does it not make sense to limit the people who do the hurting and ripping off though? I think we don't allow random people off the street to claim they're MD/DO with that in mind. Would it not make sense to go at the very least one step further and have advertising limits akin to tobacco companies?

I mean, I think technically they can't claim that their rubbish will cure anything, but who is going to stop them?

 

[goatmed]

I mean, I think technically they can't claim that their rubbish will cure anything, but who is going to stop them?

I guess they can't officially, but as you suggest it's probably harder to curb the doings of small scale quacks than it is to put a leash on Philip Morris. We'd still be a bit horrified if their reps were caught shilling to potential customers on Facebook though!

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I guess they can't officially, but as you suggest it's probably harder to curb the doings of small scale quacks than it is to put a leash on Philip Morris. We'd still be a bit horrified if their reps were caught shilling to potential customers on Facebook though!

Yep. There are definitely snake oil salesmen out there who are telling people that they can cure cancer with lemon rinds and coffee enemas better than their chemo.

 

[Coltuna]

I posted about this awhile ago, but my friend went to one of these, and they told him that he had parasites in his blood. Scared the $h*t out of him just to get him to buy into their witchery.

 

[efle]

It's not just CA! There's at least a dozen states iirc where ND's can call themselves doctors and write prescriptions.

Anyways to the OP - how do you plan to raise more $ than the alternative med opposition can?

 

[EmilKraepelin55]

I have one friend that periodically posts about the Robert Deniro challenge that states that he will provide $100 grand to anyone who can prove that vaccines are safe and effective. Seriously, I have no idea how you can reason with someone of that level of skepticism in medicine's scientific enterprise if they don't even see the proven track record that vaccines have left in their wake. It is that level of delusion that is keeping these naturopaths and homeopaths in business. Now the question is how can we stamp out such ignorance in the populace? If we choke the demand, the supply will suffer.

Foundationally, we need to restructure how we are building upon scientific literacy in the U.S. Better provision of information that is easily digestible by the public is great, but I don't think it will be enough. These individuals are almost solipsistic in their skepticism, and their beliefs are so deeply rooted in such a way as to almost be religious in nature. So how can we rectify such a deeply rooted problem?

 

[Med Ed]

Why hasn't anyone attempted to introduce legislation to outlaw Naturopathic Medicine?

Naturopathic selection.

 

[de Ribas]

Why hasn't anyone attempted to introduce legislation to outlaw Naturopathic Medicine? Considering this area of 'medicine' has not been supported by scientific research from an evidenced based model, this puts the general public at a very high risk of misinformation, misdiagnosis, disability, and illness. Furthermore, a practice advocating against the use of vaccinations, contemporary medical testing, surgical operations, as well as pharmacological interventions contribute to significant patient morbidity and mortality. Imagine a cancer patient not being administered immunotherapy? Or a diabetic not receiving their insulin? The consequences are monumental.

I apologize for my rant here. I recently saw a post on Facebook from an uninformed acquaintance who accused allopathic and osteopathic Physician's of hiding a cure for cancer that can seamlessly be cured by a 'reset' of the body's physiology through natural homeopathic and herbal remedies, as seen in alternative medicine specialties and disciplines such as Naturopathic Medicine.

Let's say that I informed him by replying to his status that his beliefs on conventional medicine are very flawed, and using herbal remedies may exacerbate or contribute to the development of illness because the remedies administered are not properly sterilized.

Status? Removed

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Haha.

Who cares? Want them out of business? Then be such a good doctor that no patient will leave you and go to them.

Medicine has enough problems of it's own. We have thousands and thousands of patients who die every year due to medical errors, lack of coverage, access to care, lack of approproate medications. Lets focus on improving care, research for new drugs and help our patients.

 

[STcmOCSD]

I posted about this awhile ago, but my friend went to one of these, and they told him that he had parasites in his blood. Scared the $h*t out of him just to get him to buy into their witchery.

Black mold is a common one too. Someone I knew was told she has black mold in her hip and stomach and that’s why her hip had been hurting and why she was having GI problems.

I’ve had several people ask me if I’m going to promote naturopathic medicine and I’m just like noooo.....

 

[goatmed]

Who cares?

I bet you the people who lose money and health to it care, if in retrospect only.

Want them out of business? Then be such a good doctor that no patient will leave you and go to them.

There's more to it than how good a doctor you are. While you, as a responsible doctor, can only offer patients a chance at survival which may or may not be slim, a person who isn't formulating treatment plans on the basis of scientific evidence but on outdated, simplistic if not plain wrong ideas about how the body works can be much more attractive to the sick and hopeless. I don't think we'd disagree that those sick and hopeless people should be guarded from false hopes and even greater despair.

Medicine has enough problems of it's own. We have thousands and thousands of patients who die every year due to medical errors, lack of coverage, access to care, lack of approproate medications. Lets focus on improving care, research for new drugs and help our patients.

Absolutely it has plenty of problems. But pointing to one doesn't detract from the others. To the extent to which quackery is the result of medicine not serving the people it should be serving adequately, those issues definitely need to be fixed. But there's more to it than that.

 

[HomeSkool]

Perhaps, does it not make sense to limit the people who do the hurting and ripping off though?

Limiting their ability to make bogus claims probably won't accomplish much...

 

[mistafab]

I call it a stupidity tax.

 

[Robin-jay]

You guys are making want to shadow a naturopathic doctor.

 

[STcmOCSD]

You guys are making want to shadow a naturopathic doctor.

The best part is when they start blaming big pharma and doctors for never getting to the root of their problem.

 

[goatmed]

Limiting their ability to make bogus claims probably won't accomplish much...

You can't solve it that way alone, but I think it goes a long way to put bounds on how they get their narrative accross to the gullible.
Then there's the lingering issue of free speech and when it's okay to silence those who dissent from the mainstream narrative: Even if today it makes no sense to have a fit over aluminum adjuvants given the astronomically low incidence of the alleged side effects in children, it doesn't take a conspiratory obsession to point at the flagrant errors the FDA has made in the past, and from time to time continues to make. If vaccines or aluminum adjuvants were a brand new thing, I might even claim agnosticism over them myself.
But making (and publishing) disingenuous ecological studies to prove a link between vax and autism isn't just wrong science, it's dangerous science. To use my earlier analogy, if Philip Morris started publishing "evidence" that tobacco isn't actually carcinogenic I would picture some of our good congressmen and congresswomen having a seizure about it - and hopefully putting a stop to it.
And sure, people will always find a way to challenge the narrative even if the law forbids them, but if we can stop a single breakout of measles it's probably worth it.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I have one friend that periodically posts about the Robert Deniro challenge that states that he will provide $100 grand to anyone who can prove that vaccines are safe and effective. Seriously, I have no idea how you can reason with someone of that level of skepticism in medicine's scientific enterprise if they don't even see the proven track record that vaccines have left in their wake. It is that level of delusion that is keeping these naturopaths and homeopaths in business. Now the question is how can we stamp out such ignorance in the populace? If we choke the demand, the supply will suffer.

Foundationally, we need to restructure how we are building upon scientific literacy in the U.S. Better provision of information that is easily digestible by the public is great, but I don't think it will be enough. These individuals are almost solipsistic in their skepticism, and their beliefs are so deeply rooted in such a way as to almost be religious in nature. So how can we rectify such a deeply rooted problem?

Damn, that’ll be the easiest $100k to make. First person who can figure out how to send him a pubmed search wins.

 

[Robin-jay]

Damn, that’ll be the easiest $100k to make. First person who can figure out how to send him a pubmed search wins.

I only read Naturpathic med.

 

[allantois]

Not only is it not outlawed, but California has a ton of regulation allowing them to practice, order tests, etc, and call themselves doctors of naturopathic medicine. Ah, the eternal wisdom of California.

Doesn’t CA have the lowest average BMI in the nation?

 

[Robin-jay]

Doesn’t CA have the lowest average BMI in the nation?

You get a lot of exercise when you run away from your problems.

 

[Stagg737]

Damn, that’ll be the easiest $100k to make. First person who can figure out how to send him a pubmed search wins.

No, no. That's not evidence. Real evidence is when a baby is about to die from a disease then you give them the vaccination and it not only cures them, but they go on to win an Olympic gold medal as well as a Nobel Prize and never cough again in their lives. And make sure there are plenty of stories about how great that vaccine was and don't include any statistics, otherwise you're just a "pawn of the system".

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Doesn’t CA have the lowest average BMI in the nation?

Fifth lowest, actually, behind HI, MA, D.C., and Colorado in descending order. CO has been lowest in the nation for a while.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

No, no. That's not evidence. Real evidence is when a baby is about to die from a disease then you give them the vaccination and it not only cures them, but they go on to win an Olympic gold medal as well as a Nobel Prize and never cough again in their lives. And make sure there are plenty of stories about how great that vaccine was and don't include any statistics, otherwise you're just a "pawn of the system".

Damn, I missed that "effective" part. Obviously, lowering the incidence of the diseases they are made for doesn't count.