Results for: "Pseudoscientific Cult"
Another State Promotes the Pseudoscientific Cult that is “Naturopathic Medicine.” Part 4
The “Science” and Ethics of “Natural Medicines” (and Nutrition) cont. This is the continuation of a discussion concerning the explicit claim of “naturopathic physicians”* to being experts in the use of “natural medicines,” defined as “medicines of mineral, animal and botanical origin.” Last week’s post established that the cult has chosen to profit from the “retail selling of medications,” as evidenced by the relevant...
Another State Promotes the Pseudoscientific Cult that is “Naturopathic Medicine.” Part 3
The “Science” and Ethics of “Natural Medicines” This and the next entry in the current “Naturopathic Medicine” series* deal with the cult’s claim of expertise in “natural medicines” or “natural remedies.” These include herbs (“botanicals”), glandular extracts, vitamins, and minerals. A large fraction of the Textbook of Natural Medicine (TNM), “the most thoroughly researched and carefully referenced text on natural medicine,” is devoted...
Another State Promotes the Pseudoscientific Cult that is “Naturopathic Medicine.” Part 2
The “Safety of Naturopathic Treatment” In their nationwide effort to convince lawmakers to pronounce them primary care physicians, “educated” naturopaths have repeatedly claimed that their “natural” treatments are “safer and gentler” than those offered by medical doctors. The Alliance Legislative Workbook, a website that for several years provided strategies and “talking points” for ND-activists seeking state licensure, made this assertion in 2001:...
Another State Promotes the Pseudoscientific Cult that is “Naturopathic Medicine.” Part 1
Minnesota has recently become the 15th state in the U.S. to formally endorse the claims of a tiny group of naturopaths who portray themselves as physicians.* The bill , like the popular-media “CAM” reports that Steve Novella criticized on Wednesday, merely parrots what these naturopaths claim about themselves. It reveals no attempt to investigate or to judge the tenets of the field. The following excerpts present...
Naturopathy
Coming Soon This page is under construction. We’re reviving this project over the summer of 2013. Please check back later this year. Meanwhile, see the index for reference page index that are more developed. Topic Editor: Sections: Topic Overview Index of SBM Posts Another State Promotes the Pseudoscientific Cult that is “Naturopathic Medicine.” Part 1 Another State Promotes the Pseudoscientific...
Laws & Politics
Coming Soon This page is under construction. We’re reviving this project over the summer of 2013. Please check back later this year. Meanwhile, see the index for reference page index that are more developed. Topic Editor: Sections: Topic Overview Index of SBM Posts Outside Resources Summary of Key Research Topic Overview Index of SBM Posts The National Center for Complementary...
Legislative Alchemy I: Naturopathy
Via the magic of “legislative alchemy,” state legislatures transform implausible and unproven diagnostic methods and treatments into perfectly legal health care practices.[1] Without the benefit of legislative alchemy, chiropractors, naturopaths, homeopaths, acupuncturists and other assorted putative healers would be vulnerable to charges of practicing medicine without a license and consumer fraud. Thus, they must seek either their own licensing system or exemption...
Smallpox and Pseudomedicine
A good case of smallpox may rid the system of more scrofulous, tubercular, syphilitic and other poisons than could otherwise be eliminated in a lifetime. Therefore, smallpox is certainly to be preferred to vaccination. The one means elimination of chronic disease, the other the making of it. Naturopaths do not believe in artificial immunization . . . —Harry Riley Spitler, Basic Naturopathy:...
Open Letter to Dr. Josephine Briggs
Josephine P. Briggs, M.D. Director, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine Dear Dr. Briggs, As you know, we’ve met twice. The first time was at the Yale “Integrative Medicine” Symposium in March. The second was in April, when Drs. Novella, Gorski and I met with you for an hour at the NCCAM in Bethesda. At the time I concluded that you...
Cancer Treatment Centers of America and “naturopathic oncology”
EDITOR’S NOTICE: NOTE THE DISCLAIMER. On “wholistic” medicine If there’s one aspect of so-called “alternative medicine” and “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) is that its practitioners tout as being a huge advantage over what they often refer to sneeringly as “conventional” or “scientific” medicine is that — or so its practitioners claim — alt-med treats the “whole patient,” that it’s “wholistic” in...