Legislative Alchemy 2016 Update: Acupuncturists win; naturopaths and chiropractors don’t (so far)
Legislative Alchemy is the process by which state legislatures transform pseudoscience and quackery into licensed health care practices. By legislative fiat, chiropractors can detect and correct non-existent subluxations, naturopaths can diagnose (with bogus tests) and treat (with useless dietary supplements and homeopathy) fabricated diseases like “adrenal fatigue” and “chronic yeast overgrowth,” and acupuncturists can unblock mythical impediments to the equally mythical “qi”...
FDA efforts to improve compounded drug safety upsets naturopaths
Favorite naturopathic treatments comprise pumping patients full of dubious mixtures by injection, including IV drips. Naturopaths also employ topicals (salves, ointments and creams), rectal, and vaginal suppositories, and oral medications, such as bio-identical hormone replacement therapy, all made from “natural” substances. According to the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP) these nutritional, herbal and homeopathic remedies are compounded to meet unique patient...
Bye Bye Bravewell
Exactly one year ago tomorrow, The Bravewell Collaborative shut down, an event so momentous that few seem to have noticed. It’s been a while since we at SBM devoted much attention to Bravewell, although, at one time, its doings were a regular feature of SBM posts. For those of you not familiar with Bravewell, a brief history. The main mover and shaker...
Health and Wellness Coaching: cautious optimism and some concerns
The National Consortium for Credentialing of Health & Wellness Coaches (NCCHWC) and the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) signed an agreement last month for the launch of a national certification for individual health and wellness coaches in the U.S. According to a joint press release, the agreement is a landmark in the efforts of a dedicated group of individuals who have...
Supplements, Lies, and a Lengthy Transcript
On October 21, 1993, there was a hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee for Labor and Human Resources, with the long-winded title: Examining How the Federal Government Should Regulate the Marketing and Use of Dietary Supplements and Related Measures, Including S. 784, To Strengthen Federal Standards with Respect To Dietary Supplements. S. 784, sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch, would eventually be enacted...
Change.org Petition: “Naturopaths are not physicians: stop legitimizing pseudoscience”
Britt Hermes, a graduate of the naturopathic college at the alternative medicine-focused Bastyr University, renounced her practice as a naturopathic doctor when she could no longer tolerate the pseudoscience and patient harm that characterizes naturopathy. On this blog and her own, Naturopathic Diaries, she has chronicled the insufficient education and training students receive before being allowed to practice as naturopathic doctors, deficiencies...
Legislative Alchemy: Michigan House Bill 4531 gives naturopaths a broad scope of practice
Michigan House Bill 4531, if passed, would give naturopaths one of the broadest scopes of practice in the U.S., essentially equaling that of a family practice MD or DO. The bill made it through all the necessary House committees and is now before the House for an initial vote determining whether it will proceed further in that body. If it passes there,...
What (if anything) does “natural” mean?
What does the term “natural” mean on a label? Does it mean anything? Should it mean anything? Good questions. And complicated ones, judging from the list of questions the FDA needs your help in answering. The FDA has resisted defining “natural” in food product labeling, including whether foods that are genetically engineered, or contain genetically engineered ingredients, can use the term. Back...
Academic Consortium plan: force medical residents to practice integrative medicine
“Integrative medicine” (IM) is an ideological movement within medicine driven in large part by those whose livelihoods depend on its continued existence. This includes both those with positions in academic medicine and individual practitioners who use the IM brand to attract patients. Despite IM and its antecedents (alternative, complementary, alternative and complementary, complementary and integrative) having been around for about a quarter...
Regulating CAM Aussie Style
CAM proponents view National Health Interview Surveys recording the supposed popularity of CAM, an amorphous conflation of anything from conventional medical advice to mythical methods, as an invitation to unleash even more unproven remedies on the public. My interpretation is quite different. I see the same figures as proof that we are doing too little to protect the public from pseudoscience. In...