naturopathy
oracknows | October 6, 2017Naturopathy and naturopaths are a fairly frequent topic on this blog—and for very good reason. If there is an example of a pseudomedical "discipline" that has been gaining undeserved "respectability," it's naturopathy. It's licensed in all too many states, and physicians who have fallen under the spell of so-called "integrative medicine," a specialty that rebrands science-based lifestyle medical interventions as somehow "alternative" or "integrative" and uses them as a vessel to "integrate" quackery into medicine, seem to have a special affinity for naturopaths. Indeed, so common has the…
oracknows | September 29, 2017John Weeks has long been an activist for what is now known as "integrative medicine," earlier known as "complementary and alternative medicine"(CAM). Basically, for many years Mr. Weeks has been at the forefront of encouraging the "integration" of quackery with real medicine and promoting what I like to refer to as "quackademic medicine," a perfect term to describe the increasing encroachment of pseudoscience and quackery in medical academia in the form of—you guessed it—integrative medicine.
Despite his having zero background in scientific research or the design and execution of experiments…
oracknows | September 26, 2017Last week, the University of California, Irvine (UCI) announced that Susan and Henry Samueli were donating $200 million for it to set up a massive new integrative medicine initiative. The plan would basically transform biomedical sciences and medical education at UCI—and not in a good way.
Remember what "integrative medicine" is. What is being "integrated" into medicine is, of course, quackery. Oh, sure, integrative medicine also emphasizes lifestyle modification, such as diet and exercise, but that is part of "conventional medicine" already.
There is no good scientific or medical rationale…
oracknows | September 19, 2017It's not infrequently that, whenever I complain about the increasing infiltration of quackery and pseudoscience into medicine, I sometimes lament that skeptics and supporters of science-based medicine are massively outgunned, because we are. Thus, we have the continued growth of what I like to refer to as "quackademic medicine," the infiltration of pseudoscience into medical academia in the form of whole divisions, departments, and institutes dedicated to studying fairy dust like acupuncture, naturopathy, and other "unconventional" treatments that are then "integrated" into medicine. It's not…
oracknows | September 10, 2017A week ago, I wrote about a naturopath in Utah named Harry Adelson, who was advertising his use stem cells to treat lumbar and cervical disk problems, including degenerated and dehydrated disks. That alone was bad enough, but what elevated "Not-a-Dr." (my preferred translation of the "ND" that naturopaths like to use after their names to confuse patients because it's so close to "MD") Adelson above and beyond the usual naturopathic quackery is his cosplay of an interventional radiologist, in which he purchased a C-arm to use fluoroscopy to inject his "stem cells" right into the intervertebral…
oracknows | September 7, 2017Regular readers know that, as a cancer surgeon, I become particularly worked up about stories of naturopaths taking care of cancer patients, which all too often end in disaster for the patient. I've lost count of how many naturopaths I've seen, either on their websites, in talks, or in published literature, claiming that they can cure cancer "naturally," using any of a number of unproven methods, an example being the Gerson protocol, a form of quackery involving 13 larges glasses of raw vegetable and fruit juice, around 150 supplements, and five coffee enemas a day, each and every day. Others…
oracknows | September 4, 2017I write frequently about naturopathy here because, of all the dubious pseudoscientific medical "disciplines" out there, naturopathy (along with chiropractic) has achieved the most "respectability." Indeed, as I like to point out in my own specialty (breast cancer), the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) even admits naturopaths as members. Indeed, the immediate past president of SIO is a naturopath (and, depressingly, faculty at my medical alma mater, the University of Michigan), as was the SIO president in 2014. So entrenched are naturopaths in SIO that they have been prominent co-authors…
oracknows | September 1, 2017I've frequently written about bogus stem cell clinics that use hard sell techniques to sell unproven and expensive "stem cell treatments" to desperate patients. For instance, I deconstructed the story claiming that hockey great Gordie Howe improved so markedly after a severe stroke, thanks to stem cells offered to him for free (because of his celebrity) by a dubious stem cell company (Stemedica) through its Mexican partner (Clínica Santa Clarita). The whole incident basically opened my eyes to just how unethical the for-profit stem cell clinic industry is, as clinics use hard sell techniques…
oracknows | August 14, 2017Someone yesterday was not very happy with my attitude towards naturopaths, as evidenced in my post yesterday about the death of a young woman named Jade Erick due to intravenous infusion of curcumin by—you guessed it—a naturopath. Amusingly, that someone going by the 'nym of JR said that he or she didn't "like the tone of this article and it’s complete disregard for naturopaths." Well, JR, you're right. I do have a complete disregard for naturopaths because they are quacks who mix a small amount of good advice about diet and exercise with a whole lot of pure quackery (like homeopathy) and…
oracknows | August 13, 2017 Kim Kelly, ND (Not A Doctor). He prescribed the dose of intravenous turmeric that killed Jade Erick.
Finally, a mystery has been solved.
Nearly five months ago, a 30 year old woman named Jade Erick suffered a cardiac arrest, most likely due to anaphylactic shock, during the infusion of intravenous curcumin ordered by a California naturopath named Kim Kelly, ND (for Not-a-Doctor). Because Erick's death was so sudden and dramatic, the story briefly made national news. I viewed the tragic incident as yet another example of why "licensed" naturopaths, such as those in California or other…
oracknows | June 26, 2017Orac gets fan mail. Yes, as hard as it is to believe, my blog sometimes ticks certain people off, and sometimes I even hear from them. For instance, last week a reader wrote me. The subject header read, "Why do you hate naturopathic physicians so much?" and the letter went something like this (OK, exactly like this other than the name of the reader, which I've withheld, and to whom I will refer as "T"):
Having stumbled across one of your diatribes against licensed naturopathic doctors, I can't help but wonder what that profession has done to hurt you? If you have examined the evidence,…
oracknows | June 14, 2017Orac note: While Orac is on vacation (fear not, he'll be returning on Monday!), he's rerunning some of the "best of" the blog (if you can call it that). Actually, he's rerunning whatever strikes his fancy. This one struck my fancy because I used to use the term "altie" all the time, but haven't used it in years. It was a good shorthand for someone like Gwyneth Paltrow.
This post originally appeared on April 11, 2008; so some of the references are a bit dated, and some of the links no longer work. But the sentiment is true. Feel free to add your updates to the list until I return on Monday.
It…
oracknows | May 1, 2017"Integrative medicine" is a term for a form of medicine in which pseudoscience and quackery are "integrated" with real medicine. Unfortunately, as Mark Crislip puts it, when you mix cow pie with apple pie, it doesn't make the cow pie better; it makes the apple pie worse. Unfortunately these days, there's a lot of cow pie being mixed with apple pie. Worse, it's gotten to the point where integrative medicine is subspecializing. For instance, there is now a specialty known as "integrative oncology," which particularly burns me. Indeed, supportive care oncology has been very susceptible to the…
oracknows | April 24, 2017Ever since I first realized that naturopathy is a cornucopia of quackery administered by naturopaths in a "One from Column A, Two from Column B"-style of practice, I've opposed the licensure of naturopaths. Not surprisingly, naturopaths crave state licensure because it puts the imprimatur of the state on their pseudomedical profession. More importantly, it makes it more likely that health insurance companies will actually pay for their services. Unfortunately, thus far, 19 states, five Canadian provinces, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands have all passed laws…
oracknows | March 23, 2017It was only just yesterday that I recounted the story of a naturopathic quack in Bowling Green, KY who told a cancer patient that "chemo is for losers," promising her that he eliminate her tumor within three months. She listened to him, and as a result she died, as she and her husband were suing the quack. Not long after, her distraught widower walked into the quack's office on a Friday evening earlier this month and, if the police charges are accurate, shot him dead. Basically, because this quack convinced the woman to forego chemotherapy, whatever chance of survival she had was eliminated.…
oracknows | March 22, 2017Naturopathy is a frequent topic on this blog because it is a veritable cornucopia of quackery, in which not pseudoscience is too out there. Homeopathy, functional medicine, bogus diagnostic tests, traditional Chinese medicine, reflexology, naturopaths embrace it all, and more. More importantly, thanks to "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM), known more recently as "integrative medicine," naturopathy is becoming more and more "respectable." Indeed, there are naturopaths at far too many academic medical centers. One even participated in the writing of the Society for Integrative…
oracknows | January 27, 2017I get e-mail.
Often, the e-mail I get consists largely of rants from various cranks about how I am a "pharma shill" and whether I feel any regret over the babies I'm supposedly turning autistic by my advocacy for vaccines. Much less often, I get e-mails praising me for my work. Sometimes, I even get e-mails that tell me that my blogging was the reason someone turned away from the dark side of antivaccine quackery or other pseudoscience. Those e-mails make my day.
I also sometimes get e-mails like this:
I'm in the VA healthcare system in Los Angeles. I had previously read your article about…
oracknows | January 12, 2017I was busy last night doing something other than actually blogging. Perhaps I was recovering from the one-two punch of the antivaccine rant penned by the director of the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute followed by Donald Trump's meeting with antivaccine crank Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Whatever the case I crashed early. However, I can't help but note still more bad news.
I woke up this morning to this headline Naturopaths get their own licensing board in Mass.:
Governor Charlie Baker on Wednesday signed into law a bill that creates a licensing board to regulate naturopaths, alternative…
Massachusetts passes legislation licensing naturopathic quackery. Only the governor can stop it now.
oracknows | January 6, 2017In a perverse way, one almost has to admire naturopaths. If there's anything that characterizes naturopaths in their pursuit of legitimacy and licensure, it's an amazing relentlessness. In this, they are not unlike The Terminator. As Kyle Reese described him in the first Terminator movie, the Terminator "can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead!" The difference is that naturopaths won't stop until they are licensed in all 50 states and science-based medicine is, for all intents…
oracknows | December 26, 2016With the Christmas holiday over, I thought it would be a good time to revisit a topic that I've discussed before from time to time over the last several years. Part of the reason is that I saw something that irritated me before the holidays. Another part of the reason is that Christmas was so busy that some of you might recognize parts of this post. Fear not, more original Insolence will be forthcoming, likely tomorrow.
In any event, given that I’m not a fan of naturopathy, it probably comes as no surprise to our readers that I’m even less of a fan of the emerging “specialty” of naturopathic…