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While it's always good to keep tabs on chiropractors, naturopaths generally quack just as loud. In fact, they're HUGE quacks tied in with the vitamin and supplement industry, denigrating science based medicine and trying to pretend they're actually doctors. I don't mean simple herbalists since that's not what most naturopaths practice - they're also trying to get prescribing rights for pharmaceuticals (and have in many places), spread the Big sCAM's lies for profit and generally make the world a less good place. Chiropractors are often "naturopaths", which pretty much says it all when it comes to being a great big MLM scam and attempt to get rich through quackery. And then there's the connection of all the Big sCAM pushers to Scientology....
www.quackwatch.org/01Quacke...athy.html
www.quackwatch.org/01Quacke...athy.html
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Re: Naturoquackery
Wed, May 13, 2009 - 7:31 AMThanks for this post, Fifi. I think Naturopaths depend on a widespread ignorance of basic science. The one naturopath I knew actually tells his patients that "the germ theory of disease has been disproved." He maintains that people get sick because they bring it on themselves by negative thinking. His proof for this is that the word disease means lack of ease. When I asked if he would be interested in trying to prove his approach to medicine he declined. His reason was that he can only heal his patients if they believe what he says so that proof was not required! He went on to tell me that the black plague happened because people had turned away from their local healers.
If you really want to see how these people operate it might be worth your time to attend a "Healing Arts Fair" (I call them Quackfests) Besides naturopaths you will see every form of snake oil medicine you can imagine. My favorite was a tennis raquet with kitchen magnets attached being sold as "magnet therapy devices" they sold for $250.00 and were suppose to cure everything from cancer to male pattern baldness. -
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Re: Naturoquackery
Wed, May 13, 2009 - 7:42 AMOh, I'm familiar with the whole naturopathy scene. They tend to mix a little bit of fact with a lot of fantasy. Many of them are actually chiropractors as well and subscribe to the usual new agey blame-the-patient concepts of disease (naturopathy used to be taught mainly in chiro "schools"). They're worthy of much skepticism because they've actually replaced chiropractors as shills for Big sCAM and the billion dollar vitamin and supplement industry AND they're using that money to try to destroy scientific medicine. They've even fought for - and won - the right to prescribe drugs like Lithium even though they claim that Big Pharma is the root of all evil. Big Pharma and Big sCAM are exactly the same thing and doctors (and ultimately patients) are being crushed and destroyed in their stampede to fleece the sheep. The amount of disinfo and astroturf activism that comes from naturopaths and Big sCAM makes that of Big Pharma seem reasonable (it's not at all) in comparison - particularly since there are so few regulations to make Big sCAM accountable.
Naturopaths aren't herbalists, which is often what they try to paint themselves as, they're just another arm of chiropractic and use the same Scientology promoted sales techniques (and beliefs about medicine and mental health!!!) as chiropractors. The links between Scientology and naturopathy are extremely disturbing considering that naturopaths have won the right to prescribe prescription drugs in some parts of Canada and the US due to intense and expensive lobbying. Anyone with half a brain would be skeptical of naturopathy since naturopathy's various concepts and beliefs contradict themselves and there's so much Big sCAM lobby money behind them. -
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Re: Naturoquackery
Wed, May 13, 2009 - 7:54 AMOf course, some of these people are quite genuinely kind and want to be helpful, they're just deluded and believe things that simply don't make sense biologically. Essentially both chiropractic and naturopathy are faith healing, it's why concepts of good/evil energy and purity are highlights so much.
Because both chiropractic (and it's partner naturopathy) take many pages from the Scientology handbook, you'll notice they use the same tactics regarding infiltrating local and non-local governments, selling lies about science and medicine (not that either are above criticism or worthy of healthy skepticism themselves). The issue is when medicine becomes about profit - both naturopathy and chiropractic are designed to maximize profit in many ways. Both Big Pharma and commercial medicine in the US AND Big sCAM are about profit not people. Who really gets screwed in these situations are ethical doctors and the general public.
The biggest and most profitable lie, of course, is that one needs to buy expensive vitamins and supplements because food simply isn't good enough. Real food remains, of course, the best source of nutrition (and contains all kinds of nutritious elements not available in pill form). Locally grown and organic is best but even non-local, non-organic food is better than a pill or potion. Increasingly, the clinical evidence shows that megadosing with vitamins is actually damaging to health not good for it. Add into that the fact that most ingredients for vitamins and supplements are grown/made/processed in China and other countries without stringent regulations and lord knows what poison you're actually swallowing with the lies! (Everything from dangerous pharmaceuticals to lead and other toxins have been found in "natural" supplements.) -
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Re: Naturoquackery
Wed, May 13, 2009 - 8:09 AMAnd, of course, naturopaths tend to sell whatever they prescribe so there's an innate conflict of interest and confirmation bias going on (often with a very poor understanding of how medical research actually functions, along with excuses and odd beliefs about "alternative science" and needing different rules of evidence for CAM). Snake oil hasn't sold this well since the turn of the last century!
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