A Prescription for Alternative Medicine?

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Last month, lawmakers in Ontario, Canada introduced legislation that would award prescription rights to graduates of two naturopathic schools. Should students subject to different educational standards be granted the same powers of prescription? On Terra Sigillata, Abel Pharmboy calls it inconsistent for the naturopathic community to "want the right to prescribe regulated medicines while simultaneously decrying medicine and science-based investigative methods," adding that "homeopathy is diametrically opposed to dose-response pharmacology." You can learn more about homeopathy here. Then visit The White Coat Underground, where PalMD agrees with the skeptical maxim that there is "no 'alternative' to medicine; only that which is proven to work, and that which is not." PalMD goes on to write that alternative medicine tends to inspire "oversimplification and naive, hyperbolic conclusions." And finally, Greg Laden on his blog recounts the time when his friend slipped into a coma, bringing months of homeopathic floundering to a simple surgical conclusion.

Links below the fold.

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