American Association of Naturopathic Physicians

March seemed to be naturopathic quackery month. Let's face it, though, every month is naturopathic quackery month. It's just that in March there were two stories that really caught my eye. The first was the story of a naturopath in Bowling Green named Juan Sanchez, who was gunned down in his office one Friday evening, allegedly by the distraught widower of a cancer patient whom he had treated, after having told her and her husband that "chemo is for losers" and claiming that he could eliminate her cancer in three months. The second was even more shocking. Basically, a naturopath in Encinitas…
Our military veterans deserve the best medical care our nation can offer. Actually, I'd say they're owed it, actually. After all, many of them put themselves in harm's way for this country. Others have suffered grievous injury with permanent sequelae. Still others have paid the ultimate price. For those who served, the least we as a nation should be expected to provide, to me at least, is high quality medical care, particularly for service-related injuries and illnesses. Unfortunately, besides the usual problems of inadequate resources devoted to veteran care, other forces are conspiring to…
In my eagerness to note that Brian Hooker’s “reanalysis” of a ten year old study that failed to find a correlation between vaccines and autism had been retracted, I forgot to write about what I was originally planning on writing about yesterday. It actually would have been more appropriate a topic for yesterday, because it was the beginning of a week. In fact, it was the beginning of a very special week for a certain class of quacks. No, it’s not homeopathy week. Here’s a hint: Do any of you remember this time last year? Sure, I knew you did. We’re talking Quackery Week 2014! I mean…
I've lost track of how many times over the last 7 years I've mentioned that naturopathy is not science-based. The evidence is overwhelming. All you have to do is to took at the wide variety of quackery that fits comfortably into naturopathic practice to realize that most of naturopathy is quackery. Traditional Chinese medicine? Check. Various "energy healing"? Check. "Detoxification" woo? Check. Homeopathy? Check. I brought up this point last year when I pointed out that you can't have naturopathy without homeopathy. I based this assessment on the fact that not only his homeopathy a required…