Florida’s 2026 “HB223: Naturopathic Medicine” Text Through the Lens of a Forthcoming Research Context

here, the output of a task to Perplexity as run within a certain research context yet-to-be-published:

001. I recently was alerted to this bill's text publication at flsenate.gov;

002. and through the contexts of naturopathy in Connecticut, this task was performed:

“How does the attached proposed Florida Bill PDF compare and contrast in relation to the above present-day issues resulting from Connecticut’s platforming of naturopathy?”

003. the output:

“The Florida bill largely replicates the Connecticut model of platforming naturopathy as a quasi‑medical profession, and so imports many of the same structural problems documented in Connecticut, while adding a somewhat more elaborate disciplinary and financial‑responsibility wrapper.

Structural similarities to Connecticut

• Protected title and monopoly: Florida’s HB 223 creates a “Board of Naturopathic Medicine” and makes it a crime to practice or call oneself an ND/NMD without licensure, mirroring Connecticut’s Chapter 373 protected “naturopathic physician” status.
• Education and exam pipeline: The bill ties licensure to CNME‑accredited ND programs and NPLEX exams, exactly the educational and testing infrastructure that in Connecticut produces graduates who practice homeopathy, vitalism, detox, nonvalidated testing, and energy therapies under a scientific veneer.
• Full naturopathic scope imported: By licensing “naturopathic doctors” rather than carving out a narrow wellness or counseling scope, Florida would be importing the same whole‑system naturopathic profile that the Connecticut CSF reports show is structurally pseudoscience‑heavy once in practice.

In Cullen–Snyder terms, Florida’s bill recreates the same Science Camouflage Index and Institutional Legitimacy Score problems: formal state recognition of naturopathy as if it were a coherent, evidence‑based branch of medicine, when the Connecticut record shows extensive epistemic conflation and freedom harms downstream of that recognition.

Differences and added features

• More detailed disciplinary and malpractice framework: HB 223 is lengthy on board procedures, probable‑cause panels, closed‑claims reporting, and financial‑responsibility requirements (malpractice coverage or notice to patients). Connecticut’s statute is leaner on those operational details.
• Background checks and investigative licensing delays: Florida explicitly builds in fingerprinting, criminal background checks, and the option for a 90‑day licensure delay if concerns arise, plus the ability to license with restrictions or probation. Connecticut’s framework is less explicit about such investigative tools.

Those features may modestly improve individual‑practitioner discipline, but they do not address the core epistemic issues: what is being licensed and presented to the public as medicine. They manage bad actors inside a system whose knowledge base, as seen in Connecticut, is already deeply misaligned with evidence.

How Florida would recreate Connecticut’s harms

Given what the Connecticut reports document about ND practice built on CNME/NPLEX training:

• Factuality degraded: Florida would be telling the public that CNME‑accredited naturopathic education and NPLEX exams produce “doctors” of a distinct medical discipline, just as Connecticut does. The Connecticut case studies then show those graduates routinely using homeopathy, detox and adrenal fatigue narratives, nonvalidated testing (IgG, broad micronutrient/genomic panels, SIBO tests, bioenergetic devices), and energy medicine under the label “science‑based care.”
• Sovereignty hollowed out: As in Connecticut, patients and legislators in Florida would rationally infer that licensed NDs’ claims are anchored in the same kind of evidence as MD-DO care, when the Connecticut ND‑practice analyses show that is not so. Consent to “preventive” or “root‑cause” care would be given under systematically distorted assumptions.
• Mobility and unpredictability: Florida patients would gain a parallel entry point into the system that looks like primary or integrative care but follows its own, weaker evidentiary logic—exactly the pattern Connecticut’s CSF harms tables describe: delayed diagnoses, fragmented care, and variable, idiosyncratic treatment based on unvalidated tests and narratives.
• Solidarity and public health: Once naturopathy is a formally licensed profession in Florida, the same dynamics seen in Connecticut—vaccine‑hesitant counseling, chronic‑Lyme and detox paradigms, oncology‑adjacent marketing—are likely to emerge and complicate public‑health messaging and resource allocation.

In other words, HB 223 borrows the form of a modern regulatory regime (board, CE, malpractice coverage, discipline) but leaves untouched the substance of what is licensed, in the same way Connecticut’s statute did. The Connecticut evidence suggests that this form‑without‑substance model is exactly what generates the CSF‑identified harms.

Tabulating Licensed Naturopathy Harms States-wise via Perplexity 2025-12

here, musing with Perplexity on Bastyr U., its promises and peculiarities, truthfulness, and monies [see the three bolded red areas for the gist]:

001. I was inspired to muse by way of Perplexity on 'naturopathy harms' due to:

001.a. this new Bastyr University video [uploaded 2025-09-22 and titled "Welcome to Fall Quarter at Bastyr University!"] wherein ND Pizzorno speaks of naturopathy as "science-based natural medicine":

"[at about 33 seconds in he states] We created Bast University with a very clear vision of science-based natural medicine";

now, as I pointed out in recently submitted material to ct.gov, ND Pizzorno is an NUNM graduate, and NUNM is quite clear about the essential vitalism which is the goal of all naturopathic activity and in fact written in coded fashion into the naturopaths' oath.  Similarly to 'science-based subset vitalism / the science-exterior', NUNM to this day states that vitalism as life force survives objective observation and scientific scrutiny.  Ah, the apple and the tree it fell from!

001.b. and indeed:

BU still claims "science-based natural medicine" upon such things within naturopathy as supernaturalism, homeopathy, vitalism, [and their homeopathic vitalism!].

actually, when asked to find the five most science-divergent aspects of bastyr.edu as a web site in terms of naturopathy, Perplexity states:

"these five areas—homeopathy, constitutional hydrotherapy/vital force stimulation, detox cleanses, craniosacral/visceral manipulation, and spirituality framed as a formal therapeutic modality—are among the clearest examples where Bastyr’s naturopathic program diverges from a rigorously science‑based, mechanism‑ and evidence‑driven standard while still being presented as part of an ostensibly 'science‑based' curriculum."

001.c. now, in the same month as that recent upload of 001.a.:

BU uploaded an admissions video titled "Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine Virtual Information Session" wherein we're shown in a slide that, according to ND Conner their "dean of naturopathic medicine", the central premise of naturopathy -- the vis medicatrix naturae or healing power of nature -- is "analogous to Paracelsus's concept of the archeus."

Wired’s YouTube Vaccine Video 2025 With Dr. Offit and My Musings on Naturopathic Dysknowledge

here, uploaded 2025-12-02 at the Wired YouTube account, pediatrician Dr. Paul Offit’s “Doctor Answers Vaccine Questions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uURMKLAPZw” provides vaccine support: 

001. some excerpts:

“[the very first question] you do realize a lot of what we get vaccinated for our immune system could just fight off naturally?”

ah, the naturalness fallacy!

“[and Dr. Offit’s answer] people love the word natural.  There’s nothing good about a natural infection.  Mother Nature has been trying to kill us ever since we crawled out of the ocean onto the land [and he goes through the morbidity and mortality of childhood infections that occurred during his youth before major vaccine usage and adds] so while many of us were able to survive an natural infection, some of aren’t […] I actually don’t like the term natural immunity I prefer the term survivor immunity”;

sounds like biological reality…

“[and overall, there’s his position] first of all, I think it is reasonable to be skeptical of anything you put into your body including vaccines […] I think that people pushing back against vaccines makes sense […] I think we have to be much better at compelling people […] if we don’t, these diseases will come back as we’re seeing with measles today”;

agreed. And of course, skepticism here is meant to represent weighing the evidence, the scientific evidence, in a benefit-risk context.

002. my question, about the video: “On what side of the scientific vaccine preponderance is North American naturopathy?”

002.a as presented with that language, Perplexity answers:

“North American naturopathy still exerts a net pull toward hesitancy compared with conventional medicine, rather than functioning as a uniformly pro‑vaccine ally of the scientific preponderance.”

not only is there money in hesitancy, but harmony with fallacy.

002.b. that Perplexity response elicits, at least for me, this next question:

002.b1. “Is there an explanation as to why naturopathy stays within the scientific footprint for vaccines, as just explained or described, but completely contradicts the scientific position on things like vitalism and then additionally categorizes naturopathy as ‘scientific’?”

002.b2. the Perplexity answer:

“naturopathy stays ‘within the footprint’ of vaccine science in some contexts mainly because of external pressures (regulation, public health expectations, desire for legitimacy) and an internal rebranding of its philosophy as ‘evidence‑informed,’ while its core vitalist metaphysics remains untouched and is simply declared compatible with science […] from a philosophy‑of‑science standpoint, this produces a compartmentalization: vaccines, anatomy, and lab tests are accepted largely because they are pragmatically useful and socially required, while vitalism and other pre‑scientific doctrines are protected in a separate, largely untestable metaphysical domain. Critics argue that this strategy lets naturopathy claim the prestige of science for professional and political purposes while remaining fundamentally organized around doctrines (vitalism, homeopathy) that contradict the scientific understanding of physiology and causation.”

Interesting response [no immune pun intended].  I’d argue, or add, “artificial compartmentalization” which is quite ironic for an area claimed to be holistic or wholistic. A term used in the video to describe Secretary of Health and Human Services [RFK Jr.] by Dr. Offit is “science-denialist […because] he doesn’t believe in vaccines.” Of course, the common naturopathy position is stronger than ‘evidence-informed’ in terms of what is publicly facing, in terms of what is “declared” in a similar authoritarian and doctrinaire sense as regards science.  Such as, through a google.com search >site:.edu naturopathic “science-based”<, this first result this 2025-11: “6 Things To Know Before Applying to a Naturopathic Medicine Program” [archived here] at University of Western States posted 2025-10-27.  This is an AANMC school.

Musing with Perplexity: AI-LLMs, Naturopathy's Vitalism, and Middle School Age Science

here, fleshing out a point I made in the recent ct.gov submission:

001. Perplexity was tasked:

001.a. "If a middle-school aged science student were doing research on naturopathy's vitalism in relation to science with an A.I.-L.L.M., provide what general determination would result in terms of the scientific support for that."

001.b. the answer, in part:

"a middle-school science student using an AI large language model (LLM) to research vitalism in naturopathy would find that vitalism is a foundational idea in naturopathic practice, emphasizing a 'vital force' or innate self-healing property in living organisms. However, scientific consensus holds that vitalism is regarded as a metaphysical or philosophical perspective, rather than a scientifically supported principle. Vitalism in naturopathy. Naturopathy places vitalism at its core, teaching that health arises from a self-organizing, intelligent life force within the body that maintains and restores health. This belief is central to naturopathic theory and therapy, shaping the 'healing power of nature' principle in the field. Scientific Evaluation. Modern science considers vitalism a metaphysical idea, not a testable or evidence-supported hypothesis. Contemporary biology and medicine explain life and healing entirely using physical and chemical processes, leaving no need for a distinct 'vital force'. Critical reviews state that vitalism is 'unfalsifiable' and does not produce scientific predictions or evidence, placing it outside mainstream scientific acceptance [...vitalism] has no scientific support and is not recognized as a valid explanation by current scientific standards."

so, vitalism is central to naturopathy and it is, in scientific terms, irrelevant. Note: it is not merely a belief, it bases actions which happen in-this-here-world while the premise is, being metaphysical, out-of-this-world.  Therein, naturopathy isn't physicianship, essentially, it is metaphysicianship!  That is classically termed sectarian medicine.

002. then Perplexity was tasked:

002.a. "Would educational standards be violated if middle school aged students were taught in a science class that a vital force is an objective fact that survives scientific scrutiny and that engaging in medical practice based on that premise was a sound position?"

002.b. the answer, in part:

"in a typical U.S. public-school context that follows modern science standards, teaching middle school students that a 'vital force' is an objective, scientifically validated fact and a sound basis for medical practice would conflict with how science standards define acceptable scientific knowledge and practice. It would generally be classified as teaching a pseudoscientific claim as if it were established science, which professional science-education organizations explicitly discourage in science classes [...] national science-teaching bodies also state that science classes should focus on scientific methods and explanations 'to the exclusion of nonscientific or pseudoscientific methods,explanations, and generalizations.' Middle-school curricula often explicitly distinguish science from pseudoscience and emphasize that claims must be grounded in evidence rather than authority or belief [...] if vitalism were discussed at all in a standards-aligned middle school curriculum, it would generally be as a historical concept that was once proposed and later rejected or abandoned as evidence accumulated, or, as an example used to help students understand how science distinguishes testable hypotheses from metaphysical or pseudoscientific claims [...] because vitalism in this strong sense is not supported by contemporary empirical evidence and is typically classified as pseudoscientific or purely metaphysical, presenting it to middle school students in a science class as 'an objective fact' that 'survives scientific scrutiny,' and a sound scientific basis for practicing medicine would misrepresent the consensus status of the idea within biology and medicine. Professional science-education organizations emphasize that teaching nonscientific or pseudoscientific ideas as if they were established science undermines the goals of science education and conflicts with the nature-of-science components of standards." 

hear, hear.  And just as a reminder, it is naturopathy at its North American institutional trunk that states 'that a vital force is an objective, scientifically validated fact and a sound basis for medical practice'.