Ontario, 'Don't Legitimize Naturopathy' - Jonathan Kay, National Post 2014

here, I cite from and comment upon a recent criticism of naturopathy in Ontario:

Note: my next Naturocrit Podcast Episode is on Ontario naturopathy.  It's just taking a long time to write and research, as there is SO MUCH, it turns out.  A trove, really.

001. Mr. Kay writes in  "Jonathan Kay: Ontario Shouldn’t be Legitimizing Naturopathic 'Medicine'" (2014-02-26) [my comments are in unquoted bold]:"

"given the pseudoscientific nature of naturopathic medicine [...]";

hear, hear.  Now, if you really get granular with naturopathy, their "nature" essentially is a label upon the science-exterior ideas of vitalism and supernaturalism.  For instance, there's Ontario's CCNM, which states that vitalism basis here, and there's that supernaturalism in their alumni magazine's title here.  And of course, there's the blanket statement of being "science-based" COMMERCE here.

"the term 'pioneering' is an odd one here — unless the author was wryly referencing the primitive level of medical knowledge available to the 17th-century pioneers who explored the territory on which the Brampton Naturopathic Teaching Clinic eventually would be built [...]";

love it, snarky!

"all naturopaths are big on the idea that our bodies are animated by some sort of mystical life force, like the Jedi in Star Wars [...]";

yeah, their overarching figmentation.  And so often they don't clearly communicate this to the public, because apparently, the public doesn't deserve to know so it can exercise true informed consent.  Instead, it is coded and improperly labeled science-based.

"[there's] naturopathic 'iridologists' [...] naturopathic colonic irrigators [...] the fun-to-pronounce, but completely pseudoscientific 'homeopathy,' which postulates the magical idea that a molecule or two of some harmful substance, contained in a massively diluted solution, somehow will cure the ailments associated with diseases caused by an excess of aforesaid substance. It’s like saving flood victims by squirting them in the face with a water pistol [...]";

roger that!  Or as I call it, 'magic beans and unicorn tears', and one day I'll have to dig into what source I picked that up from.

"the Brampton Naturopathic Teaching Clinic [...has] an ER, a cardiac-care center, an oncology department, and other medical services that save people’s lives through the application of state-of-the-art, scientific, evidence-based, peer-reviewed medical standards. Now these accredited medical professionals are sharing their facility with a bunch of placebo doctors [...]";

how true, how measurable, how maddening!  Because naturopathy gets a tremendous amount of CHARITY whey it comes to analysis.

"the larger problem here is that Ontario, like several other provinces, is set to give naturopaths a semblance of medical respectability [...] this is a mistake: the line between science and pseudoscience is a very real and important one [...] any move that serves to blur that line is a move that, indirectly at least, endangers public health [...]";

hear, hear.  This is vast distinction that can be made between well-established science and the abject, for-decades and for-centuries, science-ejected.  And I'd argue that consumer rights are grossly being threatened by conflating science and abject nonscience.  It's like NASA all-of-a-sudden embracing astrology and claiming it too is astronomical science.