Naturopathy Apostate Britt Hermes Interviewed at Vox.com, and My Comments

here, an interview with naturopathy apostate Britt Hermes by way of vox.com:

001. at vox.com, Julia Belluz reports in "Why One Naturopath Quit After Watching Her Peers Treat Cancer Patients" (2015-09-02):

"you don't often hear about people transitioning from alternative healing to science-based medicine [...] when I stumbled across Britt Hermes's blog, Confessions of a Naturopathic Doctor,  I was immediately hooked [...]";

no, you don't.  You do, though, quite often get the claim that alternative healing IS science-based.  I think by the time someone has chosen the ND/NMD route, they're ego is so identifying with their naturopathy choice and commitment that they, if any thing, have a kind of cognitive dissonance: with their conscience part quite submerged and their idealistic / antiestablishement part quite elevated.  And simply being craftily miseducated create acolytes to the naturopathy agenda: epistemic conflation posed as epistemic delineation.

"Hermes studied naturopathy, a type of alternative medicine focused on 'natural' treatments like herbs and homeopathy, at Bastyr University in Kenmore, Washington. She then practiced for three years in Washington and Arizona [...] while becoming increasingly disillusioned with her chosen profession [...]";

been there, too, in part.  Because I went to the same kind of school, in CT.  Now, to mention homeopathy at Bastyr is QUITE ACCURATE.  What should also be mentioned is that Bastyr categorically labels naturopathy's contents "science-based."  So, if you are educated with say the basics that a B.A. or a B.S. degree encompasses, and you use the research skills that such a basic level of education entails, then it is quite easy to see that preponderantly Bastyr is full of shit when it says science subset naturopathy subset homeopathy and kind.  So, disillusionment is quite there, and it leads to REALITY in the case of naturopathy, that naturopathy is licensed falsehood all dressed up in flowing doctoral pseudoacademic robes.  And I often ask this question: how CAN you be a profession if you are based on falsehood?

"[ND Hermes] wrote on her blog [...where] she's been myth-busting alternative medicine, and writing about everything from the gaps in regulation to what it's like to find cancer in a patient as a young ND [...] 'naturopathic medicine is not what I was led to believe [...] I discovered that the profession functions as a system of indoctrination based on discredited ideas about health and medicine, full of anti-science rhetoric with many ineffective and dangerous practices' [...naturopaths'] education, as Hermes and others have pointed out, is peppered with dangerously pseudoscientific health claims [...and] woo woo diagnoses [...and ND Hermes states] 'we’re just not qualified to practice medicine' [...]";

hear, hear.  And again, we should stop with our charity of the label "profession" upon naturopathy.  You cannot fulfill a fiduciary duty as a professional if you are based on falsehood, because you must, with such a duty, PLACE THE PATIENT'S WELFARE FIRST.  And engaging in false commerce is no such.