MD Katz Defends Naturopathy Though It's Inherently Pseudoscience 2018

here, a longtime ND friend speaks his mind:

001. MD Katz writes at nhregister.com, in "Preventive Medicine: Gullibility, GOOP, and the EPA" (2018-07-09) [2018 archived]:

"Scott Pruitt, the disgraced and departing head of the EPA, sullied that office not only with his scandalous abuses of taxpayer money, but with his obvious disdain for science. Good riddance to him [...]";

agreed.

"disdain for science is newer, because science is newer, but it likely emanates from a similar source. Science is a threat to the exercise of absolute authority predicated on false pretenses. Every manner of despot finds it … highly inconvenient [...]";

agreed. Science can be democratizing.

"the transformative power of scientific advance [...in contrast to] that repudiation of science, its subordination to pseudoscience, celebrity, profiteering, propaganda, folklore, and faith [...] denial of science is as ludicrous as it is dangerous and dysfunctional [...] yes, pseudo-science is a threat [...]";

agreed.

"I personally know naturopathic physicians in the vanguard of devotion to evidence-based medicine, just as I know conventionally trained physicians routinely at odds with it [...]";

so, an equivocation. The difference is that medicine has an ethical obligation to operate as an applied science wherein naturopathy is devoted to pseudoscience.  This is MD Katz's big blind spot. And medicine has a commitment that its members report the unethical.  Naturopathy doesn't. I hope MD Katz abides by his ethical strictures to report the unethical.

"my friend Tim Caulfield, an inveterate defender of science over pseudoscience [...] and Gwyneth Paltrow was the star of Prof. Caulfield's show [...]";

can you sense the disdain.

002. the easy-to-reach naturopathy pseudoscience:

it's as simple as going to the online site of a supposed health science university that offers a naturopathy degree to find therein such pseudosciences as homeopathy.

obviously, the naturopathic is pseudoscience. It permits anything to be science. MD Katz seems to say that doing science by a person trained in pseudoscience somehow fixes that fact that that training and its commitments are pseudoscience. I disagree. Not sufficient. Since naturopathy is pseudoscience, and it's therein the gateway credential for these Katz examples, then these NDs shouldn't be allowed to practice ANY kind of medicine with or without MD Katz's supervision or approval. This is like ignoring the fact that someone's a cannibal because you eat broccoli with them.