American Association for Clinical Chemistry on Naturopathy Lab Testing

here, some musings on criticism of sCAM labs [so-called CAM]:

001. at aacc.org, Jen A. Miller writes in "Alternative Medicine and Clinical Laboratory Practice" (2019-11-01):

"some specialty tests that naturopathic practitioners order are not available from local clinical laboratories [...] 'it’s hard to get in relationships with a lab to do courtesy draws' [...said] Jaquel Patterson, ND, president of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP) and owner of Fairfield Family Health in Fairfield, Connecticut [...] the challenge for naturopaths? Many clinical laboratory professionals are wary of playing a role in what many see as an unregulated, belief-based system of medicine [...]";

interesting [vitalism is one of the beliefs / articles of faith].  A couple of things.  To drum up business, NDs often have to be DIFFERENT from the MD-DO crowd that their patient's have already seen.  So they offer DIFFERENT things.  Since modern medicine is continually self-testing and self-correcting, and therein improving, well, what does that say about what NDs are offering as DIFFERENT?  DIFFERENT from the highly vetted, continually improving... And I'd argue that naturopathy is not unregulated.  It's more nefarious: they are self-regulated.

"to meet the growing demand for CAM testing, a number of small reference laboratories around the world now offer specialty testing specifically marketed to naturopathic providers [...] 'there are some CAM practitioners that will use established, validated tests in an appropriate way, but what we have found is that there seems to be a preference in this community for using unvalidated or even discredited tests, often to justify potentially unnecessary treatments and therapies' [...]";

again, in terms of their offerings, NDs have to be DIFFERENT, otherwise, why would someone visit?  And of course, how to you justify if even falsely your nonsense naturopathic therapy?  Convince the patient with something that poses as an objective measure.

"'CAM laboratories in the U.S. can be CLIA certified while offering tests that are neither clinically valid nor clinically useful' [...] 'in general the problem with those labs is that tests tend to come back positive because the thresholds for positivity are very low' [...] 'when you apply the wellness movement to laboratory medicine, you make everybody sick' [...] which is followed by treatments for diseases that aren’t there [...]";

ka-ching! Buyer beware!