this is the script and annotations for the multi-part Naturocrit Podcast Episode 015, aka s02e05, titled “The JACM 2019 Special Issue on Naturopathy”.
---
in
this first third of Episode 015 Part 2, I will take a break from the SIN
proper and share my 2021 Master's degree capstone product, which asks
and answers this question:
"Is care founded upon epistemically
unwarranted medical claims and methods an appropriate publicly-funded
remedy for America's underserved and vulnerable populations' rampant
healthcare inaccessibility and inequality issues? The case of Bastyr
University’s Center for Natural Health and BU’s satellite community
clinics":
Well, this podcast series is my take on naturopathic medicine, an area I've been studying for about twenty years, including my time in so-called 'scientific nonsectarian naturopathic medical school'.
My approach is a pairing of scientific skepticism and a deep knowledge of naturopathy's intimate details.
In previous episodes of this series, I established that naturopathy is, essentially, a kind of knowledge blending, misrepresentation, and irrationality.
I have termed naturopathy both 'an epistemic conflation falsely posing itself as an epistemic delineation' and 'the naturopathillogical': the science-exterior is mixed with what is scientific, then that whole muddle is absurdly claimed to be science as an entire category, while particular sectarian science-ejected oath-obligations and -requirements are coded or camouflaged, therein effectively disguising naturopathy's system of beliefs in public view.
Naturopathy's ultimate achievement is a profound erosion of scientific integrity and freedom of belief packaged in the marketing veneers "natural, holistic, integrative and alternative" and improperly embedded in the academic category "science".
Episode Synopsis:
Greetings from Episode 15 Part 2.
Admittedly, there has been a long gap between the date of publication of the last sub-section of Part 1 of this Episode 015 and this first third of Part 2, which is Episode 015b1.
Almost two years.
I was completing a Master’s degree, in, of all things, health sciences, with a specialty in health professions education.
That was a delight, in all honesty.
Oh, and during that hiatus there also was the Covid-19 pandemic, lockdown, and now gradual, bumpy, tentative return to some semblance of normalcy or whatever one calls life’s conditions post-pandemic.
What has been helpful, in terms of such a delay, is the arrival of more published articles from the Australian naturopathy interests I’m focusing on in this episode.
Perhaps it’s not a bad thing, too, to take a break after 50 published episode mp3s aka parts.
I’m going to continue that Australian delve in Part 3 of this Episode 015 aka Season 2 Episode 5.
Here, now, since it is so current in terms of my major scholarly output this year, I’m going to present my Master’s degree capstone project which was, strangely enough -- wink-wink -- about naturopathy.
I’ll also present a smaller ethics paper [is it such?] written for that degree, titled “IM in CM Case Study Analysis”, which was done about midway through the experience, circa 2019, and that will be Episode 015 part b2.
All the while, I will quite readily admit that I am neither an academic nor a graceful writer.
And naturopathy really isn’t an academic, scientific, or philosophic subject – it’s more like nauseating sewer scuba.
I did want this capstone to be as honestly judgmental as naturopathy is dishonestly confused, and I think I have achieved that.
Heap on the fact that as time has gone by, I’m quite evermost sure that naturopathy is completely unacceptable as a parcel.
Here’s a specific example of what naturopathy isn’t.
The area claims to be a philosophy.
Philosophy is good, the study of wise things, a love of wisdom.
How can what’s fake, in so many ways, irrational, be wise?
Be good?
By definition what’s fake, bad, is not philosophy.
That being said, I will now granularly reiterate my position as evidenced in these two papers.
The capstone will, coincidental to this Episode’s theme, cite such Australian naturopathy interests as the University of Technology Sydney, ND Wardle, and the naturopathy textbook by Sarris and Wardle.
Particularly, I don’t want my output from this era or academic window to disappear into obscurity, like the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
While I’m quite sure that nobody truly cares about this licensed falsehood: its usually uncriticized existence and continued metastasis are a testament to that.
Incidentally, I had presented a while back in 2015 in Episode 006 what I called a ‘thesis’, deliberately in air-quotes, since it was not an academic product vetted through overseeing academic supervision but instead a personal composition from 2006.
That document, “The Epistemic Conflation of a School of Thought Claiming to be Scientific”, in some sense was an inspiration for what I will now entail.
There will be a separate, subsequent mp3 for this episode part which will serve as a stand-alone annotated bibliography and what I can term an extension of initial references.
An Incidental Explanation of a Capstone Project:
I’ll spend a little time explaining the quite common capstone requirement for a Master’s degree, particularly perhaps for international listeners because I’m not sure about trends around the world.
The relevant school where this was produced to meet such a requirement is Excelsior College in Albany, N.Y.
I’d categorize the school as a State of New York entity, though it is not officially part of New York State’s SUNY or New York City’s CUNY systems, both of which I attended decades ago.
At Excelsior’s publicly available page “Course Number: HSC660. Graduate Health Sciences Capstone” we’re told:
“This end-of-program capstone course allows students to synthesize and apply the knowledge acquired throughout their graduate program. Students demonstrate mastery of skills required for advanced practice roles through varied assessments that address current and emerging practice-based and system-based issues in health care.”
And so there you go, the specific course for which this specific capstone was written for.
Specifically, too, the overall structure and intent-as-policy of this capstone – in terms of its sections and goals, broadly speaking – was mandatory.
Or to state that in a more pedagogical manner, the structure and purpose of the capstone was rubric-bound as required by the course parameters.
The chair now recognizes himself…
The central question the capstone asks is:
“Is care founded upon epistemically unwarranted medical claims and methods an appropriate publicly-funded remedy for America's underserved and vulnerable populations' rampant healthcare inaccessibility and inequality issues? The case of Bastyr University’s Center for Natural Health and BU’s satellite community clinics.”
At the Naturocrit blog, along with the transcript to this episode I will provide any tables that are within the papers I am now going to present.
Due to how unwieldy tabular translation to audio is, it may be better to view those tables as I recite their contents.
Additions or notations to the papers will be bracketed with the indication ‘sidebar’ and ‘end sidebar’.
With all due respect to Chris Cillizza’s ‘The Point’ at CNN.
I will also state 'citation' for any general attribution or source and a year for the capstone or paper’s APA in-text citations.
I will detail those citations at the end of the pertaining mp3’s transcript at the Naturocrit blog as well as in my citation appendage mp3 which will be Episode 015b3 or the third sub-part of this Part 2.
00.10.04
SIDEBAR
It just so happens that as I write and record this episode, two current events have caught my eye.
First, an interesting study was published by the Commonwealth Fund, whose mission statement tells us they:
“Support independent research on health care issues and make grants to promote better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency in health care, particularly for society’s most vulnerable, including people of color, people with low income, and those who are uninsured.”
As reported by CNN Health in “US Comes in Last in Health Care Rankings of High-Income Countries” this 2021, we’re told:
“The Commonwealth Fund, which promotes better health care access and quality, particularly for the uninsured and disadvantaged […has found that] the US once again ranked last in access to health care, equity and outcomes among high-income countries, despite spending a far greater share of its economy on health care […] the nation has landed in the basement in all seven studies the Commonwealth Fund has conducted since 2004.”
Second, at nbcbayarea.com, they share an Associated Press July 2021 article titled "DOJ: Naturopathic Physician Sold Fake COVID-19 Vaccine Cards."
There we're told:
"A naturopathic physician in Northern California has been arrested and charged after federal prosecutors said she sold fake COVID-19 immunization treatments and fraudulent vaccination cards that make it seem like customers received Moderna vaccines. Juli A. Mazi, 41, of Napa, was charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of false statements related to health care matters […aka] fake medical information […] the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement Wednesday. The case is the first federal criminal fraud prosecution related to homeoprophylaxis immunizations and fraudulent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 vaccination cards, the department said […the naturopath did all this] instead of disseminating valid remedies and information.”
Sounds like the practice of naturopathy.
Mazi is an NUNM ND graduate.
An accompanying NBC Bay Area video, "Feds: Naturopathic Physician Sold Fake COVID-19 Vaccine Cards" tells us:
"According to this criminal complaint, Mazi is accused of wire fraud and making false statements relating to health care matters."
So that's, in terms of those two items: issues of systemic inequity, lack of access, and poor outcomes, and naturopathic fakery, fraud, and false statements as “fake medical information.”
Therein, I kind of feel current and pertinent with my capstone topic.
And overarching all of this, in terms of a health care system solution, I’ll emphasize: naturopathy is not in any way a solution to issues of access, quality, or cost.
Ah, the Iron Triangle.
As MD, that’s medical doctor, Carroll wrote at jamanetwork.com back in 2012:
“I can make the health care system cheaper (improve cost), but that can happen only if I reduce access in some way or reduce quality. I can improve quality, but that will either result in increased costs or reduced access. And of course, I can increase access […] but that will either cost a lot of money […] or result in reduced quality.”
I’m here, of course, most concerned with naturopathy’s issues of quality, as we’ll see.
Because how can the fake and the misinformed solve an issue that needs improvement?
Obviously, covering naturopathy with public funds increases access and cost, and hugely harms quality.
I don’t see any benefit through access to junk, the resulting wasting of money, and the resulting degradation of standards.
And, as my capstone will emphasize, broadly embracing naturopathy is not just the waste of money in general, it can end up being a huge waste of money for funds laid out for the most in need, the most vulnerable and disadvantaged.
END SIDEBAR
Capstone Project:
Robert Cullen. Excelsior College. HSC 660. Professor McLean. April 25, 2021.
Abstract:
This paper investigates epistemically unwarranted medical claims and methods at Bastyr University’s Center for Natural Health and BU’s satellite community clinics.
Their context of ‘natural health science’ or ‘science-based natural medicine’ is debunked in light of modern science and health care ethics, stakeholders are identified, effects are surveyed, and remedies are proposed including an assessment process.
Keywords:
naturopathy, naturopathic, homeopathy, medical astrology, Bastyr University, natural health science, science-based natural medicine, Medicaid, epistemically unwarranted, academic fabulism, science fakery.
Problem Statement, the Pertaining Ideal, the Pertaining Reality, and the Consequences of Maintaining This Circumstance:
Is care founded upon epistemically unwarranted medical claims and methods an appropriate publicly-funded remedy for America's underserved and vulnerable populations' rampant healthcare inaccessibility and inequality issues?
The case of Bastyr University’s Center for Natural Health and BU’s satellite community clinics.
00.16.03
SIDEBAR:
Now, I wholeheartedly admit that a reflexive response to the question posed is “no, that’s stupid” – in the sense of a modern health care professional and a modern public health policy.
That’s really a “duh, no!” instant response.
As well it should be.
But, in adding the case as context – and I’m using the term case here not to represent a patient but a systemic and geographic instance or pattern – it becomes apparent that such is already going on.
I think that then adds imperative.
One other thing to add is that the Bastyr case is not some odd grandfather clause issue.
It was created de novo by both the naturopathic interests in the pertaining state or states and their state or states' lawmakers.
I also am quite aware of the odious racial history of the ‘grandfather clause’ expression, by the way.
As they say, language holds our history.
END SIDEBAR.
It is federally mandated that Medicaid return the most benefit from its expenditures CITATION: (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services [CMS], 2020).
When specific Medicaid funds are approved for care, the policy justification for the expenditure is carefully reviewed at the federal level while states simultaneously have a significant amount of discretion in terms of how to particularly apply those funds.
Ideally, Medicaid funding would be adequate and the beneficial effects upon measures of systemic access, quality, and cost would be quite marked without such unwanted effects as fraud, abuse, or waste.
There is a perpetually inadequate amount of funding for the vulnerable and underserved populations that Medicaid aims to assist CITATION: (Pollack, 2020).
Currently, in the State of Washington, Medicaid allows ‘natural health science' or 'science-based natural medicine’, otherwise known principally as ‘naturopathic medicine’, to be categorized as primary health care and covered within the publicly funded system.
Local site data indicates that ‘natural health science’ is rife with epistemically unwarranted, unusual, uncustomary, unreasonable, antiscientific, fraudulent, abusive, low-quality, and wasteful activities, approaches, claims, and therapies CITATIONS: (Dyer & Hall, 2019; Bastyr Center for Natural Health [BCNH], 2021e).
There are myriad negative effects that occur due to maintaining this exception to Medicaid reimbursement stringencies.
The areas affected include the quality of care for vulnerable and underserved populations, intellectual harms to the involved academic population, and a broad erosion of professional standards due to this blithe chauvinism.
Root Causes:
Medical education was revolutionized in the 20th-century through the science and quality stringencies required in light of the Flexner Report CITATION: (Barzansky, 2010, p.S19).
The many therapeutic schools of thought that had developed in the United States during the nineteenth century were greatly unable to meet the new requirements and rapidly declined CITATION: (Duffy, 2011, p.272).
Amongst them was naturopathy or natural health, which, like most forms of prescientific medicine, waned into obscurity to the point wherein there was only one U.S. school by the 1960s CITATION: (Baer, 2001, p.333).
By the late 1970s, a revival began as signified by the founding of Bastyr University [BU] by National University of Natural Medicine [NUNM] alumni.
BU is now comprised of two campuses with a shared clinical template.
Initially it was known as Bastyr College when it solely granted ND degrees.
Quite admittedly, Bastyr founding president ND Pizzorno, NUNM class of 1975 CITATION: (Horrigan, 2002), states that he “coined” the term ‘science-based natural medicine or natural health science’ as the marketing and academic label upon the ND program’s natural health contents CITATION: (Pizzorno, 2017, p.9).
00.21.17
SIDEBAR:
The digitized advertising record of BU is quite helpful in terms of pointing out their “natural health sciences” label.
At books.google.com, magazines are also part of the archive, including the advertisements.
One of the earliest archived ads from BU there is in Vegetarian Times from September 1986.
The language includes:
“Bastyr University is an internationally recognized independent university of natural health sciences [including naturopathy or naturopathic medicine…] our graduates are improving human health and well-being through the science of nature.”
So, two science categorizations in an academic sense.
That year was something like my sophomore or junior year in high school.
And I’ll return to their “science of nature” contradiction in terms in a moment.
Out of curiosity, I checked my paper-based USPS-mailed ND schools archive and I found the BU 1996-1997 catalog that was sent to me by them when I was considering ND schools back in the day.
Oh those naïve, younger-me days: when I thought colleges and universities weren’t allowed to ever be fraudulent.
I’d eventually attend UB in 1998, incidentally, and be as I’ve quite copiously detailed grifted and marinated in fraud anyway by a “nonsectarian […] division of health sciences” with naturopathy placed within it.
I noticed that I hadn’t digitized the BU catalog, and I have now done that.
In that catalog, the root “scien” occurs least 202 times and “homeop” at least 136 times, according to my OCR’d version.
How indicative!
Two naturopathy-program classes are rather telling.
We’re told:
“K5141 Research Methods and Design. 2 credits. The scientific method is examined, and students study quantitative and qualitative aspects of medical research. Basic statistical concepts are reviewed, and their role in designing, executing and analyzing data in research is studied. Emphasis is placed on gaining an understanding of how to read and evaluate the medical literature. Prerequisite: admission to [the] naturopathic medicine program [p.042…] NM5121 Naturopathic Philosophy 1. 2 credits [{mistated this as '1.2 credits'}…this course] introduces the philosophy of naturopathic medicine, from its historical origins to the present day. Naturopathic principles of practice, concepts of health and disease, environment, natural hygiene, nature cure (historical naturopathic medicine), the vis medicatrix naturae, naturopathic therapeutics, prevention and wellness, among other topics, are explored. The vitalistic context of science-based, modern naturopathic medicine is emphasized […] prerequisite: admission to naturopathic medicine program [p.049].”
I just promised a moment ago to revisit “the science of nature” that BU claimed in their advertisement, which is akin to what I just read, “the vitalistic context of science-based, modern naturopathic medicine” since the healing power of nature the 'vis medicatrix naturae' at the center of naturopathy is their vitalism premise and requirement all claimed within this science-based categorization or science categorization.
Scientific vitalism is as sane, as rational, as triangular circles: a contradiction in terms.
Such is that far away from sanity.
Such is that much of a contradiction in terms.
And just to make sure that with naturopathy we’re squarely in the land of nutty bogosity, I’ll add these other two naturopathy-program classes from that BU 1996 catalog:
“NM9536. Energetics of Natural Medicine. 0.5 credits. This course presents an analysis of the vital force, the emergence of shape, a redefinition of disease and a discussion of specific disorders […] prerequisite. NM5121 [the naturopathy philosophy course…and] NM9541. Yunani System of Health and Healing. 2 credits. Yunani (of Greece) Tibb (medicine, in Arabic), legacy of Hippocrates, Galen and Avicenna, is the most comprehensive and one of the world's oldest systems of health and healing. It encompasses physical, mental and spiritual aspects of human health and is introduced in the light of its twentieth century evolutionary reformation and resynthesis, with brief history of its competitive existence, stature and staying power. Prerequisite: admission [to the] naturopathic medicine program [p.052].”
Yes, vitalism as vital force as energy – which is scientifically false – and medieval era medicine.
Oh the staying power of the false.
All the while, the root “ethic” is in the catalog at least 89 times.
Such as the naturopathic-program course:
“NM9105. Ethical Issues in the Natural Health Clinic. 1 credit. The purpose of this course is to assist the student/clinician to identify, articulate, discuss and resolve ethical issues as they arise in the Bastyr University Natural Health Clinic and in the private practice of natural medicine. Students learn to present a case in a format designed to foster ethical reflection and develop skills for approaching and resolving a variety of ethical issues which arise in the clinic [p.052].”
Like the rampant quackery at the school’s teaching clinic which I will soon entail?
As in: the case of the school seeding unethicality and nutty bogosity.
END SIDEBAR
Pizzorno, also quite admittedly, has later stated that the essential science-exterior defining contents of naturopathy have not changed for at least several decades CITATION: (Life University, 2009, p.43).
Indeed, at NUNM, the trunk of the U.S. naturopathy tree, one can find a similar contradiction in terms collected on a single web page explaining naturopathy wherein the grossly science-ejected and -exterior are instead claimed to survive scientific scrutiny and are posed as in fact CITATION: (National University of Natural Medicine, 2021).
00.28.56
SIDEBAR:
Touching back on the current event I’d mentioned involving NUNM graduate ND Masi selling homeopathy as an effective therapy when it is quite not, well, where do you think that comes from?
The just mentioned NUNM reference is a ‘statement of naturopathy’s epistemic architecture.’
That nuttiness is where such positions as ND Masi’s comes from, wherein anything goes because what CANNOT is stated as ABLE to survive scientific scrutiny: the science-ejected, science-exterior, and unscienceable.
END SIDEBAR.
Science-based natural medicine or natural health science, instead of being an authentic label, serves as camouflage for a host of ideas, beliefs, procedures, claims, and therapeutics which do not meet the epistemic criteria they have been labeled with CITATIONS: (Atwood, 2003; Atwood, 2004) and can be classified as academic fabulism.
This categorical disorientation -- which is the function of camouflage in part, to blend ; as is the function of a confidence game, to grift -- is best expressed by the institution’s overarching label upon all of its academics, “science-based natural medicine that integrates mind, body, spirit, and nature” CITATION: (Bastyr University [BU], 2021a).
The topic term epistemically unwarranted [or EU] derives from a study by Dyer and Hall that was published in the journal Research in Higher Education in 2019 titled “Effect of Critical Thinking Education on Epistemically Unwarranted Beliefs in College Students.”
In that study, the authors define the EU as:
“Beliefs not founded on reliable reasoning or credible data […] that are held despite a lack of empirical evidence to support them, or even in the face of empirical evidence to reject them” CITATION: (Dyer & Hall, 2019, p.294).
This distinction – between what is warranted and what is not by way of credible data, reliable reasoning, and a weighing of evidence -- will provide a necessary baseline for this project’s topic.
00.31.19
SIDEBAR:
The Florida State University site CPALMS, described as “an online toolbox of information, free vetted resources, and interactive tools to help educators effectively implement teaching standards”, has up the web page “Is It Science or Pseudoscience?”
The science standard the resource is aligned with is “SC.8.N.2.1 Distinguish between scientific and pseudoscientific ideas,” which is a grade eight Florida Next Generation Sunshine State curricular standard.
One of the lesson plans linked to is “Can You Identify Pseudoscience?” which informs us as a subtitle:
“For an idea to be classified as scientific, it must have been subjected to the rigors of scientific inquiry (scientific method).”
Yes, grade eight.
Even in Florida which, admittedly, is reported as average in terms of its comparison to other states’ grade eight science performance as of 2015 at The Nation’s Report Card, which are the published results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
So, naturopathy cannot even fulfill the delineations set forth in grade eight science.
END SIDEBAR.
Perhaps the rather philosophic term ‘epistemic’ will gain greater familiarity to the workaday science education world in the future.
The underpinning advisory documents for the latest national science standards for K-12 educators utilize the term quite casually CITATION: (National Research Council, 2012, p.79).
For the purposes of this paper, epistemic will be employed in its typical manner as the study of knowledge.
Epistemically, it is convenient to grossly categorize BU’s natural health science as a certain type of unnecessary cloud cuckoo land muddled knowledge-kind disorientation.
Naturopathic medicine is factually a location of indistinction and disorientation, wherein the unacceptable, imaginary, and unwarranted are posed as obligatory, actual, and justified.
Thus, the location for this project is both geographic and epistemic.
Local Site [Context, Data, Implementations, Scoring]:
The host entity is the educational institution Bastyr University [BU].
Geographically, BU has campuses in both Washington State and California.
The cities are Seattle and San Diego, respectively.
Since the degrees at each site require in-school supervised practice, BU employs a variety of clinical settings for their various degrees.
Their clinics are within reasonable transportation distances of their campuses for their respective natural health science BU students to conveniently fulfill required patient contacts to graduate.
Two descriptive statements by BU regarding their clinical context and therapeutic rationale can be broken down into the following categories CITATIONS: (BU, 2021a; BU, 2011c, p.144):
Table 1.
BU Labels |
BU Forward-looking assurances
|
BU Contents |
BU Codings |
Implications |
|
natural medicine
natural health arts and sciences
natural healthcare
science-based
non-profit
private
graduate
undergraduate
vitalistic
|
forefront
developing
21-century
degree-granting university
cutting-edge research |
medicine
leadership
integration
supernaturalism
complementary
alternative
affordable community-based services
nature
|
vitalism |
what is science and what is nonscience is equated
|
This is, as has been earlier stated, the clinical implementation of BU’s overall intent: epistemic conflation and disorientation.
BU, fundamentally, permits itself to label the EU as scientific or science-based.
The claim is that something amazing has happened within the programs at the University.
This most amazing thing is BU’s positing that supernaturalism and kind is, indeed, within science and particularly within academic science.
This is in no way true in any legitimate sense CITATION: (Understanding Science at the University of California Berkely, n.d.).
Naturopathy is plainly wrong from its basic foundational knowledge claims.
Supernaturalism within science is in fact academically fraudulent, overall, preponderantly.
This ‘anything goes’ position, labeled as science-based natural medicine or natural health science, then informs all other BU areas, particularly the clinical activities of naturopathy.
00.37.39
SIDEBAR:
Here’s a specific example of anything goes within naturopathy’s ‘science subset ______ [‘blank’]’ scheme.
In the Textbook of Natural Medicine, co-edited by the aforementioned ND Pizzorno -- and I’ll link to the 2020 5th edition which Elsevier calls a “health science” book or journal, a science categorical claim itself -- there’s the overarching claim of the TNM being an “in-depth coverage of science-based natural medicine […] the most comprehensive textbook in this field.”
This field called science-based natural medicine, the supposed health science.
And then there’s its chapter 49, “Unani Medicine.”
Just like in the 1996 BU catalog: the Galenic/Hippocratic medicine of the Middle Ages as then and currently practiced in the Middle East, South Asia, and South Africa [Hongal, S., Torwane, N. A., Pankaj, G., Chandrashekhar, B. R., & Gouraha, A. (2014). Role of unani system of medicine in management of orofacial diseases: a review. Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research: JCDR, 8(10), ZE12–ZE15. https://doi.org/10.7860/JCDR/2014/8335.5018; https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/unani-medicine].
ISYN.
END SIDEBAR.
This is an epitome of unreliable reasoning, nonexistent evidence, and therefore, the EU.
All claims [and methods] within BU’s naturopathy umbrella are, therein, quite suspect.
There can be no rational coherency, no authentic substance to an area based upon disorientation and conflation.
One way to measure that this blended and confused anything goes position is not true is to note that though this fused and perplexing position has been maintained through hundreds of years by various reactionary and recalcitrant movements and collections of thinkers while science was being developed as a delineation, no Nobel Prize has been awarded in particular to those at BU in the past, say, forty years within this science-based natural medicine movement.
To establish the scientific status of supernaturalism and kind would be quite remarkable.
Instead, in fact, science is the process of methodological naturalism that forgoes supernatural explanations and kind in favor of rigorously derived evidence and strict parsimonious reasoning CITATIONS: (National Center for Science Education, 2015; Eck, 2018).
Because this local site is a set of primary care clinical locations, the context becomes one of doing anything -- and not just thinking anything -- therapeutically and diagnostically, labeling those activities well-vetted and of a science foundation CITATION: (BU, 2021f), and falsely categorizing the whole enterprise as cutting-edge medicine.
In support of the previous terms camouflage and disorientation, one should note that there is a tendency within naturopathy to disguise the nature at the heart of naturopathy.
This opacity is a violation of universal healthcare and education obligations to truth-telling or veracity CITATIONS: (University of Missouri School of Medicine Center for Ethics, 2021; United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization International Institute for Educational Planning, 2020).
For example, we were told, as summated in Table 1, “natural medicine, natural health, and natural healthcare”.
Those surface BU descriptions are an epitome of such ‘nature’ coding, as much can be found beneath.
For instance, BU’s badge, from the web page and catalog that comprise the data for that Table 1, contains the Latin slogan “vis medicatrix naturae” [VMN] along with the date 1978.
The badge has no translation.
This is quite significant.
BU has the page “What is Naturopathic Medicine?” and we are told, too, VMN and the slogan is merely equated with healing CITATION: (BU, n.d.).
This is quite significant.
To decode VMN, which expressly is the science-ejected claim of vitalism, one has to delve into deep naturopathic literature not apparent or convenient to the public or other healthcare providers for consumption CITATIONS: (World Naturopathic Federation, 2020; Naturopathic Doctor News and Review [NDNR], 2020; NDNR, 2017).
Opacity and manipulation are a primary modus operandi of the naturopathy project.
This commitment to such ideas and their obscuration can be termed disoriented esotericism.
At the local site level or as a case example, Bastyr University offers community services for naturopathic medicine, nutrition, counseling, acupuncture, and East Asian medicine.
Actually, all four of those areas are naturopathy ‘modalities’, but they have students to train in those areas with those individual degrees too.
In Washington State, the Bastyr Center for Natural Health [BCNH] is described at BU as their teaching clinic.
This is online as bastyrcenter.org.
The clinical setting at Bastyr University California is called Bastyr University Clinic [BUC], and this is online as bastyrclinic.org CITATIONS: (BU, 2016; BU, 2012; BU, 2017).
What follows is a tabulation of the BCNM and BUC contents and activities:
Table 2.
Bastyr Center for Natural Health Seattle, Washington (at bastyrcenter.org).
|
Language from bastyrcenter.org CITATION: (BCNH, 2021b; BCNH, 2021a; BCNH, 2014; BCNH, 2021f; BCNH, 2021d) |
||
|
Assurances |
EU |
Quality Transgressions |
|
firmly science-based the same basic sciences as a medical doctor (MD) the Western medical sciences as a foundation just like MDs, naturopathic physicians must pass rigorous professional board exams science-based academic rigor drawing on current scientific research evidence-based medicine and standards of practice successful, centuries-old wisdom licensed, time to listen, get to know you, working with you, your unique route treats many health conditions, choose the best treatment, comprehensive assessment, in-depth, addressing your illness, optimizing wellness, primary care, medical training, disease prevention, promoting wellness, can prescribe, puts your needs first, highly competitive, extremely bright, high-quality
|
supplements, homeopathy, physical medicine, hydrotherapy, craniosacral therapy, vitalism
|
coded vitalism, omitted supernaturalism, mandated supernaturalism
|
00.45.54
SIDEBAR:
The first column basically is an assurance of good things, particularly a basis of university science and university medicine that’s very patient-centered and evidence-based.
The second column I’ll have more details for in a table about the epistemically unwarranted.
Some of what’s mentioned there, particularly as within naturopathy, may not be the same as what occurs in the world outside of naturopathy.
And finally, the quality transgressions I see are the kinds of things which are not respecting freedom of choice by giving enough information to make an informed decision.
And then also just these amazing contradictions where the big brush stroke is science, and again as I’ve pointed out, we have such things in it as the supernatural and kind as if…
Because, again, anything goes.
Homeopathy, and I’ll mention this a few times, is a great bellwether for anything goes.
When someone says science, and then they show homeopathy activity, then anything goes.
But there will be more examples, soon, in another table.
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[Continues in next post].
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