here, civic engagement!
001. CFI's Azhar Majeed writes in "Florida: Urge Your Governor to Veto Pro-Naturopathy Legislation" which I'll paraphrase via Perplexity:
Action Alert: Florida Naturopathy Bill
Advocacy Request: The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is calling on Florida residents to contact Governor Ron DeSantis and request that he reject Senate Bill 688, which would authorize naturopathic practice in the state.
CFI's Position: The organization opposes S. 688 because it would permit naturopathy to be practiced throughout Florida with minimal restrictions, despite concerns about its scientific validity. According to CFI, naturopathy doesn't meet evidence-based medical standards and is rejected by mainstream medical experts due to its reliance on treatments that lack scientific support, including energy-based therapies and homeopathic products.
Specific Safety Concerns: CFI has worked for years to inform legislators about risks associated with naturopathy. A particular concern involves vaccine-skeptical views held by many naturopaths, who may promote "nosodes" as vaccine alternatives. CFI argues this misinformation poses serious public health risks, especially given current anti-vaccine messaging from federal sources and ongoing measles outbreaks.
Bill Status and Provisions: Despite these concerns, Florida's legislature has passed S. 688, which would overturn a prohibition on naturopathy that has existed since 1959. The bill authorizes a wide range of naturopathic interventions, including herbal and fungal preparations, nutritional supplements, homeopathic products, "lifestyle medicine," and natural substances, aligned with naturopathic training standards.
Educational Concerns: CFI contends the bill overlooks significant gaps in naturopathic education compared to conventional medical training, which includes medical school, clinical rotations, and residency. This educational difference may leave naturopaths unprepared to recognize potentially dangerous drug interactions, putting patients at risk.
Regulatory Structure Issues: S. 688 establishes a Board of Naturopathic Medicine with seven members, four of whom must be "naturopathic doctors." CFI argues this majority ensures self-regulation that will likely result in permissive oversight and weak enforcement.
Call to Action: With the bill advancing to Governor DeSantis's desk, CFI urges Florida supporters to contact the governor's office and clearly express opposition to allowing naturopathic practice in the state.
Signed by Azhar Majeed, Director of Government Affairs and Policy
***And there is an engagement form at the bottom. I’m not a Florida resident so I'm encouraging Florida residents to engage through either this form or directly through their representatives / legislature.
002. now, I'm in a State with about 100 years of naturopathy legislative permission. It is, by nature [pun alert!] erosive and retrograde in so many ways. My analyses of what NDs are doing here in Connecticut, completed just this 2026 based on their practices' language, can be summed up with this statement [from my recent 2026 Final Report titled "Connecticut Naturopathic Licensure Analysis: Cullen-Snyder Framework Applied to Chapter 373 and Public Act 14- 231"]:
"Connecticut General Statutes Chapter 373, as modernized by Public Act 14-231, establishes a legal and regulatory framework that structurally enables licensed naturopathic physicians (NDs) to present pseudoscientific practices as state-recognized healthcare. When analyzed through the Cullen-Snyder Framework (CSF)—which integrates critical epistemology (Cullen) and political philosophy on freedom (Snyder)—this licensure law produces systematic harms across both epistemic and freedom-based dimensions that harm individual patients and corrode public health institutions."
so once NDs get a foothold, its legislative herpes forever. [Will all due empathy for that patient population].
003. what I though was also really interesting after that report was done was to see what could be anticipated if the current naturopathic regime in Connecticut was granted the prescribing rights they've been requesting for more that 10 years. I wrote in "On Granting Connecticut ND Prescription Rights for 2026 Onward":
"Given the existing pattern, the likelihood that Connecticut naturopaths would use new prescriptive powers in an equally 'stretched' or non‑standard way is high […] overall judgment [...] the base rate behavior (current diagnostics and therapies), the structure of the requested scope (one‑stop diagnosis + labs + prescribing / administration and independent policy assessments -- all align.
If naturopaths are granted the broad prescriptive, dispensing, and administration authority they seek, it is very likely that they will use those powers in an 'extended' or 'stretched' manner [aka inappropriate drug prescribing] comparable to how they already use non‑validated diagnostics and non‑drug modalities [in sum...quackery].
A conservative characterization would be: the probability is closer to 'expected behavior' than to 'edge case'—i.e., deviation from standard of care in prescribing would be normal and predictable, not rare or accidental, given the existing pattern."
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