here -- with NUHS on my mind and initially likely because I read the NUHS faculty testimony from the March NACIQI meetings and because for some reason I see a decent amount of persistent listens or reads to the 2018 Naturocrit Podcast Episode 14b which deals with ND Smith's naturopathy textbook of 2008, its CNME compliance, and his academic home at National University of Health Sciences; and, because, admittedly, I forget about the middle of the country in terms of Naturopathyland, per Flyover Effect, and this includes the Illinois school so lets give that area some love -- I'll flesh out some musings through Perplexity AI-LLM interrogations across 2018 to the present 2026:
001. Episode 014b, titled "ND Smith and Spoliation [spo lee a tion] of Higher Education Science Integrity and Medical Ethics", is here as mp3 [Podbean; Archive.org]; and its script is here [Blogger];
002. regarding my use of spoliation [drawn from a query at the end of the Perplexity thread used:
"'Spoliation' in the episode title ends up working as a pretty sharp metaphor for what the script documents at NUHS in 2018 and what becomes visible about CNME by 2026: not literal destruction of evidence, but a progressive damaging of the integrity of 'higher education science' in and around naturopathic programs that CNME accredits.
In law, spoliation is the destruction, alteration, or concealment of evidence by a party who has a duty to preserve it. The script’s title—'ND Smith and Spoliation of Higher Education Science Integrity and Medical Ethics'—borrows that concept and redirects it: instead of shredding documents, institutions are said to be shredding or contaminating the category of science as applied to health‑professional education [...by] eroding the boundary conditions that protect scientific categories and medical ethics from sectarian belief and pseudoscience."
[I'll also add that as mentioned in the previous post, NUHS does not apparently share their presumably dismal NPLEX licensure exam scores publicly...a kind of evidence concealment].
003. Perplexity tasking:
003.a. [as a Devil's Advocacy] "For the attached podcast episode script: a) Does the author's argument withstand scrutiny?; b) Does the author seem intolerant?; c) Does it seem the author respects the diļ¬erentiation of belief and scientific processes?; d) What situations resemble the context that is being describe from, say, the past 100 years?";
003.b. answer:
- "a) The core argument largely withstands scrutiny on its own terms as a skeptical, evidence‑oriented critique of how NUHS and Fraser Smith’s textbook frame naturopathy as 'science‑based,' though some rhetoric is polemical rather than neutral;
- because his core thesis is about the mismatch between explicit naturopathic doctrinal claims and the label 'science‑based,' and because he supplies direct quotations to demonstrate that mismatch, the argument largely stands up as a forceful but evidence‑grounded critique rather than a mere rant;
- b) The author is harsh and contemptuous in tone, but the intolerance is directed at institutional practices and epistemic standards, not at persons’ right to hold religious or spiritual beliefs;
- the author expresses strong contempt for naturopathic institutions and epistemology, using derisive coinages [...] this clearly indicates low tolerance for [...] what he sees as institutionalized deception or 'Title IV‑funded science fraud,' not only honest disagreement. However, the same text repeatedly affirms support for 'freedom of belief and liberty of thought' and frames the problem as mislabeling religious or spiritual doctrines as scientific facts, especially in contexts of educational and professional power [...this is] a rights‑based defense of pluralism in belief, even as he is uncompromising about boundary‑keeping around the label 'science' [...] he is not arguing that people should be forbidden to hold naturopathic, spiritual, or religious views; rather, that these should not be misrepresented as science in accredited programs or clinical standards of care;
- c) Yes: the script repeatedly stresses a distinction between belief and science, and explicitly grounds its criticism in that differentiation [...] where he is least 'respectful' is in tone, not in the conceptual distinction: he uses ridicule toward belief‑like constructs, yet still grounds his ethical concern in protecting individual freedom of belief from institutional overreach;
- d) Very similar dynamics have played out in the last century around chiropractic, psychoanalysis, creationism/intelligent design, and 'integrative' or 'quackademic' medicine in universities and hospitals [...wherein] all of these cases involve institutions with educational or clinical authority embedding non‑empirical or weakly empirical doctrines under a science label, with critics arguing that this undermines both scientific integrity and the autonomy of students and patients who assume 'science‑based' means something more constrained" [e.g., something with integrity -- that's integr-ity, not be be confused with the above 'integr-ative'!!!];
004.a. [admitted snark / expressed contempt] “From the script, tabulate what ideas, activities, methods, and descriptors are termed 'duh' and explain whether or not they fail within: a) modern scientific healthcare; b) doctoral level academic health science" and "Is the 'duh' justified [aside from its snark aspect]?”;
004.b. the answer:
"
Label in script | What it refers to (idea / activity / method / descriptor) | a) Modern scientific healthcare? | b) Doctoral academic health science? |
“four years of dyseducation” and “duh indoctrination” | The ND degree program at NUHS as a whole, presented as clinical, science‑based doctoral training. | Fails: ND curricula centered on vitalism, homeopathy, spirit disturbance, and detox are not accepted as a basis for independent primary‑care practice. | Fails: A doctoral health‑science program that embeds science‑ejected doctrines at its core does not meet norms for rigor, falsifiability, or methodological naturalism. |
“the ideal is the duh” (reversal of values) | NUHS/Winterstein’s framing of Smith’s textbook as “outstanding,” “excellent,” and standard‑setting for health‑science colleges. | Fails: A text that normalizes homeopathy and vitalism as central therapies conflicts with evidence‑based clinical standards used in modern healthcare. | Fails: Using such a text as the fundamentals standard conflicts with academic norms that prioritize empirically testable, well‑supported frameworks. |
“treatment approach duh” | The textbook’s generic template: support detoxification systems + use homeopathic medicine to “stimulate the vital force” for essentially all disease. | Fails: Homeopathy lacks credible evidence for efficacy beyond placebo, and “detox” in this broad sense is not recognized as a generic treatment principle. | Fails: As a general treatment algorithm in doctoral training, it is not grounded in robust clinical trials, mechanistic plausibility, or standard pharmacology/physiology. |
“life force is not a physiologic system, duh” | Vitalism / vis medicatrix naturae / qi as literal explanatory entities and therapeutic targets in clinical care. | Fails: Vital forces and qi as causal entities are not part of accepted physiology or pathology; they are absent from mainstream guidelines and curricula. | Fails: They are treated (at best) as historical or cultural beliefs, not as legitimate objects of explanatory theory in contemporary biomedical science education. |
“junk thought all wrapped up in a false science veneer: naturopathy. ‘Duh’ can have some very serious consequences.” | The overarching practice of branding naturopathic vitalism/spirituality/homeopathy as “evidence‑based science” in clinical and educational settings. | Fails: Rebranding belief‑based modalities as “evidence‑based” misleads patients about likely benefits/risks and undercuts standard risk–benefit appraisal. | Fails: Misrepresenting beliefs as empirically validated knowledge is antithetical to doctoral‑level academic norms of transparency and methodological clarity. |
"The ideas the author mocks as 'duh' would not pass as legitimate core content in most doctoral‑level health‑science programs; they belong, if at all, in courses on history of ideas, belief systems, or critical appraisal of pseudoscience, not as foundational clinical theory [...] for the specific ideas and methods he tags as 'duh' (vital force as physiology, homeopathy as primary treatment, detox as universal regimen, relabeling spiritual doctrines as 'science‑based'), the pejorative is substantively grounded in widely accepted scientific standards and evidence [...] for the whole program as 'dyseducation,' some nuance is inevitably lost, even if his underlying structural critique about epistemic conflation remains strong";
005. Perplexity tasking:
005.a. [and regarding CNME precarity with NACIQI] "In light of NUHS's continuous CNME accreditation of its naturopathy offering since 2012, and the recent precarious situation that CNME finds itself this 2026, what kind of insight does the podcast script from 2018 offer?"
005.b. the answer:
"The 2018 script ends up looking like an early, granular case study of the very ['integrity category'] weaknesses in CNME’s ecosystem that are now manifesting as institutional precarity in 2026, especially at NUHS, which has enjoyed uninterrupted CNME accreditation since 2012 and a seven‑year reaffirmation in 2022.
[Note: I add 'integrity category' to emphasize that the 2026 issues with CNME have not directly flagged naturopathy's pseudoscience / epistemic misrepresentation as far as I can tell -- as I went over in the previous post as epistemic -- but has flagged other integrity issues in terms of how they institutionally oversee that pseudoscience -- as I went over in that previous post as moral. {I mean, what charity! Always charity {the moral} and absurdity {the epistemic} with naturopathy! E.g., 'You cannot beat your wife ever. Nobody can. Doing so is completely wrong {the moral}. But for you, naturopathy, our favorite, we'll exclude Fridays: we'll avert our eyes {the epistemic}(that's all a metaphor).} So treatment of naturopathy is kind of funny / peculiar {the epistemic} and tragic / victimizing {the moral} at the same time: it's like sending back a cup of tea because it is not per what you ordered {the moral terminus} but you are sitting on the deck of the Titanic having tea after it has hit the iceberg {the epistemic central issue of most important and causative concern}].
What it reveals about CNME’s substantive standards
The script makes clear that Smith’s textbook is explicitly “designed to comply with the curriculum established at leading naturopathic colleges affiliated with the CNME,” and that NUHS’s ND program is built around that framework.
It then documents that those “fundamentals” include:
- Vitalism / vis medicatrix naturae and “vital force” as literal explanatory entities and therapeutic targets.
- Homeopathy as a standard treatment option for serious conditions across organ‑system chapters.
- Spirit disturbance and qi as central components of etiology and treatment.
- Broad “detoxification” protocols as generic treatment strategies.
Because NUHS’s ND program has been continuously accredited by CNME since 2012, with CNME publicly praising its “emphasis on naturopathic principles” and re‑accrediting it for six‑ and seven‑year terms, the script shows that CNME’s notion of acceptable educational quality explicitly embraces these doctrines as core, not fringe.
The insight for 2026 is that CNME’s current regulatory troubles are not a surprise deviation; they reflect a long‑standing choice to treat this epistemic mix as “rigorous” and accreditation‑worthy.
Early illustration of the integrity/misrepresentation problem
NACIQI’s 2026 recommendation against renewing CNME’s recognition hinges on CNME’s integrity as a “reliable authority on educational quality” and its handling of student outcomes and disclosure, not on vitalism/homeopathy per se. But the script shows, eight years earlier, a closely related integrity issue at the program level:
- NUHS and naturopathic authorities repeatedly describe programs and texts as “science‑based,” “evidence‑based,” and part of “health science colleges,” while simultaneously teaching spiritual/vital forces and homeopathy as clinical fundamentals.
- Institutional and curricular language (e.g., “healing power of nature,” “self‑healing”) obscures the religious/vitalist content, creating a risk of misleading students and patients who read “science‑based” as conventional empirical science.
The script thus anticipates one of ED's central worries about CNME:
- whether the accreditor requires its programs to give prospective and current students clear, data‑driven, and accurate information about what they are actually getting and what it leads to.
It doesn’t use ED's jargon, but it provides rich narrative detail showing how, at NUHS, a CNME‑accredited program blends belief‑based constructs with scientific branding in ways that would be hard to square with a strong consumer‑protection stance.
NUHS as a concrete example of CNME’s oversight choices
Because NUHS:
- Reached CNME candidacy in 2008
- Received full CNME accreditation in 2012
- Was re‑accredited for six years around 2017
- Then re‑affirmed again in 2022 for seven years
the 2018 script effectively gives you a snapshot inside a program CNME has repeatedly endorsed as meeting or exceeding its standards. In 2026, with CNME’s recognition at risk, this matters in two ways:
- It shows that when CNME calls a program like NUHS compliant and praises its emphasis on “naturopathic principles,” those principles concretely mean vitalism, homeopathy, detox, and spiritual etiologies woven into a “health science” curriculum.
- It highlights that CNME’s accreditation decisions have long validated this structure, reinforcing NACIQI’s concern that CNME’s notion of “educational quality” diverges from broader expectations for doctoral‑level health education tied to federal recognition.
So the script gives you evidence that CNME’s current precariousness is not just about recent outcome data; it is the endpoint of an accreditor repeatedly opting to legitimize institutions whose core curricula look like what the script describes.
Strategic value for 2026 debates
For current discussions about CNME’s future, the script offers three practical kinds of insight:
- Evidence of long‑running patterns: It shows that concerns about epistemic conflation and science‑branding at CNME‑accredited schools were well‑articulated by 2018, undermining any claim that these issues are new or unknown.
- A narrative complement to outcome data: NACIQI and ED are focusing on outcomes, debt, and disclosure; the script adds qualitative detail on what students are actually taught under the “accredited health‑science” banner, which can inform how regulators and policymakers interpret those outcomes.
- A template for program‑level review: It models a method: take a CNME‑accredited program, read its core texts and catalogs carefully, and compare the actual content and claims to mainstream standards for science, ethics, and transparency [dare I say: duh!].
In short, viewed from 2026, the 2018 episode functions as an early, well‑documented warning shot:
- it shows that CNME’s long‑standing accreditation decisions [broadly] — using NUHS as a flagship example — have embedded a specific, non‑standard mixture of belief and science into what is presented as doctoral‑level, science‑based health education [an issue of integrity], and it does so years before federal recognition was formally put at risk [again, not at risk on paper for being a sinking ship or a wife beater, just at risk in terms of their oversight of sinking ships and abuse patterns that are ignored (again, metaphors)]."
006. Perplexity tasking:
006.a. "Based upon what is shared / argued [thread contents], are there any hooks that apply to NUHS?";
[Note: "In a legal or regulatory context, a 'hook' refers to the specific legal authority, event, or jurisdictional link that allows an agency, court, or legislative body to exercise oversight, assert jurisdiction, or enforce a rule" (sourced by Gemini from here)].
006.b. the answer:
"Yes. The script explicitly surfaces several 'hooks' that plausibly apply to NUHS as an institution, not just to Fraser Smith’s individual textbook [with all due respect for Smith's freedom to express himself].
Institutional science‑branding vs. vitalism/homeopathy
The author links Smith’s textbook to NUHS’s own positioning of its ND program as a “health science” program that is “evidence‑based,” while the curriculum and textbook centrally feature vitalism, homeopathy, qi, spirit disturbance, and detox as clinical foundations. NUHS markets the ND degree as part of an integrative “health sciences” campus with a “rigorous basic sciences curriculum” and “evidence‑based” emphasis, which matches the pattern the author criticizes:
- mixing conventional biomedical coursework with explicitly non‑scientific doctrines, then branding the whole as science.
From a regulatory or consumer‑protection perspective, that’s a clear hook:
- if NUHS uses “science‑based,” “evidence‑based,” or “health science” branding to recruit students and patients while embedding science‑ejected constructs as core, the mismatch between promise and content could be actionable under general false‑or‑misleading advertising standards or higher‑education misrepresentation rules.
Transparency and informed consent
The script highlights NUHS’s course description for “Foundations of Naturopathic Medicine I,” which lists “vitalism” and “spirituality” as major concepts but does not frame them as religious or speculative doctrines—only as components of a “clinical theory stream” in a health‑science program. It also notes that NUHS and other naturopathic institutions present phrases like “healing power of nature” and “self‑healing” without disclosing that these refer to a vitalist/spiritual construct (vis medicatrix naturae) that their own literature admits is not explainable by science or physico‑chemical forces. That creates hooks around:
- Informed consent in clinical training and patient care: if patients reasonably infer “evidence‑based clinical science” but are actually receiving care based on spirit/vital‑force doctrines, disclosure may be inadequate.
- Student consumer protection: if NUHS markets the ND program as science‑based primary care training, but a nontrivial portion of the core framework is in fact religious‑like doctrine not recognized in mainstream science, students might argue they were misled about the nature of what they were buying and its acceptability in broader health‑care markets.
Accreditation and Title IV / regulatory exposure
The script repeatedly references CNME and emphasizes that Smith’s textbook is “designed to comply with the curriculum established at leading naturopathic colleges affiliated with the Council of Naturopathic Education (CNME),” and that NUHS’s ND program is CNME‑accredited. The author’s framing — “Title IV‑funded science fraud” and “institutionalized methodological confabulation” [from the Naturocrit banner] — is polemical, but it points to a concrete hook:
- federal student‑aid eligibility depends on not engaging in substantial misrepresentation of the nature of programs and the employability they confer.
If an institution draws down Title IV funds for a program held out as scientific, evidence‑based, and training primary‑care doctors, yet embeds pseudoscientific and religious doctrines at the core and graduates have limited mainstream clinical opportunities, regulators could, in theory, investigate whether NUHS’s representations are materially misleading [Note: And of course, the precarity of CNME this 2026 is due to them answering to their own accreditor, basically, who is applying Federal rules and law.]
Standards of care and patient safety
The script lists textbook examples where homeopathy is proposed for serious conditions like chest pain, hypertension, GI bleeding, multiple sclerosis, asthma, UTIs, and pediatrics, and notes that detox and vital‑force manipulation are recommended as generic treatment strategies. NUHS, in its own marketing, describes training ND students as primary‑care doctors and emphasizes comprehensive clinical training and integrative therapeutics.
Taken together, this gives you hooks around:
- Deviation from prevailing standard of care if NUHS‑trained NDs manage serious conditions primarily with homeopathy, detox regimens, or vitalist frameworks.
- Institutional duty of care in teaching students to assess and triage appropriately, and not to substitute unproven modalities for evidence‑based medical interventions in emergencies or serious chronic disease.
Misrepresentation hooks summarized
Here is a compact table of the main hooks you could generalize from the script:
Hook category | How the script ties it to NUHS |
Science/evidence misbranding | NUHS ND is marketed as “health science,” “evidence‑based,” while vitalism, homeopathy, qi, and spirit disturbance are core framework and therapies. |
Informed consent (patients) | NUHS‑aligned frameworks use euphemistic language (“healing power of nature,” “self‑healing”) rather than transparent vitalism/spiritual doctrine, risking patient misunderstanding. |
Student consumer protection | Students purchasing “primary‑care doctor” training in a science‑based program receive substantial instruction in science‑ejected and unscienceable constructs. |
Title IV / accreditation | CNME‑accredited NUHS ND program uses Fraser Smith’s framework to standardize a curriculum the author characterizes as pseudoscientific yet federally funded. |
Standard of care / safety | Textbook and ND culture endorse homeopathy/detox for serious conditions while NUHS portrays ND graduates as primary‑care providers. |
."
007. Perplexity tasking:
007.a. [perhaps more hooks] "How does what NUHS is doing in terms of naturopathy as we have covered above compare to the standards of national science organizations and national educational organizations in the United States?";
007.b. the answer:
"NUHS's naturopathic program operates in direct contradiction to the standards and positions of major U.S. science, medical, and educational organizations. The contradictions exist at multiple levels:
Major Medical Organizations: Explicit Opposition
American Medical Association (AMA)
The AMA has taken an unambiguous position that naturopathic education fundamentally fails to meet medical science standards:
[...]Critical Finding: The AMA explicitly states that CNME - the body accrediting NUHS's program - has no mandate to ensure evidence-based medicine as the foundation. This means the accreditor itself does not require scientific validity.
Scientific Assessment from Medical Literature
A peer-reviewed article in Medscape General Medicine titled "Naturopathy, Pseudoscience, and Medicine" concludes:
- "Medicine improves itself cumulatively through science, while naturopathy rebuffs science. By failing to give its students the intellectual tools to discern science from pseudoscience, naturopathic colleges graduate students unable to differentiate unfounded health claims from those supported by science".
National Science Organizations
Scientific Consensus on Vitalism
- The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has addressed vitalism's scientific status. Modern biological science considers vitalism "refuted by empirical evidence" and classifies it as "pseudoscience since the mid-20th century".
- Wikipedia's scientific consensus statement: "Biologists now consider vitalism in this sense to have been refuted by empirical evidence, and hence regard it either as a superseded scientific theory, or as a pseudoscience".
- A scholarly article notes "the remarkable longevity (in spite of numerous 'refutations') of the idea of vitalism" in biology despite its scientific invalidity.
NIH Position on Homeopathy
The National Institutes of Health states unequivocally:
- "There's little evidence to support homeopathy as an effective treatment for any specific health condition".
Federal Accreditation Standards: Current Crisis
NACIQI Unanimous Rejection (March 2026)
The National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity voted 12-0 to recommend denial of CNME's federal recognition renewal. While CNME retains recognition pending the Department of Education's final decision, this unanimous rejection is unprecedented.
Most Damning Finding:
- NACIQI determined that CNME "fundamentally compromised its integrity as a reliable authority on educational quality by officially citing student demographics as a justification for substandard program outcomes".
Federal Compliance Failures
NACIQI found CNME failed compliance with multiple federal criteria including:
- 602.16 (student achievement)
- 602.19 (curriculum)
- 602.23 (institutional evaluation)
- 602.25 and 602.26 (additional quality standards)
Student Outcomes Problem:
- Several CNME-accredited programs fall below CNME's own 70% pass rate threshold for licensing exams. Students cannot pass even their own profession's licensing exams at acceptable rates.
2026 Department of Education Standards
New Department of Education consensus requirements mandate accreditors evaluate whether institutions have:
- "Policies to prevent fabrication, material misrepresentation, plagiarism, and other forms of research misconduct"
- "Academic freedom protections" and "policies to protect...intellectual diversity and the free exchange of ideas"
- Standards that "emphasize student success" including "licensure or certification results"
NUHS's program potentially violates all three:
- Teaching vitalism and homeopathy as science constitutes material misrepresentation
- Requiring vitalistic beliefs as philosophical commitments violates academic freedom principles
- Sub-70% licensing pass rates at several CNME programs
The Accreditation Loophole
How the System Fails
The regulatory structure creates a three-layer system where no entity evaluates scientific validity:
- Regional accreditors (Higher Learning Commission) accredit NUHS institutionally
- CNME accredits the ND program content
- Neither is required to evaluate whether naturopathic principles are scientific [E.g.: nobody is allowed to notice that the ship is sinking, that he's beating his wife on Friday nights {again, a metaphor}].
[...]
Comparison to Legitimate Medical Education Standards
International medical education standards reference:
- World Federation for Medical Education - Global Standards for Quality Improvement
- Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) standards
- Australian Medical Council standards
- General Medical Council standards
All require evidence-based, scientific foundations. CNME has no such requirement.
State Licensure: Regulatory Capture
Twenty-three states now license NDs, creating a remarkable situation:
- States are licensing practitioners based on education that major medical organizations say is not evidence-based.
The regulatory chain works like this:
- CNME (federally recognized, though recommended for denial) accredits programs
- Graduates take NPLEX exams
- States grant licensure based on CNME accreditation + NPLEX passage
No step requires scientific validity of the underlying paradigm.
The Marketing Deception vs. Reality
What NUHS Claims
NUHS markets itself as offering:
- "Evidence-based curriculum"
- "Strong science-based curriculum"
- "Rigorous and academically challenging curriculum that blends a thorough scientific foundation"
- "Comparable and complementary" to MD/DO training
What the Evidence Shows
- Training Hours: 1,200 clinical hours (ND) vs. 12,000-16,000 (MD/DO) - a 10-fold difference
- Accreditor Requirements: CNME does not require evidence-based medicine as the curriculum foundation
- Core Philosophy: Students must accept vitalistic principles that contradict scientific materialism
- Homeopathy: Taught as a core modality despite NIH stating "little evidence to support homeopathy as an effective treatment for any specific health condition"
The Fundamental Contradiction
NUHS operates under a parallel credentialing system that:
- Uses "Health Sciences" in its institutional name
- Grants doctoral degrees for mastering vitalism and homeopathy
- Is accredited by an organization (CNME) that has no mandate to ensure scientific validity
- Just received a unanimous 12-0 recommendation for denial of accreditor recognition
- Contradicts major medical organizations' positions on educational standards
- Contradicts scientific consensus on vitalism
- Teaches modalities (homeopathy) that NIH says lack evidence
The Core Problem
While NUHS claims to provide education meeting national standards, the reality is:
- Major medical and scientific organizations require evidence-based medicine and scientific foundations.
- CNME explicitly does not mandate this.
This allows NUHS to operate as a "University of Health Sciences" while teaching content that scientific organizations classify as pseudoscience, accredited by an organization whose recognition was just unanimously recommended for denial due to compromised integrity.
The institution exploits the gap between what the public assumes "Health Sciences" means (evidence-based, scientifically grounded) and what CNME accreditation actually requires (no mandate for evidence-based medicine) - a systematic violation of truth-telling enabled by regulatory structures that prioritize process over epistemic validity.”
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