On the "integration" of quackery into the medical school curriculum

QEDCon is fast approaching (indeed, I can't believe I have to leave for Manchester tomorrow night), and because my talk there will be about the phenomenon of "integrative medicine," I've been thinking a lot about it. As I put together my slides, I can't help but see my talk evolving to encompass both "integrative" medicine and what I like to refer to as quackademic medicine, but that's not surprising. The two phenomenon are related, and it's hard to determine which has a more pernicious effect on science in medicine.

One aspect of quackademic medicine that I probably don't write about as much as I should is the "integration" of quackery into the curricula of medical schools. Part of the reason for that, I suspect, is that I am fortunate enough to be faculty at a medical school and cancer center that remain relatively untouched by the pseudoscience of integrative medicine. True, our medical school does have at least one credulous lecture about "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) that the medical students have to imbibe, but it really is pretty close to the bare minimum required by the accrediting agencies. Oh, yes. Proponents of integrative medicine have been so successful that one requirement for accreditation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) is that there be adequate instruction about CAM. Actually, that's not quite true. Among the educational objectives in the LCME requirements is ED-10: "The curriculum of a medical education program must include behavioral and socioeconomic subjects in addition to basic science and clinical disciplines." This is where CAM and integrative medicine are slipped in. That's because the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health successfully lobbied the LCME to include CAM in its list of topics addressed in the LCME Medical Education Database relative to accreditation standard ED-10. Unfortunately, how that is done in practice is often in the form of entirely credulous teaching of CAM.

Last month, when I wrote about the $200 million donation to the University of California, Irvine (UCI) by the billionaire couple Susan and Henry Samueli to create a college of health sciences that will encompass several UCI schools, including its school of medicine and nursing school, dedicated to "integrating" quackery at all levels into medicine thusly:

The Samuelis’ gift will provide $50 million toward construction of a facility to house the college and $5 million for state-of-the-art technology and labs – forming the foundation of a national showcase for integrative health. It also earmarks $145 million to create an endowment for:

  • Up to 15 faculty chairs across the medicine, nursing, pharmacy and population health disciplines for senior, midcareer and junior faculty with expertise in integrative health
  • Integrative health training and mentoring for interested medical school students
  • Scholarships and fellowships for undergraduate and graduate students planning careers in related fields
  • Innovative curricular development and campuswide interdisciplinary research projects
  • Ongoing clinical services, research and education in the Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute, including investigations of nonconventional interventions as part of medical treatment and educating medical and lay communities about benefits and risks associated with new healthcare approaches

What I didn't talk about so much was number 3: "innovative curricular development." That's CAM-speak for teaching CAM alongside real medicine as though homeopathy has scientific validity. This brings us to an article by noted cheerleader for "integrative medicine" Glenn Sabin, Integrative health's place in the medical school curriculum. If you want to know where Sabin's coming from, consider my previous discussions related to his promotion of alternative medicine, such as his "history" of the integration of quackery with medicine and his advocacy for anecdotal evidence disguised as "N-of-1 trials" over clinical trials in determining if various alternative medicines "work." He also first got my attention for openly admitting that integrative medicine is a brand, not a specialty. Also consider this paragraph from his latest:

My colleague, John Weeks, wrote a terrific response in Huffington Post to the media’s shameful coverage of the visionary and game-changing Samueli gift to UCI. He cogently supports his position with actual research, facts, and developments that illustrate just how out-of-touch these dwindling skeptics are—and how a few media outlets took the bait that led them down a narrow-minded narrative centering on one controversial therapy: homeopathy.

For me, though, the back-and-forth with the cynics is not worth the expended energy. This is not just about acupuncture or chiropractic or massage or dietary supplements. It’s much bigger.

The Samueli gift is about the future of health, led by the doctors of tomorrow, like my nephew, Max, who is in his first year of medical school at George Washington University.

Homeopathy is not "controversial." It is rank pseudoscience. This is not even in dispute. Just look at the way UCI started furiously scrubbing its websites of references to homeopathy as soon as critics started looking at the Samuelis' gift in detail. Clearly, the administration was embarrassed. I also note that one earlier gift agreement between the Samuelis to UCI explicitly mentioned that it was to be used to promote research into homeopathy, among other pseudoscientific modalities and that until recently UCI advertised the services of a naturopath and homeopath on its website. Even proponents of integrating quackery into medicine are embarrassed by homeopathy.

When discussing the "integration" of quackery into medical school, I like to discuss another "George" university namely Georgetown. In many ways, it was a "trailblazer" in "integrating" quackery into medicine. I recounted its history just a couple of years ago, citing a 2003 Georgetown brochure:

One of the reasons CAM is usually offered as an elective is that there’s just no time or room in U.S. medical schools to fit in one more massive subject,” says Michael Lumpkin, Ph.D., professor and chair of the department of physiology and biophysics at Georgetown. “When the course is an elective, a self-selected group – maybe 10 or 20 students in a class of 180 medical students – will take it,” Lumpkin says. “What we’ve tried at Georgetown is rather than create all new courses, we take relevant CAM issues and modalities and weave them seamlessly into existing courses.

The “seamless” weaving of CAM into existing classes includes, for instance, a presentation by an acupuncturist on the “anatomy of acupuncture” in the gross anatomy course for first-year students. The same lecturer explores acupuncture’s application in pain relief in the neuroscience course…

Haramati and Lumpkin say Georgetown’s program is distinct from CAM initiatives in other medical schools in two ways: The school is integrating CAM education into existing course work across all four years of each student’s medical education, and the initiative includes a mind-body class to help students use techniques to manage their own health and improve self-care.

Yes, fourteen years ago, Georgetown was "integrating" pseudoscience into its medical school curriculum at every level, starting from day one. Twelve years later, it was celebrating pseudoscience on the cover of the medical school's magazine. That's not all, though. Reflexology is taught as fact, along with prescientific medical systems, such as traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), "energy healing" like reiki and therapeutic touch, and pretty much every "integrative" quackery you can think of. In 2007, Georgetown partnered with the naturopathy school Bastyr University to train the next generation of integrative medicine practitioners.

This is the sort of future of medicine that Weeks and Sabin so strongly desire.

It's also not as though George Washington University isn't itself a bastion of quackademic medicine. Three years ago, I wrote about all the quackery advertised on its website. GWCIM's list of services includes acupuncture (of course!), chiropractic, craniosacral therapy, infrared light therapies, glutathione infusions, Myers’ Cocktail, naturopathy (again, of course!), reiki, intravenous high dose vitamin C, and genetic profile results that include “customized interpretation of 23andme.com genetic profile results with specific accent on methylation and detoxification profiles.” It’s a truly horrifying website to contemplate, given how little of it has any resemblance to science-based medicine and how much of it includes outright quackery like reiki. In addition, its website’s descriptions of various alternative medicine modalities are depressingly and similarly credulous. Acupuncture is described as being used for “for treatment of respiratory, digestive, urinary and reproductive systems, as well as the disorders of muscle tone, hormone production, circulation, and allergic responses” plus “pain relief, gynecological conditions and symptoms, insomnia, anxiety, and to enhance wellness.” Naturopathy is described as a “comprehensive approach to health and healing that combines modern scientific knowledge with traditional and natural forms of medicine,” with naturopaths addressing “the mental, emotional and physical aspects of an individual, and aim to treat the root causes as well as the symptoms of illness.” According to GWCIM, naturopaths are “trained as primary care doctors at accredited four-year naturopathic medical schools.”

No. They. Aren't.

I also can't help but note that John Weeks' article was really nasty broadside against critics of the Samuelis' gift to UCI in which he accused them of having "blood on their hands." Apparently, Sabin approves of such rhetoric, as long as it's directed against his opponents.

Sabin's article is yet another example of how "integrative medicine" rebrands science-based modalities, such as nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle modification as somehow "alternative" or "integrative" and then uses them as the vehicle in which quackery is also "integrated" into medicine, while trying to dismiss anyone who points out the pseudoscience as the "old guard—the few out-of-touch, aging critics pushing back." (I note that Sabin and Weeks aren't exactly spring chickens themselves.) Naturally, he tries to push back against the critics' narrative:

These same integrative health and medicine naysayers essentially conflate quackery—which ought to be called out and confronted—with the larger, progressive, and impactful, integrative health and medicine movement.

Critics also purport that nutrition, physical activity, and stress reduction are already consistently applied (or taught) clinically—that it’s already ‘part of medicine’. These few critics are wrong. Their view is incorrect. Their statements are patently false. We know this because, if these truly preventative measures were applied—if this was remotely the case—our healthcare delivery system would be consistently delivering ‘health care’, not ‘chronic disease care’.

Proponents of integrative medicine always try to sweep all the quackery their specialty embraces under the rug. Pay no attention to that quackery behind the curtain, they say. We're all about nutrition, lifestyle, and stress reduction. They somehow never manage to address the question: Why is quackery so associated with integrative medicine? If integrative medicine really were about "nutrition, lifestyle, and stress reduction" and nothing else, the quackery would be unnecessary. Homeopathy, naturopathy, acupuncture, "energy healing," functional medicine, bogus allergy testing, and more forms of pseudoscience and quackery than I can list here (but have discussed over the years on this very blog) would not find such a comfortable home in "integrative medicine." That they do fit so nicely in "integrative medicine" is by design, not accident.

Consider this. Let's, for the sake of argument, concede that Sabin has a point. Perhaps nutrition, physical activity, and stress reduction are not sufficiently consistently applied in clinical medicine. If that is indeed the case, the answer is to develop strategies to change this shortcoming in medicine. Those strategies, assuming they're science based (as they should be), will not involve embracing pseudoscience and quackery. Sabin and Weeks go on and on and on about promoting the "nutrition, physical activity, and stress reduction" aspect of medicine, but fail to explain why a separate specialty is needed to emphasize these health promotion activities more. That's because they can't. The entire unspoken rationale that they cannot admit is that "nutrition, physical activity, and stress reduction" function, in essence, as a Trojan horse for hardcore quackery. Integrative medicine shows up at the gates of academic medicine looking like ""nutrition, physical activity, and stress reduction," but once the horse is pulled into the ivory tower of academia, out jumps the real quackery, like naturopathy, homeopathy, acupuncture, functional medicine, and the like.

Also unspoken is that the reason integrative medicine proponents want so badly to insinuate their specialty and thinking into medical school is because they want "nutrition, physical activity, and stress reduction" forever linked with the quackery that they also champion. At schools like GWU and Georgetown, it's working, too. I fear, however, that UCI will soon far surpass both GWU and Georgetown as bastions of quackademic medicine.

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Does anyone have access to fitness and exercise advice prescribed by the "integrative" crowd?

I'm ready to bet £5 that it's all about tai-chi, yoga and "be careful not to exert yourself" types of exercise, rather than strength training or anything close to a sport or planned training with measurable performance or objectives.

By The Vodka Diet Guru (not verified) on 11 Oct 2017 #permalink

To be fair, some forms of yoga can be very vigorous. I used to do vinyasa and ashtanga at a studio in Ann Arbor, and it was definitely difficult and good exercise. There are "goals," like being able to attain certain postures or getting better at "easy" ones, holding things for longer, etc.

Sure, we can be a really proficient Yogi in the same way that someone can be a really good golfer, volleyball player or anything else.

My perspective though, is that there are sports and exercise endeavours that are more conducive than others to improving people's fitness in a measurable way.

My anecdotal experience is that alt-med types are keen to praise fitness and food advice but such advice is not even that great.

By The Vodka Diet Guru (not verified) on 11 Oct 2017 #permalink

Sure, we can be a really proficient Yogi in the same way that someone can be a really good golfer, volleyball player or anything else.

Don't confuse the popularized "Swedish gymnastics" version of yoga with that connoted by the yogi/yogini title.

From the course descriptions, it looks like my med school hasn't yet integrated quackery into its curriculum.

It did recently get a huge cash donation, but the only visible consequence as far as I can tell is that they renamed the med school after the donor.

By Dangerous Bacon (not verified) on 11 Oct 2017 #permalink

@ The Vodka Diet Guru:

To be truthful, a few woo-meisters** DO provide information about cardiovascular and strength training and advocate their usage - as well as yoga et al -
HOWEVER they often present realistic material in self serving ways or exaggerate its effects on health and longevity
.
They present themselves as examples and hint that their products will allow followers to achieve similar spectacular results to their own. Yep, they're elite athletes/ specimens.

They misrepresent what is indeed even feasible for most people in the real world ( which none of them inhabit)-
e.g. one hour of CV a day and one hour of weights most days plus meditation; doing physical work on a ranch or farm.
All while eating extremely restricted, arcane diets ( vegan, mostly raw or paleo, organic etc).

They promise incredible non-verifiable results like adding 6 years to your life, reversing menopause or eliminating/ curing most serious illnesses. You should remember that most of these guys ( and they are mostly men) sell videos, books and supplements/ superfoods whilst one has a holistic retreat/ spa to hawk.

** Mercola, Null, Adams

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 11 Oct 2017 #permalink

Sadly, CAM has been integrated into the nursing curriculum for the entire state of North Carolina community college system via the CIP program in 2007.

How well its been integrated depends on the individual instructor. I wouldn't teach that crap in my classroom. But some of my colleagues did on a regular basis, especially when it came to acupuncture and aromatherapy.

When I was in the psych ward at St. Joe's, they once offered some kind of ridiculous ear acupuncture. I considered doing it just for the chance to get off the locked ward, but instead I said "I don't believe in that stuff" and went and made some coffee or something. (They actually let us have real coffee at the two places I was at in Michigan.)

MSM has a Trojan Horse problem because apparently it f'ed up the "nutrition, physical activity, stress reduction angles" so badly, that it even still exists as a CAM thorn, after 50-80 years of MSM and diatetic failures.

The hostile comments here to discussion on higher dose vitamin D and (IV) vitaman C show how badly various strata of MSM misunderstand some biochemical subjects and mistreat (potential) customers.

Although thin on high cost evidence, there are a number of phenomena not well addressed in MSM recognized by legitimate MDs, PhD and independent thinkering patients with as much horsepower as the average MD or better. It's that simple.

Why do I do on about C and D? Because they are amongst the better described areas historically that an outsider can even begin to technically address various issues independently and their being ignored and misstated all these years have had substantial life and death consequences throughout society.

Fix the real problems or quit bitching and go extinct as "they" occupy and displace, even if part of them create more problems.

@prn

Er, no they're hostile to the fact that people like you say that extra vitamins "Can Cure All Your Ills" and other blather like that, when in fact the only thing you're getting rid of is your money.

PRN: I think part of the hostile reaction you personally are getting is that you act like a porcupine on meth. Asking for proof isn't the same as challenging you to a duel at dawn, but you act like it is.

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 11 Oct 2017 #permalink

I'm an alumnus of two prominent medical schools (MD, residency), and it pains me to see that both offer acupuncture, chiropractic, reiki, chinese herbal medicine, and other quackery.

prn: actually, no. Modern medicine has not "f'd" up nutrition. Quacks have co-opted it and sell a load of baloney. Not the same thing.

When you can prove your claims, come back. We've pressed you again and again for EVIDENCE you never provide.

"On the “integration” of quackery into the medical school curriculum"

Do you still teach?

And no...once again, you're wrong. I'm not Travis...

By kcauqasiiksrogdivad (not verified) on 12 Oct 2017 #permalink

Panacea, #14: the original statement has a few missing words:

Modern medicine has “f’d” up the profitability of the quackery surrounding nutrition.

Hope that helps.

By Se Habla Espol (not verified) on 12 Oct 2017 #permalink

LOL. Conventional "modern medical professionals" are certainly not widely known for their independent thought or creativity. To be fair, the "standard of care" binds them, in order to avoid liability. Lifespans are longer at the moment than they were a century ago, but the quality of that extended life is generally not one that people would consider desirable. And the youngest generations are not predicted to live so long, with children plagued by obesity, arthritis, diabetes, cancer, and other chronic health problems. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize better answers must be out there. Kudos to the practitioners who are willing to explore them

By NWO Reporter (not verified) on 12 Oct 2017 #permalink

LOL. Conventional “modern medical professionals” are certainly not widely known for their independent thought or creativity.

BTW, Honeybunch, you might want to have your freak radio tuned into the 16th.

^^ Oh, dear, G-d, I actually again tried sitting through one of Gindo's "Wal Thornhill" videos, which exist because LIGO makes him constipated,* or something. My machine actually crashed immediately after he barfed up the axiomatic nature of Euclidean geometry.

* If anybody has the spare time, there must be a wormhole theory to be had here.

@NWO

Well you're one to talk about "independent thought" and "creativity" when all you antivax snobs parrot out the exact same lame, pathetic excuses as to why you hate science and love to pad your wallets with the money of ill-informed people.

Is it just me or do all of the antivax people here all spout their own tropes over and over ad nauseum?

Okay apparently NWO has emerged from the void to ruin another comment section

@NWO

You're one to talk about a lack of creativity when all you antivax snobs parrot out the same excuses as to why you hate science and love to ruin people's lives.

Narad: "A braver man than I.."

I'd hoped NWO had figured out she's not welcome here, but alas, she's back.

(And no, I'm not going to her site. I just got this machine working again. In case you all have been wondering, I've been using my tablet most of the week.)

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 13 Oct 2017 #permalink

As far as creativity goes, I don't think most people want creativity from their doctors. Usually, people go to a doctor because they have a problem they want resolved. And 99% of the time, a relatively straightforward solution can be found.

As long as you're here, Ginny, I still want an answer. Did any European royalty die of smallpox or other diseases? Why isn't Europe full of immortal royalty?

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 13 Oct 2017 #permalink

Kudos to the practitioners who are willing to explore them

Some people who call themselves "practitioners" are exploring by selling things to ignorant people. They're exploring, all right-- prospecting for gold.

Other people are exploring by subjecting new ideas to high standards of evidence, and sharing the ones that work with real practitioners.

I know which group of practitioners I prefer: the ones who stick to evidence-supported treatments. Even if they are boring old uncreative fuddy-duddies (which they're not).

Heyy it's NWOR, ready to ruin another post.

Ohhkay sorry for all those dumb posts my stupid computer wasn't showing that they posted and I thought they got lost in the internet void

God this is so embarrassing....

This guy is full of crap - there is hard core FACTUAL EVIDENCE of curing of degenerative diseases - INCLUDONG CANCER - with ALTERNATIVE HEALING METHODS. When did he write this article of QUACKERY? Over the last 20 years - it has been PROVEN over and over again that big pharma, FDA, medical schools and health organizations are all HAND IN HAND keeping the medical industry afloat and in business! If we get CURES for these degenerative diseases without pharmaceuticals - what happens? There is no medical industry! See, there’s no $$ to be made in LIFESTYLE changes, foods that are good for you or in Mother Earth. Why would quacks like this say anything good about what we SHOULD do to be healthy - or how to get rid of or prevent disease? If they did that, they would lose billions! To find out more - read the book POLITICS IN HEALING!!

prn@10: MSM has a Trojan Horse problem because apparently it f’ed up the “nutrition, physical activity, stress reduction angles” so badly, that it even still exists as a CAM thorn, after 50-80 years of MSM and diatetic failures.

The hostile comments here to discussion on higher dose vitamin D and (IV) vitaman C show how badly various strata of MSM misunderstand some

Panacea@14: ...Quacks have co-opted [nutrition] and sell a load of baloney. Not the same thing.

Both parts can be true.

P@14We’ve pressed you again and again for EVIDENCE you never provide
I've provided sources for overviews *of what there is*.
You're greatly biased and (a) behind.

IV vitamin C in acute disease, a subject obstructed by generations of medical biases, is largely summarized in those two books, Levy's Curing the Incurable: Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases, and Toxins- and McCracken's Injectable Vitamin C and the Treatments of Viral and Other Diseases although a few important papers for working hypotheses are missing.

Vitamin D3 is a (re-)emergent area, what's available is largely viewable with vitaminDwiki.com

Oh, so you admit the High Vit C crowd sells baloney? Nice to know.

I said provide evidence, not nonsense.

PRN: See my remarks re:your attitude and maybe, you might see why you're getting a "hostile reaction." It's one thing to present bad facts; its another thing entirely to present bad facts and sneer and snarl while you're doing so. Maybe drop the dukes a little and open up those ears.

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 16 Oct 2017 #permalink

PGP: Bad facts are in the eye of the beholder. I'm past trying to "prove" things to those of narrow and very dense, concrete perspectives. The problem I deal with here is to find which facts or concepts are at variance in a certain way. Sometimes I do try inject a little reality or perspective into the conversation, whether its in an FDA approved factoid or not.

Occasionally I get nice useful bits of science or history - e.g. Kerbiozen was the most frequent with his lab based experiences, sometimes Narad has useful original content that I've never seen, even when it's ad homeniem dirt on someone.

@prn

There are no such things as "bad facts", moron. You sound like those idiotic knuckleheads who came up with "alternative facts."

A fact is a fact, and just because you do not like it, or it comes from somebody/thing you do not like, does not diminish its factualness. Arrogant fluff-brain.

Epsilon, you sound like a grammer nazi that has little experience in the real world and with laboratory work. "Facts" can be very slippery things even in various technical environments due to inadequate specification, description or measurement of conditions, context, misuse, abuse, and yes, politics.

People will often quote some basic random error stats in their data when their systematic errors and biases are eating them alive by orders of magnitude larger. In fact this latter point is central to a number of disputes between CAM and MSM, with profound examples from both "sides". Whether these larger errors are merely unknown, unrecognized or (willfully?) unacknowledged is another area that often colors the conversation.

I'll go one further on the oxymoron of "bad facts":
they come in several flavors.

When, pray tell, did I ever try to correct your grammar? Yes, I did state that you were wrong, and I admit I went off a little, but I never even paid attention to your grammar. (But I will correct your spelling here: it's "grammar" not "grammer," doofus)

Another thing I will admit, unlike you, is that no, I do not have experience in medical fields or laboratory workings; I have not reached that part of my life yet.

If you are true, and there are "bad facts," then they are not facts, but lies. Also, you're one to talk about biases, so don't lecture me on them sweetie.

@Suzy

Uhh yeah there's tons of money to be sold in altie medicine. Just look at the overpriced vitamin C supplements prn is probably hawking. Look at how much money it costs to eat healthy, and how much you have to pay to get into altie "cancer treatment" clinics that are just oh-so conveniently out of the country to avoid restriction.

prn: I’m past trying to “prove” things to those of narrow and very dense, concrete perspectives. The problem I deal with here is to find which facts or concepts are at variance in a certain way.

First thing, see that second half of the first sentence? That's exactly what I mean when I was talking about your attitude and the way you come in swinging.

Secondly, you don't have any facts. You've never provided any proof of anything, and haven't managed to provide or find a single citation by anyone reputable. You just assert "these things are fact," and demand that you be taken seriously on your word alone. And you've done this for years.That's just not going to fly.

You really don't know how science works, do you?

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 20 Oct 2017 #permalink

There's no such thing as bad facts. A conclusion is either correct, or incorrect.

The sky is blue. It may vary in its shade of blue for a wide variety of factors, but it is still blue. It is not green. It is not red. It is not yellow.

prn makes a grand claim about errors of magnitude but since he NEVER gives verifiable examples of what he means by that, he takes the language of science and turns it into a Star Trek like technobabble that isn't nearly as interesting or enjoyable as Star Trek.

To a Troo Believer™ like prn, a fact is 'bad' when it differs from the imaginings [s]he desires to consider as if it were reality. 'Bad facts' are the equivalent of trump's 'fake news'.

By Se Habla Espol (not verified) on 21 Oct 2017 #permalink

In reply to by Panacea (not verified)

there is hard core FACTUAL EVIDENCE of curing of degenerative diseases – INCLUDONG CANCER – with ALTERNATIVE HEALING METHODS

I'm not sure where it's going to prove useful, but I'm definitely adding it to my vocabulary.

@Narad

Maybe it's a secret term like covfefe or heel. :p

It's a portmanteau, and I've heard it used in Thailand.

By Ziggy Stardust (not verified) on 21 Oct 2017 #permalink

@Suzy you are right. Conventional medicine sent me home to die after 20 doctor's and untold number of hospital's could not figure out I had Lyme disease.
That was in 2005. A Chiropractic Physician saved my life and correctly diagnosed my condition on the first visit.
Herbs and homeopathic remedies are true medicine.
RX drugs are just a mask or bandage on the wound.

I'm off all RX drugs and have never looked back.

In all fairness, if you get a broken bone, burst appendix or need open heart surgery then I say go to they specialist. I am not against doctor's. They have their place and are good for certain things.

Marjean: sent you home to die?

What hyperbole.

A false diagnosis of Lyme disease might be good for at least 20 followup visits to the chiro.

"Antibiotics just mask the problem dearie, you need a comprehensive set of adjustments."

By Dangerous Bacon (not verified) on 28 Oct 2017 #permalink

Ugh, really? Physical manipulation cured your Lyme?

More like your chiro cured you of the dreaded disease called "wealth".

Worse - it was "physical manipulation" and homeopathy....which equals - "monetary manipulation."

Western Medicine is paramount for people to survive. Naturopathic Medicine is paramount for people to survive with vitality and an overall quality of life.

To negate Integrative medicine is small minded thinking. Yes, Western Medicine is groundbreaking but it’s missing ONE HUGE ingredient in it’s majority of it’s production.
PREVENTATIVE CARE.
This is because Big Pharma runs you guys and if you can’t see that then you’re either feeble minded or simply not willing to look.

So calling Naturopathic Medical Doctor’s a quackery is nothing but a cry out for your own shortcomings.

Let them bring the quality, the complimentary quality to the Western medicine world because we need it as long as you don’t offer it as a standard.

By Elizabeth (not verified) on 30 Oct 2017 #permalink

Gee, should I cancel my appointment, in about 2 weeks, for a long visit for preventative care, with a real doctor instead of a Not-a-Doctor? Should I not take the meds I take for the purpose of preventative care, since they were prescribed by a real doctor instead of an ND?
What, oh what, should I do????

By Se Habla Espol (not verified) on 30 Oct 2017 #permalink

In reply to by Elizabeth (not verified)

Lady, this is a science blog, not the ad section of a tabloid. Go peddle your nasty snake oil elsewhere.

I hear Natural News welcomes your type. You'll love 'em. You both seem to love nature and ignoring decades of research for "treatments" that would make any respectable nurse or doctor facepalm.

Silly me. For years I've been teaching nursing students about the 3 levels of prevention. But I guess I don't know anything about that, according to Elizabeth.

Oh wait! Vaccines are prevention.

I could have sworn that naturopathy was a product of the Occident.

My doctor prescribed an update to my TDaP as a preventative measure today for a burn on my hand.
There’s a lot of skin that needs to heal and I don’t want my grandson to get pertussis!

By squirrelelite (not verified) on 30 Oct 2017 #permalink

Elizabeth: Scuse you. I just had a quarter size chunk dug out of me in the name of preventative medicine, because everyone concerned wanted to stop whatever it was cold. And every one of the medical professionals i saw was really serious about preventing any infection. No one pushed any more treatment on me than I needed. (for the record, I'm fine, no malignancy detected.)

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 30 Oct 2017 #permalink

Squirrelite: Congrats on the grand kid. We have a nib in the family, and I'm so happy I got my flu shot. (I updated my tdap before nib was born.)

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 30 Oct 2017 #permalink