At the risk of annoying many of my friends, let me opine on Naturopathy.
Apparently the government of British Columbia is about to allow Naturopaths to prescribe drugs.
This is premised on the argument that Naturopathy is a scientific discipline. Is it? At the website for the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine (CCNM) we learn that Naturopaths believe in homeopathy.
Homeopathy treatments rely upon extreme dilutions of drugs following the scientifically unsupported idea that you can be cured by being exposed to drugs that, in larger quantities, would produce the same symptoms as the disease being treated. Apparently the key is the way you shake the bottle (called succussion). There is no evidence to support this, nor would any be expected from a basic understanding of the thermodynamics of water.
So..., why do Naturopaths want to prescribe pharmaceuticals? It would seem that a single standard pill would contain enough of the active ingredient to treat everyone on the planet, forever.
Should Naturopaths prescribe drugs? No. It isn't at all clear that they understand the basics of pharmacology.
Photo credit: Wikipedia commons (a homeopathic preparation of Labrador Tea)
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