Naturopaths: rubbish at healthcare, excellent at character-assassination

Britt Marie Hermes is a most remarkable woman. She is an ex-naturopath who has the courage to speak out against all that is wrong with naturopathy. On her website she writes:

I used to be a naturopathic doctor. For 3 years, I practiced naturopathic medicine, licensed in Washington and Arizona. I earned my degree at Bastyr University and then completed a one-year naturopathic residency in a private clinic. I stayed at this clinic until I moved to Tucson.

Naturopathic medicine is not what I was led to believe. I discovered that the profession functions as a system of indoctrination based on discredited ideas about health and medicine, full of anti-science rhetoric with many ineffective and dangerous practices.

I left the profession of naturopathic medicine to pursue an education in biomedical research. Since my departure, I have been working to understand my former biases within naturopathic medicine. I am now exploring the ethics and evidence, or lack thereof, of naturopathic education and practice. I hope I can convey the message that naturopathy must be highly scrutinized, as its proponents have a seemingly on-going history of deceit, exploitation, and medical fraud.

Her articles are a rich source of fascinating material about naturopathy, and I warmly recommend you read her criticisms; you will not find better-informed comments easily. Recently, she went one step further and started a petition against US naturopaths’ plight to call themselves ‘doctors’. It seems that this was one step too far for the mighty ‘BIG NATUROPATHY’.

Forbes Magazine reported that, on May 26th, 5 days after Hermes launched her petition, the AANP retaliated [the AANP is the leading naturopaths’ organization in the U.S., the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians]. The subject line of an email sent to all AANP membership:  “AANP Needs Your Help – Stop Britt’s Change.org Petition.”

“We need your help to stop this petition… This petition violates these [Change.org] policies:

• Breaks the law – this is defamatory and libelous content
• Impersonates others;  Britt Marie Hermes is not from the United States
• Terms of service – does not abide by the law or respect the rights of others

Naturopaths found Britt Marie so threatening that they started a website entitled ‘BRITT MARIE HERMES FACT CHECK. Here they indulge in blatant character assassination:

Britt Marie Hermes Fact Check was established to provide an unbiased analysis of the claims that Britt Marie Hermes (Britt Marie Deegan) has made, and is making, about Naturopathic Medicine, its educational system, and its practitioners. For the past year she promoted herself as an expert on Naturopathic Medicine, having left the profession because of her unsuccessful time as a practitioner. It’s clear that she has an agenda against the profession while claiming to be an expert. She has consistently lied, and left out important facts when discussing aspects of the Naturopathic Medicine, its educational system and its practitioners. Accusations have been made that she is being paid by the pharmaceutical industry, although they haven’t been substantiated. What is clear, is that she was unsuccessful during her short time as a practitioner and now has an agenda against the profession.

This looks suspiciously like the dirt some alternative medicine fans have been throwing at me, I thought, and I asked Britt Marie (who I once had the pleasure of meeting in person) to comment – and she very kindly did:

I find it amusing to be accused of being an unsuccessful practitioner of naturopathic medicine. I graduated with high grades from Bastyr. I landed a highly competitive naturopathic residency. Had I remained in practice, I would currently be eligible to take the naturopathic pediatrics “board-certification” exam offered by the American Association of Naturopathic Pediatrics.

I walked away from my practice because my boss was committing a federal crime by importing and administering a non-FDA approved medication to his cancer patients. I decided to leave naturopathic medicine for good after a former president of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians urged me not to report my boss’s criminal activity to the authorities.

These wounds still hurt. I lost dozens of friends. I lost eight years of my life. I lost my livelihood. The ND degree does not have any value in the academic community. It is a tarnish on my permanent record. It would have been in my financial interest to move to another practice and continue being a “successful” naturopath.

The problem with naturopaths is that they measure success by how much money one collects from patients, yet they fail to understand that naturopathic services are quackery. So by their logic, being a successful naturopath is dependent upon profiting by fooling patients and fooling oneself. If others want to describe me as an unsuccessful naturopath, then the term “success” has no useful meaning.

I am not employed to write about anything in particular about naturopathic medicine or with any particular tone. I am an independent blogger who wants to share my insights. I created my own opinions on naturopathic medicine by looking at the profession critically. This kind of task is fundamental to the scientific process that I only learned after leaving naturopathy and engaging with the academic community.

Naturopaths want to be recognized as primary care physicians in the U.S. and Canada. This is a big deal, and we all should be skeptical. This profession is claiming to have established a comprehensive medical education that trains competent medical practitioners, who somehow predominately rely upon unproven methods at best and debunked ones at worst.

Naturopaths essentially want to be allowed to take shortcuts in medical training. Instead of attending medical school, naturopaths attend naturopathic programs with low acceptance standards and faculty who are not qualified to teach medical topics. Instead of passing a standardized and peer-reviewed medical licensing exam, naturopaths have created their own secretive licensing exam that tests on homeopathy and other dubious treatments. What little real medical standards that seem to be tested on the exam have been botched, like the one question in which a child is gasping for air and the correct answer on how to treat is to give a homeopathic remedy.

Naturopaths have called me a liar, but have been unable to identify any specific fabrications. They say I am omitting facts and evidence, but they cannot show what information I allegedly missed. It seems that for naturopaths the only way to deal with legitimate criticism, is to undermine my integrity.

My blog harbors no hidden agenda. I write to prevent students from being duped into thinking they are being adequately trained as a primary care physicians in naturopathic programs. I write to protect patients from the poorly trained practitioners that these programs produce. I write because I have seen both worlds, and the naturopathic one is terrifying.

To this, I have nothing to add – except a big THANK YOU to Britt Marie for her courage, honesty and tenacity.