regulation
The Nazi relic of the German Heilpraktiker – alternative health practitioner, who practise so-called alternative medicine (SCAM)) – is a topic that I wrote about repeatedly, e.g.:
- Prison sentence for a German HEILPRAKTIKER who issued false vaccination certificates
- Another death caused by a ‘Heilpraktiker’, non-medically trained alternative practitioner?
- A German Heilpraktiker was sent to jail for fraud
The path to becoming a Heilpraktiker is as unique as it is scandelously unregulated. By law, the profession requires no mandatory curriculum, no accredited school attendance, and no state-regulated university degree. Technically, anyone over the age of 25 holding a basic middle-school education (Hauptschulabschluss) can sit for the exam (the Heilpraktikerüberprüfung), even without any education or training at all. While some candidates choose to prepare by voluntarily attending a private and expensive school (a Heilpraktikerschule) for one to three years, the lack of standardized educational oversight leaves massive gaps in crucial medical and professional subjects.
Chief among these neglected subjects is, in my view, medical ethics. For those who do attend a school, average ethics instruction ranges from minimal to non-existent. Because private institutes design their own proprietary curricula, ethics is rarely taught as a standalone subject. Instead, it is briefly touched within broader modules concerning Berufs- und Gesetzeskunde (Professional and Legal Studies).
This systemic omission is directly tied to the narrow scope of the state licensing exam. Conducted by local health departments (Gesundheitsamt), the examination is explicitly designed around Gefahrenabwehr, i.e. the prevention of immediate danger to public health. The state’s priority is ensuring that applicants know what they are legally forbidden to do, such as managing highly infectious diseases, prescribing prescription-only medications, or practicing dentistry.
Consequently, broader ethical education is completely sidelined. Vital topics like the biomedical principles of patient autonomy, managing clinical conflicts of interest, and the complexities of informed consent are virtually absent. While some voluntary professional associations have established a code of conduct (Berufsordnung für Heilpraktiker), learning and understanding these ethical guidelines is entirely voluntary and self-guided.
Beyond ethics, maany other critical subjects are severely neglected in the Heilpraktiker schools, e.g.:
- Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) and Scientific Literacy: students are rarely taught how to critically appraise clinical research, differentiate between correlation and causation, or recognize the cognitive biases inherent in anecdotal “success stories.”
- Pharmacology and Interaction Risks: While forbidden from prescribing prescription drugs, practitioners heavily utilize herbs and other dietary supplements. The study of how these substances interact with each other and a patient’s conventional pharmaceutical regimens is usually overlooked.
- Emergency Medicine and Differential Diagnosis: Because training lacks mandatory, standardized clinical rotations, practical competency in identifying red flags, such as atypical cardiac symptoms or early-stage oncological presentations, is dangerously variable.
The Heilpraktiker system offers unparalleled freedom of practice. At the same time, there is a near total lack of rigorous educational standards. This huge and dangerous imbalance leaves practitioners ill-equipped and put the public at unacceptable risks. Here are some examples of what can thus happen:
- The Klaus Ross / 3-Bromopyruvat (3-BP) Tragedy (2016): In one of Germany’s most notorious SCAM scandals, a Heilpraktiker operating a “Biological Cancer Center” in Brüggen treated terminally ill cancer patients with 3-Bromopyruvat, an unapproved, highly experimental chemical compound. Using an inaccurate kitchen scale to mix the powder himself, he administered massive overdoses via intravenous infusions. At least three patients died within days of the treatment, leading to his conviction for negligent homicide.
- The “BG-Mun” Fake Cancer Cure Scandal (Schrobenhausen): A Heilpraktiker, working alongside a businessman, defrauded desperately ill cancer patients by selling a fake “miracle serum” called BG-Mun for up to €5,900 per package. The practitioner explicitly pressured patients to abandon their conventional oncological treatments (like chemotherapy), promising that the serum would reverse tumor growth. Chemical testing later revealed the expensive liquid was nothing but worthless dilutions of glucose and basic amino acids. Multiple patients, including a 52-year-old esophagus cancer patient who went public with the story, died after their cancers metastasized following their cessation of proper medical care.
- Severe Complications from Autologous Blood Therapy (Eigenbluttherapie): A widespread SCAM among Heilpraktiker involves drawing a patient’s blood, mixing it with ozone, oxygen, or homeopathic remedies, and reinjecting it back into the muscle or vein to “stimulate the immune system.” Due to insufficient training in strict clinical hygiene, numerous documented cases have occurred where patients suffered from sepsis, internal abscesses, and systemic bacterial infections requiring emergency ICU hospitalizations.
- Misdiagnosis of Life-Threatening Emergencies: Because the Heilpraktiker exam does not mandate clinical training, practitioners have no clinical experience and frequently miss time-critical medical diagnoses. Documented cases include patients presenting with atypical chest pain being treated with acupuncture for “energy blockages” rather than being immediately referred to a hospital for an evolving myocardial infarction. Similarly, early-stage, highly curable melanomas or other malignancies have been misidentified as benign skin lesions or metabolic imbalances, delaying life-saving surgeries until the diseases reached terminal stages.
- Ineffective SCAMs for Acute Psychiatric Crises: Some Heilpraktiker choose to specialize in psychotherapy (Heilpraktiker für Psychotherapie). Scandals have arisen where patients suffering from severe clinical depression or acute psychotic episodes were treated solely with Bach flower remedies, St. John’s wort, or talking therapy rooted in esoteric ideas. The rejection of conventional psychiatric intervention and pharmaceutical stabilization in these acute phases has directly led to preventable self-harm and suicides.
So, why does Germany put up with the Heilpraktiker?
Despite repeated and fierce criticism, the German Heilpraktiker is sustained by a combination of law, politics, and tradition. The primary legal shield is Article 12 of the German Basic Law, which guarantees freedom of occupation (Berufsfreiheit). Because the state’s entry exam pretends to screen for immediate public danger (Gefahrenabwehr), courts pretend the system is legally sufficient; completely banning the profession would trigger severe constitutional challenges.
Furthermore, as often discussed on this blog, SCAM enjoys immense public popularity in Germany. Millions of Germans value the Heilpraktiker for the long and empathetic consultations that the overburdened conventional insurance system rarely permits. This widespread voter support, coupled with a highly organised political lobby, makes outright abolition a political non-starter.
Thus Germany continues to have a two-tier health system. This paradox exposes a profound cultural contradiction in the German psyche, which is famously stereotyped as risk-averse, highly bureaucratized, and obsessed with systemic order. While Germany tends to regulate everything from highway speeds to the exact composition of its beer, its tolerance of the Heilpraktiker system represents a massive, hazardous blind spot.
By clinging to an outdated Nazi-law out of political convenience and romanticized cultural traditions, the state has allowed this two-tier medical landscape to persist – one built on rigorous science, and another shielded by a legal loophole. In trying to uphold the constitutional freedom of occupation, the German legislative framework inadvertently compromises a far more fundamental duty: the protection of the public from dangerous quacks. This leaves a nation known for “playing it safe” in the ironic position of legally sanctioning pseudo-scientific nonsense within its healthcare system.
A fuller analysis of the Heilpraktiker can be found in my book “Vorsicht Heilpraktiker” [in German].
I spent the last 2 months in France where it happened to be hot. Too hot for my taste! I could not do much during the day and, at night, I was unable to sleep well. As the heatwave carried on, it began to impact on my mood and health. I may be particularly sensitive to heat, but I am by no means the only one who suffered. Record-breaking temperatures and unprecedented ocean warming have triggered a global health emergency. Driven by climate change, modern heatwaves are predicted to strike with greater frequency, intensity, and duration, pushing human physiology to (and sometimes past) its limits.
Extreme heat operates as a silent killer by severely exacerbating pre-existing cardiovascular and respiratory conditions. It can also cause acute medical issues like severe dehydration, kidney damage, heatstroke, and even death. Extreme heat disproportionately impacts highly vulnerable groups, including older adults, children, outdoor laborers, and individuals who are unhealthy to start with. Urban populations face magnified dangers due to the urban heat island effect, which traps dense pockets of heat in city environments.
The consequences are already devastating. The recent heatwaves in Europe caused over 1,300 excess deaths within just a few weeks. Extreme heat contributes to a global toll of hundreds of thousands of heat-related fatalities each year. It also ripples through societal infrastructure. Extreme heat heavily strains our healthcare systems, disrupts local economies, worsens food and water insecurity worldwide, endangers local transport and other infrastructure. Here in France, for instance, we had prolonged cuts first of electricity and then on the Internet/telephone; many people and shops had to throw away the content of their fridges and freezers. Even more alarming: one of France’s largest rivers, the Loire, went completely dry.
An analysis of nearly 2,500 UK media articles covering the June heatwave found that most reports failed to connect the event to climate change, despite strong scientific evidence that global heating intensifies extreme weather. Approximately three-quarters of the articles made no reference to climate change or global warming, highlighting a significant gap between scientific consensus and public communication. Such omissions are problematic because they leave audiences without crucial context. Attribution science now allows researchers to quantify how much more likely or intense specific heatwaves have become due to greenhouse gas emissions, primarily from fossil fuel use. Without this information, heatwaves may be perceived as isolated or purely natural events rather than manifestations of a broader, human-driven trend. Failing to link extreme weather to climate change undermines public understanding and may weaken support for mitigation and adaptation policies.
The most worrying thing is that we are rapidly approaching irreversible thresholds. To mitigate this mounting catastrophe, immediate international cooperation is required. We must deploy both short-term adaptation strategies, such as robust local heat action plans and early warning weather networks, as well as aggressive, long-term global emissions reductions. And we also should vote out politicians who still:
- pretend that climate change is a hoax,
- blame their neighouring country, despite being huge polluters themselves,
- shout “drill baby, drill”,
- pretend that summers have always been hot,
- claim (against all medical knowledge) that humans will somehow manage to adapt to extreme heat.
Without urgent measures, the human and economic toll will escalate uncontrollably.
Drugging soldiers seems to be an odd idea. Yet, it is not without precedent, e.g.:
- Nazi Germany (WWII): The Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe were systematically supplied with Pervitin (methamphetamine), with tens of millions of tablets issued to keep soldiers and pilots awake, alert and aggressive during the war.
- Britain/US (WWII air operations): Allied air forces issued amphetamine and caffeine tablets to bomber crews and other soldiers to counter fatigue on long missions, representing a state‑sanctioned stimulant program for performance enhancement.
- US (Vietnam War): soldiers were routinely given Dexedrine (dextroamphetamine) and other psychoactive drugs to sustain long patrols and suppress combat stress; hundreds of millions of tablets were thus distributed with official approval.
- Soviet Union (Cold War): State‑run sports programmes, closely tied to military and security structures, systematically administered anabolic steroids and testosterone derivatives to elite athletes to boost strength and recovery, normalising pharmacological enhancement in a militarised setting.
Now, the US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s recent “High-T” initiative mandates annual testosterone screening for US troops aged 30 and older, coupled with optional hormone replacement therapy (TRT). This is a striking case of policy outrunning clinical evidence. While announced as a readiness initiative to keep the joint force on the “leading edge of lethality,” the proposal glosses over critical medical, ethical, and operational realities.
First, the medical rationale for mass screening is weak, to put it mildly. Established clinical guidelines recommend testing only men presenting with specific symptoms and risk factors, not broad, asymptomatic populations. Screening hundreds of thousands of personnel annually risks over-diagnosis and over-treatment, particularly in a young force where borderline-low values are common, highly fluctuating, and often transient. In a word: the “High-T initiative” is nonsense.
Second, oral testosterone undecanoate (TU) shares general testosterone risks, e.g. erythrocytosis, prostate effects (worsening BPH symptoms, small PSA rises, contraindication in prostate cancer), suppression of spermatogenesis and infertility, acne, fluid retention, mood changes, and possible lipid alterations. Compared with transdermal or injectable formulations, oral TU offers convenience but requires strict baseline and ongoing monitoring of blood pressure, haematocrit, PSA, and testosterone levels, and is best reserved for men without uncontrolled hypertension, high cardiovascular risk, or near-term fertility plans, and only after considering safer first-line options. In particular, TRT-induced suppression of spermatogenesis presents a serious threat to fertility for service members of reproductive age, introducing severe clinical trade-offs without clear medical indications. In a word: the “High-T initiative” is likely to do more harm than good.
Third, the policy dangerously blurs the line between therapeutic medicine and performance enhancement. Mass-screening healthy soldiers and offering TRT to asymptomatic individuals normalizes the pharmacological optimization of the force. This sets a dangerous precedent: once hormonal levels are treated as adjustable parameters for “readiness,” the boundary between standard healthcare and state-sponsored enhancement dissolves. In a word: the “High-T initiative” is unethical.
Fourth, the operational logistics remain unresolved. Mandating annual blood draws will strain military medical systems, must generate an influx of equivocal results, and will create a massive administrative trail of counselling, monitoring, and liability. In a word: the “High-T initiative” is unpractical.
Fifth, the policy’s ambiguity regarding female service members exposes a glaring double standard: the Pentagon has not clarified whether women will be screened for sex-hormone deficiencies, or if this “restorative” care is reserved strictly for men. In a word: the “High-T initiative” is sexist.
Sixth, the political optics are highly suspect. The initiative directly mirrors broader administration efforts to liberalize testosterone prescribing, raising concerns that ideology, rather than rigorous military medicine, is driving policy. In a word: the “High-T initiative” is ideological.
Unsurprisingly, many experts have criticised the initiative sharply, e.g.:
- Stuart Phillips, a medical professor at McMaster University, told The Washington Post: “A blanket policy like we’re going to screen everybody over the age of 30 is kind of a ridiculous notion.”
- Adriane Fugh-Berman, a Georgetown University professor of pharmacology and physiology, warned: Hegseth’s claims are “non‑evidence‑based and could cause harm.”
Overall, Hegseth’s policy is out-running clinical evidence, and his stupidity is out-doing common sense. There is no doubt in my mind that his testosterone obsession is extremely ill-advised and – if not urgently stopped – will do an abundance of harm.
Conversion therapy is a form of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) that attempts to change an individual’s sexual orientation from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual, or to change their gender identity from transgender or non-binary to cisgender. The practice is built on the false premise that being LGBTQ+ is a mental illness or a developmental flaw that can and should be “cured.” It can range from talk therapy and prayer groups to extreme and physically abusive techniques, such as aversion therapy. Major medical, psychiatric, and psychological organizations worldwide have overwhelmingly rejected conversion therapy. Research consistently shows that it is completely ineffective and causes severe psychological harm, including high rates of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and suicide. Because of these dangers, dozens of countries have banned or heavily restricted the practice.
Amongst all the many dubious SCAM therapies, conversion therapy must be amongst the most vile, as discussed previously several times, e.g.:
- “Gay exorcism” and conversion therapy by the “Forward In Faith Church International Incorporated” in Scotland
- The ‘Association of Catholic Doctors’ and homeopathic conversion therapy
- Conversion therapy is ‘despicable and degrading’. IT SHOULD BE BANNED EVERYWHERE
Now the Church of England has decided to permit a General Synod event promoting “sexual identity transformation”, i.e. conversion therapy. Entitled “People Change: Sexual Identity Transformation”, the event features Matthew Grech, who claims to have left behind a homosexual lifestyle. Hosted by General Synod member Rebecca Hunt, the meeting highlights speakers who claim to have experienced “positive, beneficial change,” aligning with the Church’s traditional teaching on marriage. Although the Church cancelled an associated exhibition stand, the meeting itself is going ahead despite a 2017 Synod vote overwhelmingly rejecting conversion therapy.
This story unfolded shortly after the UK Government published its draft Conversion Practices Bill, aimed at banning abusive attempts to alter a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Humanists UK have long advocated for a comprehensive, loophole-free ban on these discredited and harmful practices, which seek to change, suppress, or “cure” LGBT individuals through coercive counselling, pseudo-psychological interventions, or intense prayer.
Crucially, data from the National LGBT Survey highlights that faith groups are the primary setting for conversion therapy. Furthermore, the LGBT+ charity Galop has documented numerous cases of faith-based conversion abuse.
Laura Newlyn, Policy and Campaigns Manager at Humanists UK, emphasized that conversion practices cause lasting harm, particularly to young and vulnerable individuals facing intense pressure from religious communities. She rejected the idea that these practices constitute harmless pastoral care or ordinary prayer, stressing that most of the public, including most Christians, support a ban. Humanists UK maintains that any effective legislation must fully cover religious settings and eliminate exemptions for “consent” or religious practices to ensure all LGBT individuals are protected from abuse.
I suppose nobody need eplanations what the Epstein files are, or what crimes they depict, or how often Trump is mentioned in them. What many might not know is that even the United Nations (UN) have commented on these documents
Independent human rights experts, operating under mandates from the UN Human Rights Council, have warned that the Epstein files reveal evidence of a possible global criminal enterprise involving systematic sexual abuse, trafficking, and exploitation of women and girls. Due to the scale, transnational reach, and systematic nature of these atrocities, the experts stated that the documented conduct may meet the legal threshold for crimes against humanity. Under international law, this threshold applies to acts like sexual slavery, torture, and trafficking when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population.
The disclosure follows the “Epstein Files Transparency Act” of 2025, which led to the US Department of Justice releasing over three million pages, 2,000 videos, and 180,000 images in January 2026. The background involves wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while facing minor-recruitment and sexual exploitation charges, and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, currently serving a 20-year prison sentence.
The experts emphasized that states are legally obligated to investigate these crimes, which were fueled by corruption, supremacy, and extreme misogyny. They called for independent and impartial investigations into all individuals, financial structures, and official entities implicated, asserting that resignations are not a substitute for criminal accountability.
The experts praised the resilience of the survivors but criticized “grave errors” in the release process that exposed sensitive victim information, risking retaliation and stigma. They urged the adoption of victim-centered standard operating procedures for future disclosures and demanded that governments act decisively, declaring that no one is too wealthy or powerful to be above the law.
“Any suggestion that it is time to move on from the ‘Epstein files’ is unacceptable. It represents a failure of responsibility towards victims,” they said. “It is imperative that governments act decisively to hold perpetrators accountable,” the experts said. “No one is too wealthy or too powerful to be above the law.”
Trump and his team have repetedly responded to Epstein-file in general. Trump himself seems keen to disregard the experts, do precisely what they warned against, and move on. As far as I know, there is no statement of Trump or his team commenting directly on the UN experts’ “crimes against humanity” document itself.
The Church of Scientology has spent decades insisting that psychiatry is a terrorist conspiracy, antidepressants are a gateway to mass murder, and only its own “tech” can save humanity from the menace of Prozac and similar “poisons”. One might imagine this worldview would remain safely quarantined within L. Ron Hubbard’s realm of loons.
But then Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became Secretary of Health and Human Services!
By pure coincidence Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” crusade, unveiled with the MAHA Action Plan to Curb Psychiatric Overprescribing, just happens to target the very same SSRIs that Scientology and its front group CCHR have been demonising for years. Antidepressants are singled out, deprescribing is framed as a patriotic duty, and psychotherapy and lifestyle tweaks are held up as the noble alternative to “overmedicalization.” The American Psychiatric Association calls SSRIs evidence‑based treatment; Kennedy, channelling his inner CCHR lawyer, suggests they’re harder to quit than heroin and may be helping to fuel mass violence.
Enter Wisner Baum, the mass‑tort firm whose senior partners have long, colourful histories with Scientology and its covert operations. This firm has spent years suing antidepressant manufacturers and other psychiatric technologies. And Kennedy has quietly pocketed over $850,000 in fees from them, while keeping a continuing financial interest as HHS Secretary. It is hard to imagine a neater arrangement: a Scientology‑linked law firm sues drug companies; a Scientology‑approved health secretary casts doubt on those same drugs from the cabinet; and fee income flows merrily along.
So, is Kennedy formally a Scientologist?
No, to the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence for that. But perhaps the label becomes somewhat unimportant, when the nation’s top health official is advancing policy that mirrors Scientology’s doctrine and staying financially intertwined with its legal defender. Whether or not he has taken the oath or not (and I am not saying he has), he seems to be doing the work of Xenu, the mysterious extraterrestrial ruler of a galactic confederacy.
A recent paper published in the Lancet was entitled “Wellbeing for people and the planet: how to value everyone and everything on a thriving planet beyond 2030“. Here is its abstract:
Humanity is crossing multiple planetary boundaries while facing rising inequality, democratic fragility, and worsening mental health, exposing the incompatibility of unlimited gross domestic product-driven growth with a finite, socially interdependent planet. Only 17% of the Sustainable Development Goal targets are on track, indicating the need for a deeper transformation rather than faster implementation. Synthesising evidence across disciplines, we argue that human beings are evolutionarily wired for cooperation and relational wellbeing, and not perpetual consumption and status competition. This argument underpins a post-2030 shift in a global development paradigm that places multidimensional wellbeing, of people and the planet, at its core. We outline three mutually reinforcing systemic shifts: deliberative democracy that gives communities real power to shape collective futures; economic democracy that redirects finance, enterprise design, and fiscal policy towards equitable, regenerative outcomes; and transformed land and resource governance that recognises ecological limits and the rights of nature. By aligning institutions with the cooperative nature of humans and the Earth’s regenerative capacity, societies can achieve flourishing lives for all within planetary boundaries, offering a scientifically grounded agenda for the decades beyond 2030.
While reading the article, I asked myself: will our current leaders and governments accept shared limits, long time horizons, and fair trade-offs? In practice, men like Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin would probably view this framework through the lens of power, national and personal advantage, as well as political control, rather than collective wellbeing. In addition, sizable sections of the public might simply be too ignorant to comprehend the need for such a strategy. In other words, the proposal may sound morally strong but could be politically unrealistic.
If Trump or Putin were asked to follow the strategy, I fear that several objections would appear immediately.
- First, they would reject the idea that planetary limits should constrain national ambition, especially as they seem to think that economic or military strength or even personal advantage matter more than global cooperation.
- Second, they would treat wellbeing metrics as soft or ideological compared with jobs, growth, security, or sovereignty.
- Third, they would use the language of wellbeing selectively, supporting parts that could further their agendas, while ignoring parts that require sacrifice, redistribution, or international restraint.
Of course, such caveats do not make the paper and its arguments wrong, but they suggest a significant gap between theory and practice. The altruistic strategy is strongest when actors are willing to cooperate and are able to think long term. I am afraid that it is weak in a world where leaders like Trump or Putin can gain by rejecting climate obligations, weakening institutions, or prioritising short-term national interest. In other words, the paper offers a vision for a better governing ethic, but it does not solve the problem of how to make uncooperative or authoritarian leaders comply.
So, my concern is not that the strategy is useless, but that it is unrealistic and far too dependent on political goodwill. A system that works only when leaders are already committed to fairness and restraint cannot be a robust system. What we also need, therefore, is a strategy by which we are able to get such leaders … improving the education of the general public might be a start.
In my view, it gets increasingly hard to ignore parallels between US anti-regulatory health movements and historical eugenics programs like the one enacted by the Nazis during the Third Reich. Evaluating the rhetoric of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. regarding disease, public health infrastructure, and chronic illness, an underlying philosophy emerges of prioritizing a return to idealized “natural health”, while dismantling the medical systems designed to protect the vulnerable. This, I would argue, echoes the tenets of “eugenics” as practiced by the Nazi regime.
To understand this comparison, we must examine the foundational ideology of Nazi eugenics. It was a concept wrapped in the language of public health and hygiene, biological purification, and economic efficiency. The Nazis aimed to eliminate what they deemed to be lebensunwertes Leben (life unworthy of life). German physicians at the time feared that medical science was keeping the weak alive at the expense of the strong, thereby subverting the natural laws of selection. The Nazis viewed chronic illness and disability to be a drain on the collective national body (Volksgesundheit). Their conclusion was that the elimination of the genetically inferior was a biological necessity.
A modern variant of this ideology manifests in rhetoric that views chronic illness not as a collective societal responsibility requiring robust medical intervention, but as a biological failure stemming from a corrupted modern infrastructure. Kennedy’s actions focus on dismantling federal health agencies and drastically alter the regulatory framework governing medicine. In public addresses, he has consistently attacks established medical consensus, stating that public health policies are “ruining our children’s health” and leading to an “epidemic of chronic disease.”
Further alignment with eugenicist thinking lies in the proposed solutions to this perceived crisis. Rather than strengthening protective medical care, the rhetoric frequently leans towards a form of biological determinism that views modern medical interventions, such as vaccines and standard pharmaceuticals, as inherently corrupting influences that prevent the human body from achieving its “natural” state. This brand of anti-science rhetoric effectively abandons the vulnerable, stating that the aggressive opposition to standard medical treatments threatens to reverse decades of progress in child survival and disproportionately harms those with compromised immune systems.
When politicians advocate dismantling public health protections in order to let ‘natural immunity’ or ‘cleansing’ of dependencies determine who survives and who does not survive, they risk endorsing a “survival-of-the-fittest” ideology that overlaps with social Darwinist and eugenic ways of thinking. By declaring chronic illness as something to be purged via the withdrawal of institutional medical support, the rhetoric subtly shifts from a message of health advocacy to one of biological exclusion.
Please don’t get me wrong! I do not for a moment seek to diminish the crimes and atrocities of Nazi eugenics; they remain a singular and unprecedented horror. My purpose, rather, is to highlight that any ideology which calls for the erosion of medical safeguards for the sick rests on a perilous philosophical kinship with the Nazi project of privileging the “healthy” over the “infirm.” By recognising these parallels, we may hope to remain vigilant and help forestall the repetition of such history.
A recent paper entitled “Research Ethics and Integrity and the Different Forms of Misconduct: Applications and Challenges in Traditional, Complementary, and Integrative Medicine Research” caught my eye. As the subject is close to my heart and often covered on this blog, I studied it carefully. Here is the abstract:
Research ethics and integrity are foundational to the credibility, safety, and societal trust of scientific inquiry. As the use of traditional, complementary, and integrative medicine (TCIM) grows globally, concerns about research misconduct (including fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism) have become increasingly salient. With up to 80% of populations in certain countries utilizing TCIM, the field’s expansion underscores the need for rigorous, ethically grounded evidence to guide practice and policy. However, around 470 TCIM-related articles have been retracted to date, as indicated on the Retraction Watch database, which may be due to ethical or non-ethical concerns. This educational article critically examines the state of ethics and integrity in TCIM research, drawing on case studies of misconduct and highlighting the broader consequences for patient safety, scientific credibility, and healthcare integration. In addition, the educational article explores emerging ethical dilemmas posed by artificial intelligence (AI), including risks of automated fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, and opacity in research reporting. To strengthen ethical conduct, we propose strategies spanning four domains: 1) improving education and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration to enhance research literacy, 2) embedding open science practices to promote transparency and reproducibility, 3) leveraging meta-research to monitor and advance research quality, and 4) developing policies and safeguards for responsible AI use. Upholding high ethical standards in TCIM research is essential not only to ensure reliable evidence but also to protect patients, sustain public trust, and enable meaningful integration of TCIM within evidence-based healthcare systems.
The full conclusions of the authors are as follows: “With the increasing global use of TCIM therapies, it is crucial for TCIM researchers to uphold high ethical standards to ensure the feasibility, validity, efficacy and safety of TCIM interventions. TCIM research challenges such as heterogeneity, complexity, and lack of standardization practices, alongside issues with research training and funding, create both transformative opportunities and ethical dilemmas that require reflection. Addressing these challenges requires a firm commitment to enhancing research ethics and integrity in TCIM. This commitment must be translated into action through multifaceted strategies: improving research and ethics literacy, fostering open science practices, and ensuring the transparency, integrity, and reproducibility of TCIM research. Strengthening ethical and research practices will not only support its continued development as a discipline but also maximize its potential to contribute to global health.”
I find it most commendable that this subject has finally been addressed by a group of researchers, most of who are known advocates of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM). I hope that this is proves to be a step in the right direction for the fileld of SCAM.
Yet, I fear that it is a small or even tiny step. The reason for my fear is that several important issues related to research ethics and integrity in SCAM are let untouched by the authors. In my view, the one of the most important amongst them is the SCAM researcher him/herself. As often discussed on this blog, SCAM research is unique amongst all areas of medical research for being populated by individuals who have a strong ideological bias in favour of SCAM.
These (pseudo)scientists tend to abuse science by trying to prove that their beliefs are correct. Rather than trying to falsify their hypotheses, they would bend over backwards to show that their favourite SCAM is effective. I tried to demontrate this clearly by establishing my ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE HALL OF FAME on this blog.
As to the many other omissions of important ethical concerns from the above paper, I recommend having a look at our book “More Harm than Good?: The Moral Maze of Complementary and Alternative Medicine“. It offers a much more complete review of the ethical issues involved in SCAM research (amusingly, it was not cited in the paper above).
In the US, scientific research is facing a new bureaucratic obstacle marked by a stringent escalation in research security enforcement by major federal funding bodies. Traditionally, the US has positioned itself as the vanguard of open, globalized scientific inquiry, a model predicated on the understanding that breakthrough discoveries thrive on cross-border intellectual synergy. However, recent regulatory shifts initiated by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) indicate a retreat from this paradigm. By retroactively and rigidly redefining international authorship as a national security risk, federal grant managers threaten to balkanise academic collaboration and stifle scientific progress.
At the core of the current crisis is the administrative weaponization of the “foreign component” clause. Historically, the NIH mandated prior approval only when federal funds were explicitly exported or when critical project segments were physically conducted abroad. Contemporary enforcement, however, relies heavily on automated digital auditing systems that flag any international institutional affiliation on published papers as evidence of an unauthorised foreign component. This algorithmic surveillance penalizes benign, routine academic practices. US-based principal investigators have been forced to expunge highly cited, peer-reviewed publications from their federal progress reports simply because a co-author was an international scholar, a foreign student working within an US lab, or a colleague who provided isolated research materials.
This bureaucratic overreach is amplified by a lack of institutional transparency. Rather than issuing clear, standardized guidelines through formal rule-making channels, agencies are executing these directives via private, ad-hoc communications between individual grant managers and researchers. This strategy of decentralised intimidation leaves academic institutions without uniform legal recourse, compelling university compliance offices to draft defensive internal policies. For instance, researchers are now advised to attach granular, defensive footnotes to their manuscripts explicitly certifying the physical, geographic location of every contributor during the research process to avoid automated funding freezes.
The ramifications extend beyond administrative inconvenience, posing a existential threat to the integrity of global science. Faced with the existential threat of funding termination or legal prosecution, US scientists are disincentivised from pursuing crucial international partnerships. Others may choose to obfuscate federal sponsorship on collaborative papers to circumvent algorithmic detection, thus undermining the transparency of research funding.
Update:
In June 2026 the White House OMB released proposed revisions to the federal Uniform Guidance that would tighten oversight of federal awards, explicitly addressing foreign collaborations, reporting, and recipient responsibilities; commentators warn these changes could widen the administrative burden on grantees and institutional compliance offices. Coverage in major science outlets and policy analyses framed these actions as part of a broader administration push to overhaul transparency and control in federal research funding. Critics argue some proposals risk politicising grant making and chilling international collaboration.
News pieces and policy briefs describe more aggressive enforcement by grant managers (including retrospective audits and requests to remove or explain foreign co‑authorship), plus institutions drafting defensive procedures to avoid triggering automated audits. Scientists, scientific societies, and international collaborators have expressed concern that tighter rules and algorithmic detection of foreign affiliations will disincentivize open co‑authorship and complicate routine global partnerships.
The proposed Uniform Guidance revisions will follow a formal notice-and-comment process; watch for the final rule text and agency-specific implementing guidance because those will determine the precise legal obligations and whether the most burdensome interpretations survive.
