Critics take aim at ‘medically trained’ naturopath ads

Britt Hermes worked as a naturopath for three years, until she discovered her boss, himself a naturopath, had been illegally importing and injecting cancer patients with a drug not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Now pursuing a career in biomedical research, Hermes has become one of alternative medicine’s most dogged critics, writing, blogging and tweeting about what she calls naturopathy’s “distinctly dangerous” and dubious therapies, like the turmeric infusion that killed a 30-year-old San Diego woman in March (the woman had sought treatment from a naturopath for eczema), or the Arizona naturopath who uses intravenous injections of sterile, liquid sodium bicarbonate — baking soda — to neutralize the “acidity” of tumours.

This week, when Hermes saw a tweet promoting a series of YouTube videos produced by the Canadian Association of Naturopathic Doctors highlighting its members’ “medical training,” she responded with what has become one of her signature responses:

“FALSE,” she tweeted. “‘Naturopathic doctors’ are not medically trained. They learn pseudoscience. Stop lying.”

Hermes and other critics argue the campaign suggests naturopaths receive the same training, and complete the same licensing exams, as “real” medical doctors and that the profession is trying to increase its legitimacy and position its services as science-based, when much of what it offers has little to no grounding in science.

Originally launched last September but now being re-promoted, and with more ads expected to roll out this year, the “Medically Trained. Naturally Focused” campaign by the association of naturopathic doctors features a series of YouTube videos with the tagline, “True or False?”

One asks, for example, “True or False? Naturopathic doctors are medically trained?”

“Of course we are,” responds a naturopath dressed in a white lab coat and carrying a stethoscope. The voiceover intones, “It’s time for a second opinion about your health” and directs viewers to “FindMyND.ca”.

The videos are part of a three-year plan “to educate the public and to ensure they’re aware who naturopathic doctors are and what they do,” said Shawn O’Reilly, executive director of the Canadian Association of Naturopathic Doctors.

Though they are “very definitely not doctors,” O’Reilly said naturopaths have “very similar training” and that the primary difference is their “philosophical approach” to patients.

Admission to training programs requires an undergraduate degree (in any field) plus prerequisite sciences. The four-year, fulltime program includes basic sciences, clinical sciences and diagnostics, she said.

In a response to questions from the National Post, the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine said more than 80 per cent of its students “come in with a health sciences type of degree” and that 1,400 hours are spent on basic medical science courses such as biochemistry, anatomy and embryology.

But according to Hermes, who in 2011 graduated from Washington state’s Bastyr University — an accredited naturopathic training program — the training is wholly different to medical school.

She said students aren’t required to take medical entrance exams, the prerequisite sciences course are introductory-level and naturopaths don’t have to complete residency or postgraduate training.

“They take classes with the same names as medical school courses,” added Hermes. “But pseudoscience and nonsensical information is integrated into every course.”

For example, Hermes said she learned to treat neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s with homeopathic remedies and high doses of intravenous vitamins. Her paediatrics course, she said, was filled with “anti-vaccine propaganda.”

O’Reilly said the childhood vaccination schedule is taught within the training programs and that the position of the CAND as well as the profession “is that we understand the value of the role of vaccines and we are not opposed to vaccination.” However, a study published last week led by University of Alberta health policy expert Timothy Caulfield found that, of 330 naturopath websites analyzed, 40 included “vaccine hesitancy discourse” and 26 offered vaccine or flu shot alternatives.