SBM: Is there a naturopathic standard of care?

[HuckleB]

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/is-there-a-naturopathic-standard-of-care/

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This is where naturopathy departs from health professionals like medicine and the allied health professions like nursing, pharmacy, dentistry and physiotherapy: all of those professionals are grounded in science and rely on evidence to guide the standard of care. Naturopathy is a philosophical belief system, and not a science, which picks and chooses what’s appropriately “naturopathic care” – not because of the scientific evidence, but despite the scientific evidence. As long as a practice is acceptably “naturopathic”, then it’s acceptable. After all if homeopathy is a “clinical science” in naturopathy, and is on the naturopathic certification examination, is there any likelihood that any practice, no matter how useless, would fail to meet the naturopathic standard?

Given there is a lack of objective evidence that determines what naturopaths offer, concerns have been raised about the naturopathic standard of care. A letter published in Allergy, Asthma, & Clinical Immunology documents the concerns about naturopathy in Canada and any naturopathic alignment to science-based methodologies. Timothy Caulfield and Christen Rachul found that the most widely advertised practices in Alberta and British Columbia lacked a sound evidence base. They concluded:

A review of the therapies advertised on the websites of clinics offering naturopathic treatments does not support the proposition that naturopathic medicine is a science and evidence-based practice.

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There is no naturopathic standard of care. Without “naturopathic medicine” being tethered to principles and practices that are scientific, then naturopathy will remain an “anything goes” profession – which is exactly what naturopaths seems to prefer. Held to the own non-standard, it’s not clear how a naturopath could ever be said to have failed to meet a “naturopathic standard of care”. The question that remains is whether or not naturopaths will be held to the same standards of care as medical doctors, given their claims that they are as capable of providing primary care just like medical doctors. Let’s hope there are no further tragedies like that of Ezekial Stephan that leave us continuing to ask this question."

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