Naturopathy in New York

When I wrote my post about naturopathy a few days ago, I neglected to research the status of “N.D.” licensure in my home state of New York. Well it turns out that as of now, Naturopathic doctors can not be licensed in New York State. However, there is a group called the New York Association of Naturopathic Physicians that is lobbying the State Legislature to allow such licensure. The intent of the legislation they sponsor is, from their site: “to expand access to natural medicine by licensing naturopathic doctors to diagnose and treat under a defined scope of practice”.

The only problem is that naturopathy is, like other forms of “natural” healing, full of quackery. Naturopathic “physicians” rely on terms like “healing energy” and “qi”, and at accreddited Naturopathic universities courses are available in a multitude of disproven methods and the old stand-by homeopathy. So while the NYANP would like you to write letters in support of their goals, I would urge you to do the opposite: Write to your legislator and let them know that you do not support pseudoscience replacing real, science-based medicine. If you are in favor of or believe in such healing methods, I suggest you check out the Denialism blog as well as Respectful Insolence for some very well-written posts about all sorts of woo.

Read more about Naturopathy, written by a real physician here.

Please Let this Bill Die Somehow…

Oh Louisiana. Now, I understand that most of the time many of the reputations that certain states have (like Dick Cheney’s remarks about West Virginia and incest) are not entirely fair. That said, Louisiana has confirmed that they are under the sway of the same religious-right crazies that are stereotypical of much of the South.

The Louisiana House of Representatvies has just passed a bill that, on the surface, allows teachers to “supplement school science textbooks with other materials”. Now, this sounds like a reasonable goal? Education shouldn’t be limited to text book and I don’t think that was truly the case before this bill was passed. This bill, however, sounds very similar to other bills that have been proposed in states (see here and here) like Florida.

These bills, while sounding benign, are often sponsored by groups such as the Discovery Institute and their goal of subverting science education in favor of teaching “Intelligent Design”. This of course is, despite their constant denials, simply creationism (specifically Fundamentalist Christian creationism) dressed up with a new name. Luckily, there are some organisations who recognize this bill for what it is, such as the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, as well as the Louisiana Coalition for Science.

The executive director of Americans United understands exactly what this bill is: “It’s time for Louisiana to step into the 21st century and stop trying to teach religion in public schools,” “Laws like this are an embarrassment.” Now keep in mind these are not the words of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris or other “notorious” atheists. No, these are the words of Rev. Barry Lynn. Notice the “Rev” before his name. If only there were more (perhaps there are?) sensible Christians like Lynn. His organization has stated that lawsuits will certainly follow after any attempt to bring religion into the classroom. I can’t imagine this is too far off. There’s no way this bill is going to be vetoed by Louisiana’s governor. Bobby Jindal is perfectly aligned with those who seek to replace science education with religious education. Sadly, it was not a Republican-only bill either. In fact, a member of the party I belong to, the Democrats, introduced this bill. So it seems that even my party has been infected with anti-science thinking…Wonderful.

On a more positive note, all of those who voted against the bill were Democrats. At least three of them had the sense to vote against this asinine bill.

Read more at nola.org.