Below we will address some portions of their response.

Naturopathic medicine is based on the scientific assertion that the body, when given the appropriate support, has the potential to heal itself. This isn’t a magical and transcendent anomaly of physics. It’s how the body works and we’ve known it for centuries. Each time you heal from a cut, a cold or a broken bone, you’re seeing vis mediatrix naturae, or “the healing power of nature” at work. It’s not magic, just good science. And this naturopathic approach has been regulated in Ontario for 85 years.

The authors here are unknowingly referring to the immune system. Medical doctors (read: people with medical degrees) are aware that people have an immune system and are capable of self healing. The immune system is very complex and is not fully understood, but scientists have a good grasp as to how it works. Instead of trying to understand the immune system as a complex piece of biology, naturopaths turn to pre-scientific views of healing such as “medicatrix naturae“. Medicatrix naturae (misspelled by the authors as “mediatrix naturae” in their rebuttal) is a term used to refer to Hippocrates’ outdated and pre-scientific notion that the body is constantly trying to remain in “balance”. For example, fever is mechanism to “restore balance”. This philosophy was the basis of western medicine for centuries, which included treatments such as blood-letting, until modern science-based medicine thankfully replaced it with concepts like the germ theory of disease and the knowledge of the immune system.

Naturopathic doctors are likely to undertake additional diagnostic testing to understand what else might be going on, and take the time to talk to patients about lifestyle and environmental factors, all in the interest of identifying the potential underlying causes of a patient’s complaints. Most referrals to NDs come from other patients who have been helped, and from practitioners who understand for themselves how NDs practice.

The authors imply that they are specialists when it comes to identifying the “underlying causes” of illnesses, as opposed to focusing on symptoms. This implies that physicians do not adequately address the cause of illness. However, this is a misrepresentation of the medical profession that reflects a poor understanding of science-based medicine. For example, if a patient reports shortness of breath (a symptom) to their doctor, the doctor will run a series of diagnostic tests to determine the cause. Not to do so could result in prescribing the wrong treatment, as many things could cause shortness of breath.

In contrast, naturopaths often use homeopathy, a placebo treatment that is based on the out-dated symptom-based philosophy that “like cures like” – in other words, prescribe a diluted agent that supposedly causes shortness of breath to treat shortness of breath. However, there is insufficient evidence that such a treatment would safe or effective. This patient may then avoid seeking science-based medical care for a real problem, believing they will be cured by the homeopathic treatment. In this case, asthaa, heart problems, blood circulation problems, etc. – which may require medication or surgery to treat safely.

This complementary system is vital when we are living in a society that is increasingly focused on symptom management. It may be that with all the pressures in the health-care system, conventional medicine is no longer fully considering the unique circumstances of each patient. This may be one reason for an increasing reliance on pharmaceuticals. There may be good evidence for how a drug may treat a symptom. But that may not be enough to achieve good health. In fact, over-reliance on pharmaceuticals may be making us sicker by masking the opportunity to diagnose or remediate the true cause of the disorder.

This statement reflects a misunderstanding of basic pharmacology. With the exception of things like pain killers and anti-inflammatories, few drugs are designed to treat “symptoms”.  It is also interesting to note here that the authors are downplaying the usefulness of drugs and emphasizing their dangers, they wish to have the right to prescribe the same pharmaceuticals! These are mutually exclusive views.

Most importantly, what patients want is to not be sick in the first place. The American Institute for Cancer Research determined that one-third of all cancers could be prevented through exercise, diet and weight management. Naturopathic doctors have the clinical skills and training to help patients integrate these preventative strategies.

This is presented as though naturopaths have a monopoly on knowledge that exercise and good diet is beneficial. Any doctor, dietician, or other health care provider will tell you about the importance of a healthy active lifestyle. The American Institute for Cancer Research also makes no mention of naturopathic alternatives, so it’s a wonder why the authors mentioned this at all.

Ontario’s naturopathic doctors have training that compares with other primary care providers. Licensed naturopathic doctors have a pre-medical university degree followed by four years of intensive medical training at an accredited Naturopathic College and regulatory examinations.

The Academic pre-requisites to get into the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine (CCNM) state that an applicant must have a four-year bachelor’s degree. Neither a specific health- or science-related degree, nor science prerequisites, are required. For example, a lit-crit grad is just as qualified for entry into the CCNM as a bio-chem grad, even without extra science courses. The authors do not address that naturopaths have no required residency training with other medical fields. Other health care workers such as doctors and nurses require significant amounts of supervised training treating patients in a science-based environment.

With this training and education, the scope of naturopathic care extends to the treatment of serious conditions, usually in collaboration with other health-care practitioners. Every review of our record has recognized the safety of the more natural approach of naturopathic care.

There is no evidence that any treatments offered by naturopaths, but rejected by medicine, have any effect on disease. If a treatment had evidence of effectiveness, it would be medicine. If not, it might remain “naturopathic”.

Meanwhile, the limits of randomized control trials favoured by the pharmaceutical industry are being increasingly recognized. Randomized control trials tend to test a single treatment approach to the eradication of a symptom. This approach works against individualized care, and tends to be biased toward over-treatment rather than prevention. Clinical studies are critical to advancing knowledge, but in themselves they are not the solutions to health problems.

All of these factors were carefully considered by the Ontario government and their advisory panel, the Health Professions Regulatory Advisory Council (HPRAC), as part of the decision in October to award prescribing authority to naturopathic doctors. The need for NDs to have prescribing authority was accepted by every other regulated health profession.

This is also incorrect. After the Ontario legislature shut out the HPRAC’s recommendations for naturopathic prescription rights after the first and second readings, the naturopath community launched a write-in campaign, which sent the bill to the Standing Committee on Social Policy, which in turn worked the naturopaths back into the bill. This was not because of medical or scientific reasons, but because of populism and disingenuous appeals to freedom. As for the “need” being accepted by every other regulated health profession, this is also misleading because the various professions were approving of the amendments to the parts of the bill that dealt with their own profession (nursing for nurses, pharmacy for pharmacists etc.), not because they all suddenly decided that naturopathy was a legitimate, science-based practice.

HPRAC also recommended that Ontario’s NDs, similar to NDs in almost every other regulated jurisdiction, have the capability to take on a larger role in primary care with access to basic primary care pharmaceuticals such as antibiotics. What NDs will be able to prescribe will be determined through an extensive process to establish new rules for the profession, which should take about three years.

This approximately three-year process will have oversight not from the medical or academic communities, but from the naturopathic community. In other words, subject to the approval of the Minister, the list of drugs that naturopaths will have the right to prescribe will be made by the naturopaths themselves.

In our developing model of integrative medicine, Naturopathic Doctors are not costing the system more money. Instead, they are decreasing the costs of care for patients with chronic illness while providing better access to primary care for patients preferring a more natural approach.

With 23,000 registered physicians in Ontario, and fewer than 1000 naturopaths, the argument that this amendment will lower the burden on health care is a bit silly. Furthermore, naturopaths are not primary care providers, and yet-again, “natural” does not mean safe or effective. Further still, there is no evidence that this will decrease cost for patients or the Ontario government.

We will continue to build relationships with practitioners knowledgeable enough to seek our partnership in the management of their patients. To those practitioners we have one message; we look forward to working with you.

The Naturopathic community has not had a good relationship with the medical community. For decades they have derided science-based medicine as being blinded by a materialist paradigm that blinds doctors to the “healing power of nature”. They denigrate mainstream doctors and the medical industry as being profit driven while the alternative medicine industry hypocritically earns billions of dollars a year. The authors seem to want it both ways: Science is bad for being reductionist, and yet, naturopathy is a totally legitimate science! The cognitive dissonance must be as loud as a jet engine.