A naturopath I know sent me a link to a Change.org petition:
Stop the Slander and Misrepresentation of Naturopathic Physicians
Naturopaths are great. When the medical system fails people – which it often does, and for very scientific reasons – it’s often a naturopath who has the time and expertise to look for a better diagnosis. By “often”, I mean a very small percent of the time. But we have so many ailments, it ends up being plenty of times.
The Practice of Medicine is not 100% Reliable
I know several people who weren’t diagnosed with lyme disease till it was too late, too advanced. My dad’s sciatica couldn’t be treated for a decade, and then a random doctor had an idea- maybe it was his hip. A hip replacement cured him. This article says it’s common for doctors to dismiss women who “can’t lose weight”, instead of looking to see if they suffer from POCS (polycystic ovary syndrome).
When I go to my doctor, he maybe has 10 minutes to spend with me. There’s no time for research, little time for reflection. If you need a different view, do you want to just go to someone else who comes from the same kind of education and has the same kind of schedule?
Naturopaths mostly see people who aren’t being helped well by regular doctors. They practice looking at problems that doctors don’t diagnose or treat very well. They’re needed.
We still (do the equivalent of) Burning Witches
How was treating my dad’s sciatica like burning witches? Because back in the 1700’s, they didn’t burn women. They burned witches. They were completely convinced those were witches and they should be burned alive. This included many of the best, most upstanding Christians in the community. Learned people of their times.
Our culture has changed. Most of us no longer believe there are witches. But we’re still humans, dealing with the world we think we see, not with the real world. We get convincingly close at times, but often much too far from truth. After all, we’re humans, not God. God knows truth. Humans err.
Doctors couldn’t treat my dad’s sciatica. The sciatica was real to them. They even saw it on x-rays! This included many good doctors. But a hip replacement (at age 86, 87?) took away the pain. For ten years, they were treating a myth.
Consider that you and I also treating myths. But we don’t know it. We think they’re real.
Remember the War in Iraq?
We, America, declared war on Iraq because many of us believed Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction”, and Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al wouldn’t lie about it. Both turned out to be complete myths. We lost thousands of men, spent trillions of dollars, destabilized a society and are still embroiled fighting in the mid-east because of it.
What other myths do we believe? Some of us believe it’d be good if Trump wins the election.
In the next post we’ll look at a negative myth. What truth do people simply refuse to believe?