This Ex-Naturopath Is Speaking Out Against Her Former Profession
She was a licensed naturopath in two states, and is now is now one of the fields biggest critics.
Shayla Love
Apr 2 2018, 6:24am
[tonic.vice.com]
(Small excerpt - the entire article must be read in full - Corboy)
She was a licensed naturopath in two states, and is now is now one of the fields biggest critics.
Shayla Love
Apr 2 2018, 6:24am
[tonic.vice.com]
(Small excerpt - the entire article must be read in full - Corboy)
Quote
she found her boss had been importing a supplement, called Ukrain, and giving it to their cancer patients. Under his medical orders, she had given it to patients too. “I felt sick in giving something that was unapproved [for cancer treatment] to cancer patients,” she says. The best-case scenario, she thought to herself, was that the supplement had done nothing to her patients; had been a scam. But even then, they were spending lots of money—out of pocket—to afford this treatment.
Within just a few days , Hermes saw a lawyer, quit her job, and reported her boss to Arizona State’s naturopathic board. She says when she resigned, her boss tried to intimidate her. He said she would get in trouble too, because she had also administered the supplement. He also accused her of being against the naturopathic profession, because they all used herbal supplements, which are not subject to FDA regulation. It was part of the gig.
This news was earth-shattering. Hermes says that after two days of intensive Google research, she realized her boss was right. All the supplements she’d been giving to people—that she’d been taking herself—were barely regulated. And while the advice to exercise and eat unprocessed food wasn’t harmful, a lot of the more intensive treatments she’d been doling out had no oversight, no evidence behind them.
“I had this big blind spot about the profession where I just naively went along with whatever any naturopath told me was safe and effective,” she says. “To say I was a mess is an understatement. I was having a full-on life crisis.”
Everything she thought she knew about life, medicine, and wellness suddenly didn’t make any sense. She started having panic attacks. As she tried to educate herself on the other ways naturopathy had misled her, it opened new wounds. As she read more about naturopathy, she had flashbacks to times she gave patients wrong information, or treatments that had no effect. “I could only take in information in micro doses, and at a very slow pace,” she says. “I really cried my whole way through it.”