naturopathic medicine

December 12, 2020

In the Time of George Floyd’s Murder: Update on Actions from 18 Integrative Health Organizations and Institutions

The murder of George Floyd, and its clearly non-anomalous nature, tooth-picked open the eyes of many white people to the depths of racism, of systematic intrusion of bigotry, and built in barriers to the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness for vast sets of people of color in the U.S. population. One place the need for re-education in places high and low was evident in the commitment to “deepening my understanding of systemic racism” from Bill Gates. He was explaining his choice for the book at the top of list of 2020 reading: The New Jim Crow. Multiple integrative health and medicine organizations responded to Floyd’s murder with their own statements of solidarity, and of commitment. I reported these just 10 days after Floyd’s death on June 7 (8 organizations) then a second set on June 28 (13 more). As my own commitment, I closed the latter with a promise to check in with these organizations 6 months later to see how they have acted on their commitments. Here is the report-back to the community.
July 12, 2020

Evolving Incomes, Services and Clinical Foci of Naturopathic Practices: Musings on the Graduate Success and Compensation Study

Virtually every corner of the medical industry houses an entangling drama between mission and money. There is the service, the need to make a living, and then the way making a living can transform into a production orientation dominated by the impulse to make more money. For integrative health and medicine, the drama is intense, whether in integrative centers owned by large institutions or solo practices in the community. The mission-money challenges get “curiouser and curiouser” for the licensed integrative practice fields that are not fully swept up into the thundering $3.3 trillion river of cash that annually rips through the dominant medical industry. An edginess sets in when, as the sick joke has it, you have just enough recognition to get into debt, but not enough to get out of it yet. So it is always interesting to explore new data on income and practice methods such as were recently published by the Association of Accredited Naturopathic Medical Colleges in it’s 2020 Graduate Success and Compensation Study.
June 7, 2020

The Murder of George Floyd and Demonstrations Against Systemic Racism: Responses from the Integrative Community

The most gripping moment for me was quite private after my spouse suggested that we don our COVID masks and join some 5000 others at City Hall on day 6 of Seattle’s demonstrations against police violence against black people, and for massive systemic change. We were sitting on the curb during a break in the action. We were quite aware of how little we know and understand, even with the mentoring of a 24-year-old daughter who is hypersensitive to race issues. We leaned in close to each other as the mixed crowd of humans, nearer our daughter’s age than to our own, milled about. The course of our conversation led us to try to imagine needing to have had “the conversation” 15 or 20 years ago with our now 28 year old son, were we black, and he a young black man coming of age. That being his ritual welcome into adulthood.
June 7, 2020

FTC’s Crackdown on COVID Claims: Insights on Novel Regulation from the Integrative Canaries in the Coal Mine

News feeds for the natural products and integrative health practitioner fields have in recent weeks included a drumbeat of alerts on actions of the Food and Trade Commission (FTC) on what the agency considers inappropriate claims relative to COVID-19. A major natural health organization blasted the FTC’s efforts as practitioner gagging and censorship and is mounting a campaign to stop the activity. Others in these fields point to bullseyes some practitioners and companies have painted on their foreheads via gross over claims (“this mushroom will cure your COVID”) that laser-guide FTC’s actions. At a sober center amidst a tangle of issues – state/federal jurisdiction, free speech, provider-patient relationship, and the peculiar institution of in-office sales of natural products – sit Laura Farr and Rob Kachko, ND. They are the executive director and president, respectively, of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP). Among the multiple questions is whether naturopathic doctors and others in integrative medicine are “canaries in the coal mine” of a new, potentially widening push by the FTC and other federal and state agencies into the regulation of integrative and functional medicine practitioner offices.