Do you think that naturopathic medicine should be replaced as our primary form of health care? No? Neither does Dr. Joe Schwarcz, a well-recognized professor and author at Ď㽶ĘÓƵ. However many people think that naturopathic medicine is a legitimate fit for our health care system, therefor Dr. Schwarcz agreed to participate in a debate on the matter on May 8th 2012 held at McGill university. I was shocked to see that in the crowd of 200 people, there were few medical professionals, scientists and students but primarily naturopath supporters. It is my hope that with more education on the matter and more debates such as this one, we can further educate the population and perhaps develop a more logical approach to medicine.
Health care in Quebec, or in Canada for that matter isn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination. There is indeed much room for improvement, however turning to naturopathic medicine as a primary form of healthcare is surely not the answer. In today’s troubled economy, our tax dollars are ever so precious as well as our medical resources. It would be completely absurd to turn over our health care to naturopaths, in fact as far as I’m concerned, it shouldn’t even be a debate.
Dr. Joe Schwarcz did a respectable job of placing valid arguments in response to the naturopath’s absurd suggestions, however with a crowd filled primarily of naturopath supporters who were rudely interrupting Dr. Schwarcz at any chance they got. He chose a more reserved approach and humbly allowed their attack.
Isn’t it ridiculous that a professor at one of the world’s top medical schools with legitimate, scientific evidence on his side is being ridiculed by someone who believes a pill of essentially water can cure all illness?
Another accusation was the one regarding over prescribed antibiotics and vaccinations. There may indeed be some truth behind this, however there is not yet any tangible evidence to elicit any long-term concern, in fact in with vaccinations; they have been determined to have no adverse effects. Antibiotics do cure bacterial infections in both simple and life threatening cases and this is a fact. A fact that seemed to be overlooked by the naturopath considering that given the unsanitary conditions of the developing world, antibiotics could save millions of lives should we have more doctors, real doctors, to administer them.
Finally it became seemingly obvious that this naturopath was perhaps slightly undereducated when he started comparing schools of naturopathic medicine to Yale, John Hopkins and Stanford. He was saying that schools of naturopathic medicine are superior to the world’s leading medical schools! I would be very interested to hear if this naturopathic “doctor” has ever received any medical treatment himself. For it is likely that any medical treatment he may have received was probably synthesized in one those medical schools he was critiquing. In addition, the leading research on today’s biggest killers such as cancer, HIV/Aids and malaria is being carried out at these facilities and I’m almost certain that the invention of a water pill from a naturopath could not even compare to that.
One of my favourite quotes of the evening was when Dr. Schwarcz suggested that “ Perhaps you may be drawing the wrong conclusions from the correct results.” Psychologists and doctors would agree that the placebo effect is in fact one of the most powerful effects that is responsible for what many call “medical miracles”. Therefore when a naturopathic substance is scientifically researched and proven to have absolutely no effect on the human body, why do these so called “doctors of naturopathic medicine” simply ignore the prominent evidence of the placebo effect? I suppose the answer to that question is, well frankly, they aren’t doctors at all and far from it. Therefore as far as I’m concerned, I don’t think the words “naturopathic” and “primary health care” should even be used in the same sentence, let alone actually be put into effect.
