I was shocked, dismayed, angered and in disbelief after reading your article “Naturopathic Doctors Advocate Licensure in Arkansas” (Sept./Oct. 2015)
To be brief, because I could write volumes on this, Arkansas medicine has come a long way from the 19th century in discarding bleeding, leeches, snake oil, goat gland surgery for male impotence, etc.
As a medical student, I did not even know of the existence of “naturopaths” until on my neurosurgical rotation I received a patient from north Arkansas. He had been “treated” for many months by a naturopath for a scalp infection. By the time he arrived to us, the fungal infection was the size of a tennis ball and had eroded well into his calvarium.
Everyone can make mistakes, but this was absurd beyond belief. The patient finally went to a real doctor who then referred him to UAMS.
A litmus test for quackery is advocating that water can cure or improve diseases beyond an expected placebo effect. That is exactly what homeopathy proposes. The greater the dilutions, the more effect the product is supposed to have. Some claim the water has “memory” which has been thoroughly debunked.
We need “evidenced-based medicine” – showing beneficial cost effective results, and NOT a return to the 19th century.
Now, I think I will try to calm my boiling blood. AMN can do better.
Thank you,
Jim Cherry, MD
Fayetteville, AR