You cannot be pro-vaccination and turn around and support naturopathic practice expansion, at least not without some major cognitive dissonance buzzing around in your head. The two are mutually exclusive.

You do not see the department of Astronomy bragging about bringing in astrologers into their midst. But in medicine? We have Development of a hospital reiki training program: training volunteers to provide reiki to patients, families, and staff in the acute care setting.

April 2 was a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day for naturopaths, only without the heart-warming ending.

I received a press release today:

Massage Shown Effective Treating Female Infertility In a landmark 10-year study, a therapeutic massage replaced surgery and was found effective treating the most common causes of female infertility.

The website certainly looks impressive but what might this landmark study be? It was

Ten-year Retrospective Study on the Efficacy of a Manual Physical Therapy to Treat Female Infertility

It has a number interesting methodological curiosities.

Now I have a better study that encapsulates the placebo effect: Conservatives report, but liberals display, greater happiness published in science.

In February, the State of Florida issued an order telling Brian Clement to cease and desist from the unlicensed practice of medicine. It ordered him to pay a fine as well. In March, the State said "never mind!"

The inadequacy of evidence-based medicine often rears its head in guidelines, where fantasy based therapies sneak in based on flawed evidence.

For example, Clinical Practice Guideline Allergic Rhinitis,

Homeopathy is nothing that does nothing but a legalized nothing. Reading Conditions Under Which Homeopathic Drugs May be Marketed is kind of sad, the FDA being required to recognize the processes by which products are added to the HPUS such as provings. It is a sorry sight that an organization that usually is based on reality is forced by law to use fantasy.

There are a lot of different kinds of energy. What is not on this list? All the unmeasured and unmeasurable energies that define many of the pseudo-medicines. Qi, innate intelligence, reiki, therapeutic touch, etc. All the mystical and magical energies purported to be felt and manipulated by their practitioners.

It is therefore with skepticism that I view House Bill 1978 and Senate Bill 1870 (the bills are identical) recently introduced in the Minnesota Legislature. The bills have several suspicious provisions which seem tailor-made to raise unfounded parental alarm.