The outstanding website Science Based Medicine has this article about a bill recently passed by both houses of the Oregon legislature that would give naturopaths (NDs) virtually the same legal status as MDs, despite the absence of extensive clinical training and residencies (and science). The bill, which is now on the governor's desk, would allow naturopaths to provide a wide variety of services and treatments that are currently reserved to MDs and DOs, including:
Withdraw medical treatment, hydration and nutrition from a patient when the ND has determined that the patient has a terminal condition and would not likely benefit from further medical care or is at an advanced stage of illness and unlikely to improve, even in the absence of a patient’s having previously expressed his wishes on these issues. OANP’s summary of SB 856’s provisions for legislators and the public completely misrepresents the sweeping nature of this change by describing it as “Adds NDs to providers who can sign Advanced Directives.
Order physical or chemical restraint, or psychotropic medication, for elderly and disabled persons.
Sign Physicians Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST). A POLST is a standing medical order directing or withholding specific medical treatment (for example, an order not to resuscitate the patient) designed for seriously ill or frail patients whose health care professional believes may die within a year. POLSTs should be executed by the health care professional only after a discussion with the patient concerning his wishes for end-of-life care.
Determine that a patient is not competent to give informed consent to mental health treatment, as well as consent to that treatment for the patient, including convulsive treatment, psychoactive medication, psychosurgery, and retention in a mental health care facility.
Conduct medical examinations of sexual assault and child abuse victims; allows courts to order treatment of child abuse victim by an ND.
Review state correctional facility medical plans, provide medical care to prisoners and juvenile detainees, train non-medical facility personnel in administering medications and order special diets for prisoners. (Considering the whacko diets favored by naturopaths, this one could prove a real challenge to Oregon’s budget.)
The Science Based Medicine article, written by Florida attorney Jann Bellamy, lists sixteen other services that the new statute would open to NDs.
Nineteen states give some form of medical recognition to naturopaths, but no other state has gone as far as Oregon, barring a veto from the governor.
There is more I would comment on but for the time, so I'll confine myself to the "whacko diets favored by naturopaths." The blog writer's diet in this case is not at all representative of "naturopathic" dietary recommendations, which vary quite widely. For example, some recommend vegan diets, others not (especially, it seems, for women), some are vegetarians, and some have meat in their diets. None of the "official" and unofficial diets I've read about in the neuropathic literature strike me as "whacko." I happen to be a vegan (and I'm not committed to naturopathy although I would endorse _some_ of its principles and practices), which not a few folks may, wrongly I believe, consider a "whacko" diet, but it has helped me with Type 2 diabetes and weight management. I don't necessarily recommend it to everybody. Most of my life I was a vegetarian (for ethical, political, and religious reasons), but still had a fairly poor diet as such things so, unlike my dear wife, who has always been an exemplary vegetarian (and has good reasons for not being a vegan). My principal reason for being a vegan arose from personal health experimentation, the sort of "experimentation" (within constraints of various sorts) naturopaths are likely to favor. (Other kinds of reasons for being a vegan can be found in the writings of Michael Dorf and Sherry Colb, mentioned because this is a law blog and they happen to be law professors).
Not a few correctional facilities accommodate religiously motivated "special" diets, as we do in California: Kosher, Halal, and Vegetarian. The challenge to Oregon's budget comes in the first instance from current sentencing and incarceration practices.
Regarding diagnosis and treatment of child maltreatment/abuse. I remind readers of this blog post that it was an MD who coined the term "Crack Baby" and came to deeply regret that. It is MD's who misdiagnose Shaken Trauma Syndrome…some are just now "correcting" their mistakes…just some thoughts… Maybe for child abuse, its not such a bad thing to bring about a rounded, holistic approach?
Oregon was in the forefront as well of physician assisted suicide. It seems that this state can't restrain its open and obvious motive to terminate its ill and elderly at the earliest possible time.