BOSTON — Naturopaths, who practice an alternative medicine heavy on herbal supplements, are making a big push to gain more authority and stature across the United States, including the right to do more hands-on patient care and to be reimbursed by Medicare.
That’s raising concern among critics who see naturopaths as quacks — and who warn that offering them state licenses, insurance reimbursements, and other recognition only legitimizes their pseudoscience.
“You don’t want to regulate the snake-oil salesmen,” said Steven Salzberg, a computational biologist at Johns Hopkins who has been a vocal critic of naturopaths. “They don’t offer something that works to begin with.”
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