Currently, in Ontario, Canada, the battle against bad science is being fought against an unlikely foe: the regulatory body that governs the licensing of physicians in that province. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario is updating its policy on the use of non-conventional therapies by licensed physicians and the draft document that has resulted is a very poor effort by the CPSO to protect the public from harm. The document not only adopts the derisive term “allopathy” to describe conventional modern medicine, but it twists itself into illogical knots in order to not offend those who practice medicine based upon pseudoscientific physiology or downright magical thinking.
This is part of an expanding trend in both Canada and the US to regulate alternative medical practitioners; a practice that, while offensive to many skeptics who see it as an attempt to legitimize magical medicine, can also be argued as necessary to protect the public from the truly dangerous, and give us a body to whom to complain when these practitioners spread dangerous advice on the use of vaccines or new treatments for cancer. We cannot stop people from going to alt-med practitioners but we can keep the practitioners from endangering people, or attempt to punish them when they do.
It is another thing entirely, however, when a body like the CPSO opens the door to these therapies for use by physicians and to even go so far as to muzzle doctors from giving their professional opinion on the dubious practices of the witchdoctors of alt-med. The draft policy “Non-allopathic Therapies in Medical Practice” does just this, and skeptics and the defenders of science-based medicine need to tell the CPSO that the wishy-washy language used in the document is unacceptable and insufficient to protect the public. If these practices are adopted in Ontario, alt-med promoters will have a leg up when attempting to have other jurisdictions adopt pro-magical statements of this kind, and when asking insurance providers, both public and private, to pay for such modalities.
The deadline is looming for comment. September 16th, 2011 is the deadline for public consultation at the CPSO. Dr. David Gorski and Scott Gavura have both writing scathing critiques of the policy, like those that have appeared on the Sandwalk and Dumb-Ass Guide to Knowledge blogs, and the Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism (CASS) at CFI Canada has submitted our own document to the CPSO. We in Ontario need skeptics in all jurisdictions to tell The College that the public will be put at risk if this policy is adopted, and that being neutral on this subject does nothing to serve the best medical interests of the patients in Ontario. Please follow this link and fill out the survey to tell the CPSO how you feel. You can also email them at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..