Sometimes disillusionment creeps in gradually, but for Britt Marie Hermes, her transformation from alternative medicine practitioner to skeptic happened over the course of a weekend.
After making a disturbing discovery at his Arizona clinic four years ago, Hermes turned his back on everything he believed in and began a campaign to expose the dubious and unethical underbelly of his former profession. His blog, Naturopathic Diaries, has gained him a large following among skeptics, but it has also angered some advocates of alternative medicine. He is being sued for defamation by American naturopath Colleen Huber, and the case is due to be heard in a German court later this year. The skeptic community was so enthusiastic that in nine days an international fundraising campaign raised $50,000 (£36,000) to cover Hermes’ legal costs.
So how did a one-time advocate of natural medicine end up standing up to America’s powerful alternative medicine establishment?
According to Hermes, naturopathic medicine encompasses a range of complementary therapies, including homeopathy, herbal supplements, dietary restrictions, acupuncture and faith healing, promoting the inclusive philosophy that “nature knows best.”
After earning her bachelor’s degree in psychology from San Diego State University in 2006, Hermes applied to the four-year graduate program in naturopathic medicine at Bastyr University near Seattle. “The program is designed to be as similar to medical school as possible; the school says they’ll teach you medical-level basic science courses for the first two years,” she says, “but they won’t require an entrance exam.”
In the UK, the line between alternative therapies and conventional medicine is narrow, but in the US the line can be blurred. Twenty-three states and US territories have licensing systems that allow the use of the title “naturopathic doctor”. Around 6,000 registered practitioners are allowed to perform some medical tests, diagnose, prescribe certain medicines, and give complementary and dietary advice. Some health insurers also cover naturopathic treatments.
Hermes recalls that in 2014, the clinic where he worked was not unusual in treating cancer patients with a herbal compound called Ukrain. Shipments of the drug, stored in glass ampoules that were opened and drawn up with a syringe, arrived at the clinic regularly. Cancer patients paid for their treatment in cash. But one Friday, the Ukrain shipment didn’t arrive. When patients started to get upset, Hermes reported the matter to his boss. “He said he suspected the FDA was manufacturing the drug illegally.” [US Food and Drugs Administration] “They seized the shipment,” she said. “I thought that statement was really odd and wanted to find out more about it.
“I will immediately [Ukrain] “It’s not FDA approved,” she said, adding that the implications weren’t immediately clear because most natural remedies aren’t FDA approved. But she realized that administering such drugs to cancer patients could be a federal crime. “Once I realized that, everything changed almost overnight,” she said. She spent most of the weekend reading criticism of her profession on the Internet. “By Monday morning I had hired a lawyer and quit that job.”
Hermes started a blog soon after she left, detailing her process of re-evaluation and publishing a growing number of articles critical of alternative therapies. But she says that at first she found no one kindred spirits in the skeptical community. “My impression was that it was a bunch of grumpy old white guys,” she says. She recalls reading terms like “quack doctor” and “scam artist” and having a hard time matching these descriptions with the people she knew in the industry.
In Britt’s experience, people usually turn to alternative therapies after a bad experience with a doctor, or when conventional treatments have little effect. She herself encountered unsympathetic doctors (“assholes”) when seeking treatment for her psoriasis as a teenager. “In addition to steroid creams, I started taking nutritional supplements,” she says. “I realized the supplements were helping my skin and developed a mindset that natural is better.”
After that, becoming a naturopath seemed like the logical career choice. “My moving experiences with alternative therapists really resonated with me,” she says. “I really wanted to give that hope, kindness and empathy to my patients.” Her PhD project, working at Keele University’s Department of Evolutionary Genomics, focuses on the skin microbiome in inflammatory skin diseases.
Providing emotional support is the only aspect, she argues, that mainstream medicine could learn something from alternative therapists. “They spend a lot of time with their patients, they have detailed discussions about their emotional wellbeing, how their sleep is, how well their sleep is, and they build a close connection,” she says. “That’s really therapeutic.”
Hermes says the potential drawbacks of conventional medicine are rarely recognised as a motivation for people to seek alternative medicines, and skeptics and the scientific community are often focused solely on debunking quackery rather than trying to understand why people turn to alternative medicines in the first place.
Hermes believes her poacher-turned-gamekeeper perspective explains the popularity of her writings among both skeptics and those interested in or engaged in naturopathic medicine. “A lot of people who are like me, or used to be like me, look at my profile and relate,” she says. Her blog offers a mix of personal insights (“It’s surprisingly easy to sell quack medicine. I know because I’ve done it”) and warnings about the potential dangers of alternative therapies. “Keep naturopaths away from your vagina,” she warns in a recent post about the dangers of an herb-based paste called “black salve” that’s promoted as a treatment for HPV infection.
The post that sparked Colleen Huber’s lawsuit focused on claims about alternative cancer treatments offered by her clinic, whose website states that “85% of patients who complete our treatments and follow our dietary recommendations go into remission.” Huber is suing over comments on Hermes’ blog that suggest she misled “vulnerable” cancer patients and that her treatments are “fraudulent.”
The American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP) said in an email that for serious illnesses like cancer, naturopathic medicine can play a complementary role but shouldn’t replace conventional treatments. “Like all licensed health care providers, naturopathic physicians do not treat every illness and are trained to know when to make a referral,” a spokesperson told me. “They often work in collaboration with traditional health care providers and other specialists, depending on a patient’s condition and specific needs.”
There is evidence that alternative medicine is on the rise. According to the AANP, 38% of US adults use some form of complementary or alternative medicine, and last year three states – Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island – introduced licensure for naturopathic doctors. In the UK, a survey found that about 40% of adults have used an alternative therapy in the past year, with herbal remedies being the most popular, followed by homeopathy, aromatherapy, massage and reflexology. Alternative therapies have been popularized by health and “clean eating” bloggers and celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow.
Globally, the complementary medicine market is expanding, with revenues predicted to reach nearly $200 billion (£143 billion) by 2025, according to a market analysis last year. “There seems to be a growth in the whole alternative medicine industry in North America, and I think that’s the case in the UK as well,” says Hermes. “The political environment is well suited to that. There’s a sense that experts, whether they’re medical experts or experts in other fields, are not necessarily people you can trust. When you have leaders who question the reliability of mainstream medicine, it creates a breeding ground for pseudoscience to rise.”
However, most people who use alternative therapies are able to distinguish between minor ailments and serious physical illnesses that require medical attention. Is there really no harm in taking arnica tablets?
“I’ve been down a dangerous path myself,” says Hermes, “I changed my diet, I took relatively harmless supplements and fish oil, but I ended up spending 10 years immersed in naturopathic medicine, and I think if I’d been diagnosed with a serious illness, I might have chosen naturopathic medicine. So I’m adamant in saying no to everything.”
- The standfirst for this article was changed on April 10 to correct a reference to “Britt Maria Hermes.”
