Yesterday 05:55 PM
(This post was last modified: Yesterday 05:59 PM by C C.)
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critic...orry-about
INTRO: A new bill has been proposed at the National Assembly of Quebec, and while it may look like it will benefit our health, there is a lot going on under the surface. It is an excellent example of how the rebranding of pseudoscience gives it legitimacy, and this Trojan horse is now knocking on our legislative door.
The bill proposes a number of things around the nebulous phrase “complementary and integrative approaches to health.” The member who introduced it wants to identify knowledge gaps and recommendations in that field; to get research into integrative health funded by our provincial health research body; and for the government to finance university-level education in this field.
If you have never heard of “integrative health” or if you are a fan of it, it all sounds good. Many Quebecers are already using these complementary therapies. Why not invest money in finding out which ones work particularly well and ensure that more therapists can benefit from a higher education so as to ease the burden of illness in our province? After all, the bill does not mention replacing medicine but rather complementing it.
But complementing it with what? Because when we scratch the surface of this Trojan horse, we discover that it is full of nonsense.
[...] In 2026, these practices are not serious. They check all the boxes of a pseudoscience: they are based on a primitive, overly simplistic understanding of how the body works; they may rely on the spiritual idea that a mysterious life force exists which can be manipulated; they fail to progress and change; they often lack a plausible mechanism of action; and their promising, preliminary studies are commonly contradicted by rigorous clinical trials.
You would think this would stop their appeal dead in its track. But many of the people who make use of these therapies report feeling better—not because they work as advertised but because of things like receiving the care of a genial practitioner for a whole hour, getting to relax a bit, and sinking money into a series of appointments and thus being inclined to think that this was money well spent.
And unfortunately, the World Health Organization has added a layer of legitimacy to this whole enterprise. [...] The key to marketing this Trojan horse of integrative health is the vagueness. Never clearly define what is meant by “integrative medicine.” Simply mention that medicine is insufficient; that people are already using and loving complementary practices; and that even the WHO sings of its merits. The doors open and the horse is wheeled in.
[...] If this bill is adopted into law, we will see tax money being wasted and pseudoscience being legitimized. The idea that we need to fund more grants to study homeopathy and aromatherapy reeks of the square one fallacy. It’s the argument that, year after year, we still do not know which of these therapies work—we are starting from scratch, from square one—so we need to finance their study, and when the results are negative, we repeat that we just don’t know if this works or not, so we need more money. It’s not unlike a fan of slot machines, except this slot machine will never pay out... (MORE - missing details)
INTRO: A new bill has been proposed at the National Assembly of Quebec, and while it may look like it will benefit our health, there is a lot going on under the surface. It is an excellent example of how the rebranding of pseudoscience gives it legitimacy, and this Trojan horse is now knocking on our legislative door.
The bill proposes a number of things around the nebulous phrase “complementary and integrative approaches to health.” The member who introduced it wants to identify knowledge gaps and recommendations in that field; to get research into integrative health funded by our provincial health research body; and for the government to finance university-level education in this field.
If you have never heard of “integrative health” or if you are a fan of it, it all sounds good. Many Quebecers are already using these complementary therapies. Why not invest money in finding out which ones work particularly well and ensure that more therapists can benefit from a higher education so as to ease the burden of illness in our province? After all, the bill does not mention replacing medicine but rather complementing it.
But complementing it with what? Because when we scratch the surface of this Trojan horse, we discover that it is full of nonsense.
[...] In 2026, these practices are not serious. They check all the boxes of a pseudoscience: they are based on a primitive, overly simplistic understanding of how the body works; they may rely on the spiritual idea that a mysterious life force exists which can be manipulated; they fail to progress and change; they often lack a plausible mechanism of action; and their promising, preliminary studies are commonly contradicted by rigorous clinical trials.
You would think this would stop their appeal dead in its track. But many of the people who make use of these therapies report feeling better—not because they work as advertised but because of things like receiving the care of a genial practitioner for a whole hour, getting to relax a bit, and sinking money into a series of appointments and thus being inclined to think that this was money well spent.
And unfortunately, the World Health Organization has added a layer of legitimacy to this whole enterprise. [...] The key to marketing this Trojan horse of integrative health is the vagueness. Never clearly define what is meant by “integrative medicine.” Simply mention that medicine is insufficient; that people are already using and loving complementary practices; and that even the WHO sings of its merits. The doors open and the horse is wheeled in.
[...] If this bill is adopted into law, we will see tax money being wasted and pseudoscience being legitimized. The idea that we need to fund more grants to study homeopathy and aromatherapy reeks of the square one fallacy. It’s the argument that, year after year, we still do not know which of these therapies work—we are starting from scratch, from square one—so we need to finance their study, and when the results are negative, we repeat that we just don’t know if this works or not, so we need more money. It’s not unlike a fan of slot machines, except this slot machine will never pay out... (MORE - missing details)