• Health freedom is about consumer choice, expanding existing scope of practice laws, and obtaining holistic insurance coverage.


• Regulating naturopathy restricts access to trained holistic consultants.


• Inferior medical attention is not synonymous with natural health or common sense healthcare reform.

Legislating the licensing of naturopathic physicians (NPs) and dietitians will affect health care quality and affordability. Dietitians and NPs are pursuing licensure state-by-state in order to monopolize the fields of nutrition and naturopathy.

For the record, traditional naturopathy advocates oppose licensure for the following reasons:

• Licensing makes the practices of traditional naturopathy and holistic nutrition counseling illegal.
• An NP's education is accredited academically, not by the medical profession and their accrediting body, the American Medical Association's Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME).
• Naturopathic physicians mix naturopathic and allopathic medicine without any sufficient medical training, hospital experience, or trauma education.
• Licensed naturopathic physicians seek the status of primary care physicians without sufficient medical training. Dietitians seek the status of nutrition counselors without sufficient education in holistic nutrition.
• Naturopathic physicians and dietitians advocate diagnostic care; traditional naturopaths and holistic nutrition counselors emphasize healthy lifestyle choices and wellness care.
• Elevating NPs to primary care status will distort the practice and philosophy of true naturopathy, and will elevate the cost of consultation and natural substances to that of traditional medical pricing.
• Consumers will no longer have access to traditional naturopathy consultants. Choices will be increasingly limited to special interest groups and low-tech, insufficiently-trained medical doctors.
• Licensing dietitians as nutrition counselors will severely limit public access to such personal choices as macrobiotic foods, vegetarianism, organic and whole foods diets, and Ayurvedic nutrition.

CNH firmly believes in consumer choice, health freedom, and expanding the scope of practice among trained medical doctors. However, CNH does not support medically-unaccredited naturopathic physicians wishing to perform surgery, prescribe drugs, give injections or perform diagnostic tests and referring to their practice as naturopathy.

Exclusionary licensure bills have been introduced in numerous states. Currently, traditional naturopathy is illegal in 11 states; holistic nutrition counseling is illegal in 19 states. For more information, refer to the CNH State-by-State section, accessible from this hyperlink.