Most people view licensure positively. After all, we are told that it is only through licensing that we can be assured that consumers will receive high quality health care.

However, this does not necessarily follow. It is well known that many people fall victim every year to iatrogenic, that is, physician-caused illness. While this is sometimes a result of negligence, it may simply be due to factors that no physician, no matter how careful and highly skilled, could predict. Physicians have been licensed by their state governments, yet still there are patients who are harmed. Has licensure been able to prevent this?

If you are a traditional naturopath, it could mean the end of your career. Historically, the reason (although not the rationale) for instituting licensure has been to keep the control of a given profession, and the profits derived from it, in the hands of a select few individuals. This will certainly be the result if bills that are pending in a number of states and supported by the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP) are signed into law. These laws would:

• Require that all naturopaths graduate from one of only three schools -- either Bastyr University, National College, or Southwest College.
  
• Require that all naturopaths pass the NPLEX, an exam that is not available to people who have received their education from institutions other than those few the law will approve.
• Protect a tiny minority of "naturopathic physicians," those who are members of the AANP, while making it illegal for thousands of Traditional Naturopaths to practice. Bar anyone who is not a licensed naturopathic physician from recommending the use of foods, vitamins, and herbs as a means of healing, if this is part of a health- related practice.
• Make thousands of Traditional Naturopaths eligible for a jail sentence, not for a license.

It has been suggested that some of the current bills should be amended to allow grandfathering-in for those already engaged in the practice of naturopathy. On the surface, this would seem to be a viable alternative. After all, it would put no one out of business. Right? Let's take a look. If these bills are signed into law with an amendment to allow grandfathering, the results would be that:

• Some, but not all, of the traditional naturopaths continue practicing. In most cases, practitioners who would be grandfathered-in must have completed a specified number of years practicing as a naturopath prior to the passage of the law. Sometimes there are percentages of income requirements as well. Naturopath's who haven't met these requirements will never be grandfathered.
• Traditional Naturopathy, as a profession, would be dead. No one could become a naturopath without traveling the allopathic-educational path, and the form of "naturopathy" taught at the approved schools is a strange mixture of allopathic and natural healing techniques.
• Any new law can easily be amended in the future to "upgrade" the profession and remove the few remaining Traditional Naturopaths from practice.