#1510: Sussanna Czeranko

There’s something Orwellian about naturopaths’ claims to promote health. Many of them are not only anti-science, but actually pro-disease (just check out this one). Naturopathy is for instance correlated with anti-vaccine views, and the longer naturopaths are in naturopathy “school”, the less supportive they become of vaccines: Indeed, one survey of naturopathy students found only 12.8% were supportive of the full pediatric vaccination schedule and it is hardly surprising that care from a naturopath is associated with fewer vaccinations and a greater likelihood of vaccine preventable disease. As such there is nothing particularly novel about the dangerous insanity of Sussanna Czeranko, an Ontario and Oregon naturopath, but lack of novelty doesn’t make her any less repugnant.

Czeranko is the author of a multi-part article, “The Persistent Question of Vaccination”, published in The Naturopathic Doctor News and Review, and according to the findings in the links above her attitudes are hardly untypical of naturopathy practitioners: “When vaccination came onto the medical sphere, to say that the earth opened and swallowed up common sense and human dignity is an understatement,” writes Czeranko (yes, vaccines stand in opposition to common sense and human dignity), and “[t]he core principles that differentiated the distinct schools of medicine [she counts naturopathy as a “school of medicine”, of course] at the time were tested in ways that we still see remnants of today.” Moreover, the debates that arose over vaccines were unfair: Regular doctors who supported vaccination were corrupt pharma shills who “had much to gain from its clinical employment [she conspicuously fails to explain what]” and used dirty tricks and unfair tactics – such as pointing out survival rates, improvement in public health and elimination of horrible diseases – to ensure that “the doctors who opposed its use had to endure hard lessons that persist in today’s medical landscape.” Yes, being wrong is, I suppose, a hard lesson, and the people Czeranko talks about tellingly “endured” being wrong instead of correcting their mistakes.

And make no mistake – Czeranko is anti-vaccine to the core: “The vaccinationists became politicized, rich and kept their patients in ignorance. The anti-vaccinationists educated their communities and practiced with nature’s laws. The naturopathic profession has yet to clarify or even unify its position on the issue in the closing days of the first decade of the new century. We may well as a profession find ourselves nodding in agreement with Hodge, who stated in 1911, ‘the amazing fact that it has been possible to force the vaccination atrocity upon the unconsenting world for more than a century is almost incomprehensible.’” Yes, it’s deranged conspiracy mongering. Remember that naturopaths are licensed as primary-care physicians in the state of Oregon.

Now, that’s just the beginning of the deranged woo promoted by Sussanna Czeranko, of course (she’s for instance a “qualified” Buteyko breathing technique practitioner), but it should give you a clue to how she views the world and evaluate evidence.

Diagnosis: Dangerous, deranged and delusional monster, who is actively trying to contribute to what really ought to count as crimes against humanity. Yes, she's evil. She may not know it, but she is.