#2721: Michael Cronin

We have written about legislative alchemy before: the process of turning practices that look somewhat garbagey and is utter nonsense into something that looks potentially respectable but remains exactly as nonsensical and garbage as before through legislative alchemy: by adding an official stamp of approval (and nothing else) to said practices. It’s potentially gold for marketing among the practitioners of said, of course, but of no value in any other respect. And naturopathy is nonsense; it is a collection of almost any branch of pseudoscience-based quackery you can think of, including homeopathy (but of course), Ayurvedic medicine, applied kinesiology, traditional Chinese medicine, anthroposophic medicine, reflexology and craniosacral therapy. Legislative imprimaturs of authority doesn’t change any of that.

Achieving such licensing has nevertheless been a major goal of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP) for a long time; when it failed to pass in Massachusetts back in 2013 (they’ve later succeeded), then-president Michael Cronin, ND, wasn’t just disappointed but felt “anger at a process that placates the desires of the Massachusetts Medical Society over serving the health needs of the public and the desire of the Commonwealth”. Why real medical experts oppose naturopathy is left unexplained; there is probably a conspiracy. Notable, too, is the lack of honesty in the characterization regarding whom such licensure actually serves (it mostly serves to draw a line between themselves and their networks, on the one hand, and other practitioners of often indistinguishable quackery on the other – “[w]ithout licensure, it is difficult for health consumers to discern between natural health consultants and naturopathic doctors”, stated the Michigan Association in 2013, thus making it harder to protect the economic interests of members of their naturopathic networks). But he also urged his fellow NDs to continue fighting.

Cronin is certainly not a nobody in quackery circles. In addition to being former president of the AANP, he is the founder and first President of Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine in Tempe, Arizona and a co-founder of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians and the Naturopathic Physicians. He has also attended the WHO World Health Assembly as invited guests of the World Chiropractic Federation (unfortunately, the WHO has long served as supporter of quackery) and been, especially in cooperation with one Tabatha Parker, involved in the formation of a World Naturopathic Federation to help serve the economic interests of naturopaths everywhere (with Cronin as treasurer).

Diagnosis: No, not a wild-eyed, barely coherent conspiracy theorist (though given that naturopathy is quackery, and the recommendations and teachings of naturopaths are incoherent with science, knowledge, evidence and fact, you sort of have to invent a conspiracy theory somewhere in your narrative), something that ultimately makes him more dangerous to public welfare. Cronin has put in tireless efforts on behalf of quackery, and been more than a little successful, to the detriment of science, accountability and medical services everywhere.