#2836: David Field

Jade Erick was a woman who died from naturopathic quackery administered by naturopath Kim Kelly – specifically intravenous curcumin – in 2017. Now, naturopaths like to cosplay as responsible medical providers (they most surely are not), even going so far as trying to obtain (and sometimes getting) official recognition through legislative alchemy, but they struggle to maintain the mask when some pressure is put on them.

 

Kelly was licensed in California. David Field is (or at least was at that point) the Chair of the Naturopathic Medicine Committee for the State of California Department of Consumer Affairs, and it would thus be part of Field’s tasks to lead a committee to investigate Erick’s death. Field, of course, handled that task exactly how you would expect a dishonest quack and spin doctor to handle it: by trying to shift attention away from the fact that Erick’s death was a direct cause of a commonly recognized quack treatment among naturopaths to trying to find as much dirt as possible on real medicine to spin a marketable narrative that would take focus away from the quackery he recommends and avoid taking any responsibility whatosever: “I am in great need of statistics, with references/citations if possible, regarding iatrogenic harm from MDs/DOs, DCs, LAcs, etc. As SOON as POSSIBLE please! ANY and ALL types!” he promptly asked his naturopathic colleagues in a closed naturopathic discussion group. (He was quickly directed to the efforts of Gary Null and Carolyn Dean, of course.) It’s an obvious ploy: people die during conventional treatments, too, and if you disregard the efficacy of those treatments (curcumin is bullshit), you can probably create a compelling defense of naturopathic treatments. For context: Field was at that point scheduled to testify in front of the California legislature because law licensing naturopaths in that state would need to be renewed, and a case like Erick would definitely look bad (as would this report).

 

Otherwise, Field’s practice offers a plethora of quack modalities; his specialties include “acupuncture, botanical medicine, Chinese medicine, homeopathy, hormone replacement therapy, IV therapy, nutrition counseling, physical medicine/manipulation, supplement counseling”.

 

Diagnosis: He probably does recognize that patients dying as a direct result of your advice looks bad. We’ll grant him that. If he would also take seriously the thought that “perhaps it would be good to check, in an unbiased and accuracy-constrained way, whether my advice is actually good”, things would be fine. He won’t, though.