#2863: Karen Frangos

‘Naturopathy’ is the term for a fuzzily delineated mass of woo, quackery and pseudoscience – mostly ineffective at targeting the health problems practitioners claim that their recommendations target, and often dangerous, especially when the practitioners have deluded themselves into thinking they can treat real diseases rather than any of the many fake diseases that are central to naturopathic mythology; that homeopathy is a major part of their ‘training’ is illustration enough. Naturopaths are, at best, confused but well-meaning people who weren’t qualified to get an education in real medicine, but many – if not most – are dangerously delusional.

 

But naturopaths, especially through their ‘professional organizations’, have been and are engaged in a concerted effort to expand their income base, especially by trying to fool clueless legislators to pass various bills that would license their profession and give it a misleading sheen of legitimacy and even to officialy recognize them as primary care practitioners (a horrifying idea). Their efforts have been frighteningly successful, and in no state more so than in Hawaii, where they enjoy a broad scope of practice, including prescribing privileges according to the naturopathic formulary. Indeed, through an agreement between the Hawaii Society of Naturopathic Physicians and the insurance provider Hawaii Medical Service Association (HMSA), you may, in fact, choose a naturopathic doctor as your primary care physician, something that practicing Maui naturopath Karen Frangos, President of Hawaii Society of Physicians, calls “a big deal” because it “allows us all kinds of privileges in terms of being able to be part of a professional physician organization like all other medical doctors do”, including “potentially admission privileges in hospital settings.” She even asserts that it “helps close the gap in the shortage of primary care physicians in Hawaii.” It most assuredly does not, except perhaps on paper.

 

The challenge for naturopathic practitioners in Hawaii is of course that insurance companies tend to deny reimbursement for obvious nonsense, with the result that naturopathic care is generally not covered. As naturopath Marsha Lowry at Whole Body Wellness in Makawao and Hale Malu in Wailuku complains, insurance companies are “auditing our charts and kicking back things […] and saying it’s not MD standard of care”. Lowry’s practice offers patients a range of quackery, including homeopathy and IV nutritional therapy. Meanwhile, Frangos and her group have persistently tried to change the situation, of course, backing a number of bills, such as SB 318 (dead; sponsored by Russell Ruderman, Rosalyn Baker – who has elsewhere asserted that “our people don’t need to be treated by quacks”, suggesting that her quack detection abilities are poorly calibrated  – and Mike Gabbard), which would compel insurers to cover care provided by naturopathic doctors; SB 1034, which will lift the cap on the number of visits related to personal injury protection benefits provided through motor vehicle insurance; HB 1952, regarding network adequacy, and SB 2332 (dead; sponsored by Ruderman, Baker, Gabbard, Kalani English, Gil Keith-Agaran, Michelle Kidani, William Espero, Les Ihara, Clarence Nishihara & Brian Taniguchi), which would allow naturopathic doctors to prescribe controlled substances.

 

Diagnosis: Though she wouldn’t appear clearly delusional to anyone meeting her just briefly, that just makes Karen Frangos and her organization all the more dangerous. They’re thus far been frighteningly successful, to the detriment of us all.

 

Hat-tip: Respectful Insolence