Hi Everyone!
So as some of you have read, one woman in California recently died during a Naturopathic treatment. This individual was receiving an Intravenous infusion of Curcumin, and from the apparent data, appears to have been anaphylactic in Nature.
Dr. Paul Anderson, a Seattle Naturopathic Doctor with great expertise in Intravenous therapeutics, has written a short paper on this topic, shown below:
Curcumin Event Notes-Anderson-03-2017-public
Anaphylactic reactions are those which occur when the body is exposed to an allergen and creates a life threatening state of immune activation, frequently resulting in death. It is treated by injection of Epinephrine and Diphenhydramine (benadryl). Even with such treatment, anaphylaxis can still be fatal.
As shown in Dr Paul Anderson’s posting, reactions to IV curcumin (and Naturopathic injection therapies in general) are exceedingly rare. He personally has administered approximately 10 000 doses without any severe adverse reactions. These formulations are sterile, manufactured according to FDA approved procedures, manufactured from FDA cleared product and completely legal for injections. The reaction was not related to the toxicity or dose of the IV preparation in question.
This death will be investigated by the regulatory authorities for Naturopathic Doctors in California. If the Naturopathic Doctor in question is at fault, discipline will be administered, and policies may be changed. However, this unfortunate tragedy must be put into perspective. As shown in this paper, Anaphylactic reactions in medical care are quite common. For instance the rate of anyaphylaxis to penicillin ranges from 0.7-10%, 0.22-1% for radiocontrast media.
More specifically, researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine examined anaphylaxis as a cause of death based on mortality data ( in the United States). From 1999-2010 they identified 2458 deaths. Of these 1446 were due to medication (58.8%), nearly half of these being due to antibiotics alone.
The blowing out of proportion of this single death as a rallying cry for the legal and cultural persecution of Naturopathic Doctors, especially in light of the far far higher numbers of anaphylactic reactions and other adverse outcomes from allopathic care is a glaring example of the Fake News narrative surrounding Naturopathic medicine that I described in a previous blog post.
The most glaring example of this Fake News Narrative is found in the recent Forbes article on the subject. The author brazenly misstates facts on the case ( for instance, IV tumeric does not actually exist), fails to cite relevant published literature supporting the use of IV curcumin (not IV tumeric) and IV Ozone, cites several cases of disciplinary measures against Naturopathic and Integrative Doctors while ignoring the literally tens of thousands of deaths associated with allopathic care, and uses inflammatory and misleading language to paint a picture that is quite far from reality.
In short, this death is a tragedy that is being exploited by the same ideological groups that have constructed a Fake News Narrative against Naturopathic medicine to further their ideological goals. For people who accuse (falsely) Naturopathic Doctors of exploiting the suffering of sick people and selling false hope by curing conditions that conventional care is usually helpless against, this is a particularly hypocritical action.
Error note: I previously listed IV curcumin as FDA approved. I was unaware of the this specific term being a legal term in the United states for the FDA approving a specific drug for specific indications. Curcumin is manufactured under compound drug procedures approved and enforced by the FDA, but the term “FDA approved” does not apply to it. I apologize for the error. I am indeed not hugely familiar with American terminology on the subject.
