A new bill has been proposed at the National Assembly of Quebec, and while it may look like it will benefit our health, there is\u00a0a lot\u00a0going on under the surface. It is an excellent example of how the rebranding of pseudoscience gives it legitimacy, and this Trojan horse is now knocking on our legislative door.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0bill<\/a>\u00a0proposes a number of things around the nebulous phrase \u201ccomplementary and integrative approaches to health.\u201d The member who introduced it wants to identify knowledge gaps and recommendations in that field; to get research into integrative health funded by our provincial health research body; and for the government to finance university-level education in this field.<\/p>\n If you have never heard of \u201cintegrative health\u201d or if you are a fan of it, it all sounds good. Many Quebecers are already using these complementary therapies. Why not invest money in finding out which ones work particularly well and ensure that more therapists can benefit from a higher education so as to ease the burden of illness in our province? After all, the bill does not mention replacing \u00a0medicine but rather\u00a0complementing\u00a0it.<\/p>\n But complementing it with what? Because when we scratch the surface of this Trojan horse, we discover that it is full of nonsense.<\/p>\n The vagueness is the point<\/p>\n Over the decades, ideas that sought to become medicine but didn\u2019t qualify have been marketed under different names. \u201cAlternative medicine\u201d used to be common, but it started to receive pushback. There are, after all, harms to leaving conventional medicine behind in order to embrace some unproven alternative. \u201cComplementary medicine\u201d became popular; now, the reigning label is \u201cintegrative medicine,\u201d or simply \u201cintegrative health.\u201d<\/p>\n Integrative medicine is sold with a fallacious argument: that conventional medicine is imperfect (fair) and that alternative medicine is also imperfect (that\u2019s putting it mildly), and so the patient will benefit from an\u00a0integration\u00a0of these two halves. But as Dr. Mark Crislip so graphically put it over the years writing for\u00a0Science-Based Medicine, mixing apple pie with\u00a0cow pie<\/a>\u00a0does not make the apple pie taste better; it ruins the recipe. Integrating pseudomedical practices like homeopathy and Reiki\u2014alleged therapies that do not work and can cause harm\u2014to actual medicine does not improve healthcare. To draw a political analogy, democracy is imperfect, as is autocracy. We would thus benefit from integrating the two to improve our society. Right?<\/p>\n But the misrepresentation doesn\u2019t stop here. The integrative health movement has a habit of co-opting evidence-based therapies to give itself legitimacy while hiding the real pseudoscience. In the proposed bill, examples of disciplines belonging to \u201cintegrative health\u201d include respiratory therapy. Respiratory therapy is part of medicine; it\u2019s not a complementary therapy the way that acupuncture or naturopathy is.<\/p>\n This is why \u201cintegrative health\u201d is\u00a0a Trojan horse<\/a>. It uses legitimate practices and recommendations\u2014like respiratory therapy, but also exercising and eating well, concepts that are clearly part of conventional medicine\u2014to smuggle in magical thinking.<\/p>\n Here is a list of so-called therapies that are often sneaked in under the moniker of integrative health:<\/p>\n \tHomeopathy<\/a>:\u00a0the practice of taking, for example, a natural substance that makes you vomit and diluting it out of existence to make you stop vomiting In 2026, these practices are not serious. They check all the boxes of\u00a0a pseudoscience<\/a>: they are based on a primitive, overly simplistic understanding of how the body works; they may rely on the spiritual idea that a mysterious life force exists which can be manipulated; they fail to progress and change; they often lack a plausible mechanism of action; and their promising, preliminary studies are commonly contradicted by rigorous clinical trials.<\/p>\n You would think this would stop their appeal dead in its track. But many of the people who make use of these therapies report feeling better\u2014not because they work as advertised but because of things like receiving the care of a genial practitioner for a whole hour, getting to relax a bit, and sinking money into a series of appointments and thus being inclined to think that this was money well spent.<\/p>\n And unfortunately, the World Health Organization has added a layer of legitimacy to this whole enterprise. In trying to ensure everyone in the world has access to healthcare, the WHO is promoting homeopathy, traditional Chinese medicine, and esoteric concepts such as\u00a0rhythmical embrocations<\/a>. The argument seems to be that if people in the Global South can\u2019t see an actual doctor, they might as well see some kind of traditional healer, as long as what they\u2019re selling has proven itself\u2026 in one way or another. This way, the WHO can claim that a large percentage of the Earth\u2019s population has access to healthcare. Just don\u2019t question what\u00a0kind\u00a0of healthcare it is.<\/p>\n The key to marketing this Trojan horse of integrative health is the vagueness. Never clearly define what is meant by \u201cintegrative medicine.\u201d Simply mention that medicine is insufficient; that people are already using and loving complementary practices; and that even the WHO sings of its merits. The doors open and the horse is wheeled in.<\/p>\n And so it is with\u00a0Bill 191<\/a>. While its text remains vague, a quick look into the four people behind it illustrates exactly what this Trojan horse contains, and it should horrify us.<\/p>\n Black bile, sugar pills, and a whole range of supplements<\/p>\n Bill 191 was proposed by\u00a0Isabelle Poulet<\/a>, an independent member who is neither a scientist nor a healthcare professional. She has a Bachelor\u2019s degree in communications and a certificate in human resources and organizational development.<\/p>\n Two individuals accompanied her during the\u00a0press briefing<\/a>\u00a0announcing this bill, and another was thanked for their contribution. Looking into their backgrounds makes it clear what so-called therapies they are homing in.<\/p>\n First, the contributor:\u00a0Jo\u00ebl Monz\u00e9e<\/a>, who holds a doctorate in neuroscience and who did a post-doctoral fellowship in medical ethics. In 2023, he\u00a0gave up his license<\/a>\u00a0to practice psychology in Quebec and has since published numerous texts\u00a0exposing his grievances<\/a>. He was investigated multiple times for pushing for integrative health interventions as a therapist. He has since reinvented himself as a public speaker and book author, who argued that COVID-19 in 2022 was\u00a0more of a \u201cpolitical crisis\u201d than a public health one<\/a>. Like so many wellness influencers, he wrote that research protocols that work for pharmaceuticals\u00a0simply aren\u2019t adapted<\/a>\u00a0to study the benefits of ancestral and alternative health practices. This is a major red flag. When clinical trials fail to deliver favourable results, fans of alternative medicine simply reject the worth of these trials because their intervention is so personalized, it couldn\u2019t possibly be tested using crude scientific methods. Only the patient can tell if it\u2019s working or not, they wrongly argue.<\/p>\n The other two individuals behind the bill have embraced pseudoscience even more clearly. There\u2019s\u00a0\u00c9ric Simard<\/a>, another credible scientist on paper with a doctorate in biology. Except that he is now the president of a professional association for integrative health and he sells his own line of dietary supplements,\u00a0Vitoli<\/a>. It\u2019s the usual ingredients you\u2019ll find elsewhere, predicated on unconvincing studies: devil\u2019s claw, valerian root, magnesium, and echinacea, for example. He sells a formula that banks on gingko biloba to help with \u201cmemory and cognitive health,\u201d even though that link has been\u00a0debunked<\/a>. Not only does he sell these supplements; he gives talks to healthcare professionals specifically to teach them how to recommend his products, claiming that over 1,250 of these practitioners have completed this training. He has also spoken at conferences\u00a0sponsored by homeopathy giants<\/a>.<\/p>\n Finally, there is Marie-H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Lessard, a naturopath who is the vice-president of\u00a0Quebec\u2019s naturopathy association<\/a>. Her clinic\u2019s website speaks of\u00a0\u201chumourism\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and the body\u2019s liquids, and I have to wonder if she means the pre-scientific notion that our health is governed by yellow bile, black bile, blood, and phlegm. If so, we may need to tell her this belief system was abandoned hundreds of years ago. She co-teaches a course in\u00a0Ayurveda naturopathy<\/a>, yet another pseudoscientific system and one that has\u00a0a documented history of harm<\/a>. And in case you weren\u2019t sure if homeopathy was indeed being smuggled in here, she has advertised on multiple occasions her workshop on how to treat illness in children, and she\u00a0explicitly mentions<\/a>\u00a0homeopathy, aromatherapy, herbalism, and Bach flower remedies\u2014this last one being the idea that the dew on a flower has\u00a0magical healing properties<\/a>.<\/p>\n This\u00a0is integrative medicine. It fronts its infiltration with notions that are absolutely part of medicine but that they argue are not, and they hope that once the door is open they can drag in prescientific belief systems that do not work and can cause harm. Many herbs used to treat illness have been linked to\u00a0horrendous liver damage<\/a>. Quack offerings like Gerson therapy have\u00a0killed people<\/a>. Therapies sold as \u201ccomplementary\u201d can very easily be used as a replacement for medicine or as a delay tactic while the underlying issue worsens. Famously, 18-month-old Ezekiel Stephan\u00a0died of meningitis<\/a>\u00a0because his parents embraced alternative medicine. Even the sugar pills of homeopathy can cause direct harm: some homeopathic teething tablets were found to contain\u00a0much higher doses than expected of\u00a0Belladonna<\/a>, which can be toxic.\u00a0<\/p>\n If this bill is adopted into law, we will see tax money being wasted and pseudoscience being legitimized. The idea that we need to fund more grants to study homeopathy and aromatherapy reeks of\u00a0the square one fallacy<\/a>. It\u2019s the argument that, year after year, we still do not know which of these therapies work\u2014we are starting from scratch, from square one\u2014so we need to finance their study, and when the results are negative, we repeat that we just don\u2019t know if this works or not, so we need more money. It\u2019s not unlike a fan of slot machines, except this slot machine will never pay out.<\/p>\n Thanks to the work\u00a0I did<\/a>\u00a0and that\u00a0La Presse<\/a>\u00a0picked up on in 2019, Quebec pharmacies were, for a while at least, warning customers about the lack of evidence base around homeopathy with the use of\u00a0official signs<\/a>. Yes, these sugar granules\u2014and that is all they are, sugar pills\u2014were still available for purchase for reasons that have to do with capitalism and lobbying, but at least we were collectively reminded a few years ago that they do not actually do anything. Adopting bill 191 would be to regress and invite homeopathy and similar antiquated and debunked belief systems to be seen on the same level as evidence-based medical care.<\/p>\n If you want to comment on this bill, you can do so in either\u00a0English<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0French<\/a>.<\/p>\n At a time when Quebec\u2019s healthcare system is buckling under the strain of its limited resources and of an ageing population; when the decimation of the world\u2019s largest research funding body, the NIH, imperils scientific research; and when our universities are financially struggling and shutting down academic programmes, the last thing we need to do is to seize precious money in order to study if magic carpets can indeed fly.<\/p>\n Take-home message:
\n\tReiki<\/a>:\u00a0conceived by a Japanese spiritualist who starved himself and hallucinated, it is the idea that a person can hover their hands over a patient and inject a divine healing energy into them
\n\tIridology<\/a>:\u00a0the practice of looking at the coloured part of the eye to diagnose any health condition
\n\tReflexology<\/a>:\u00a0the idea that the entire human body can be mapped onto the sole of our feet and that a targeted foot massage can heal any disease
\n\tNaturopathy<\/a>:\u00a0an umbrella term for therapies that use so-called natural methods of healing, including homeopathy, herbalism, acupuncture, iridology, and loads of dietary supplements<\/p>\n
– A new bill has been proposed at the National Assembly of Quebec to better research and finance \u201cintegrative health\u201d in the province.
– \u201cIntegrative health\u201d is a vague marketing term that includes all sorts of pseudomedical practices, including naturopathy, homeopathy, and reflexology.
– The member who proposed the bill is not a healthcare professional or a scientist, and the three people behind the bill have ties to either homeopathy, naturopathy, or natural dietary supplements.<\/p>\n