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听a lot听going 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.
罢丑别听听proposes a number of things around the nebulous phrase 鈥渃omplementary and integrative approaches to health.鈥� 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.
If you have never heard of 鈥渋ntegrative health鈥� 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听谤别辫濒补肠颈苍驳听medicine but rather听肠辞尘辫濒别尘别苍迟颈苍驳听it.
But complementing it with what? Because when we scratch the surface of this Trojan horse, we discover that it is full of nonsense.
The vagueness is the point
Over the decades, ideas that sought to become medicine but didn鈥檛 qualify have been marketed under different names. 鈥淎lternative medicine鈥� 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. 鈥淐omplementary medicine鈥� became popular; now, the reigning label is 鈥渋ntegrative medicine,鈥� or simply 鈥渋ntegrative health.鈥�
Integrative medicine is sold with a fallacious argument: that conventional medicine is imperfect (fair) and that alternative medicine is also imperfect (that鈥檚 putting it mildly), and so the patient will benefit from an听颈苍迟别驳谤补迟颈辞苍听of these two halves. But as Dr. Mark Crislip so graphically put it over the years writing for听Science-Based Medicine, mixing apple pie with听听does not make the apple pie taste better; it ruins the recipe. Integrating pseudomedical practices like homeopathy and Reiki鈥攁lleged therapies that do not work and can cause harm鈥攖o 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?
But the misrepresentation doesn鈥檛 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 鈥渋ntegrative health鈥� include respiratory therapy. Respiratory therapy is part of medicine; it鈥檚 not a complementary therapy the way that acupuncture or naturopathy is.
This is why 鈥渋ntegrative health鈥� is听a Trojan horse. It uses legitimate practices and recommendations鈥攍ike respiratory therapy, but also exercising and eating well, concepts that are clearly part of conventional medicine鈥攖o smuggle in magical thinking.
Here is a list of so-called therapies that are often sneaked in under the moniker of integrative health:
- Homeopathy:听the practice of taking, for example, a natural substance that makes you vomit and diluting it out of existence to make you stop vomiting
- Reiki:听conceived 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
- Iridology:听the practice of looking at the coloured part of the eye to diagnose any health condition
- Reflexology:听the 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
- :听an umbrella term for therapies that use so-called natural methods of healing, including homeopathy, herbalism, acupuncture, iridology, and loads of dietary supplements
In 2026, these practices are not serious. They check all the boxes of听a pseudoscience: 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.
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鈥攏ot 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.
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听rhythmical embrocations. The argument seems to be that if people in the Global South can鈥檛 see an actual doctor, they might as well see some kind of traditional healer, as long as what they鈥檙e selling has proven itself鈥� in one way or another. This way, the WHO can claim that a large percentage of the Earth鈥檚 population has access to healthcare. Just don鈥檛 question what听办颈苍诲听of healthcare it is.
The key to marketing this Trojan horse of integrative health is the vagueness. Never clearly define what is meant by 鈥渋ntegrative medicine.鈥� 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.
And so it is with听. 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.
Black bile, sugar pills, and a whole range of supplements
Bill 191 was proposed by听, an independent member who is neither a scientist nor a healthcare professional. She has a Bachelor鈥檚 degree in communications and a certificate in human resources and organizational development.
Two individuals accompanied her during the听听announcing this bill, and another was thanked for their contribution. Looking into their backgrounds makes it clear what so-called therapies they are homing in.
First, the contributor:听, who holds a doctorate in neuroscience and who did a post-doctoral fellowship in medical ethics. In 2023, he听听to practice psychology in Quebec and has since published numerous texts听. 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听. Like so many wellness influencers, he wrote that research protocols that work for pharmaceuticals听听to 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鈥檛 possibly be tested using crude scientific methods. Only the patient can tell if it鈥檚 working or not, they wrongly argue.
The other two individuals behind the bill have embraced pseudoscience even more clearly. There鈥檚听, 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,听. It鈥檚 the usual ingredients you鈥檒l find elsewhere, predicated on unconvincing studies: devil鈥檚 claw, valerian root, magnesium, and echinacea, for example. He sells a formula that banks on gingko biloba to help with 鈥渕emory and cognitive health,鈥� even though that link has been听. 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听.
Finally, there is Marie-H茅l猫ne Lessard, a naturopath who is the vice-president of听. Her clinic鈥檚 website speaks of听听and the body鈥檚 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听, yet another pseudoscientific system and one that has听a documented history of harm. And in case you weren鈥檛 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听听homeopathy, aromatherapy, herbalism, and Bach flower remedies鈥攖his last one being the idea that the dew on a flower has听magical healing properties.
罢丑颈蝉听is 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听horrendous liver damage. Quack offerings like Gerson therapy have听. Therapies sold as 鈥渃omplementary鈥� 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听听because his parents embraced alternative medicine. Even the sugar pills of homeopathy can cause direct harm: some homeopathic teething tablets were found to contain听, which can be toxic.听
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听the square one fallacy. It鈥檚 the argument that, year after year, we still do not know which of these therapies work鈥攚e are starting from scratch, from square one鈥攕o we need to finance their study, and when the results are negative, we repeat that we just don鈥檛 know if this works or not, so we need more money. It鈥檚 not unlike a fan of slot machines, except this slot machine will never pay out.
Thanks to the work听I did听and that听听picked 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听official signs. Yes, these sugar granules鈥攁nd that is all they are, sugar pills鈥攚ere 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.
If you want to comment on this bill, you can do so in either听听or听.
At a time when Quebec鈥檚 healthcare system is buckling under the strain of its limited resources and of an ageing population; when the decimation of the world鈥檚 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.
Take-home message:
- A new bill has been proposed at the National Assembly of Quebec to better research and finance 鈥渋ntegrative health鈥� in the province.
- 鈥淚ntegrative health鈥� 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.
