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Video: Lawmakers Consider Tightening Naturopath Licensing
(link)
Parents Of Dead Teen Try To Tighten Naturopath
Requirements
Parents Of Sean Flanigan Push For Naturopaths To Get Licensed
UPDATED: 7:24 pm MST February 15, 2007
DENVER -- A couple who lost their 19-year-old son said they blame
his death on a man who claimed to be a naturopathic doctor.
On Thursday, David and Laura Flanigan told state legislatures their
story with the hope of making it a requirement for naturopathic doctors
to get licensed in the ongoing argument about conventional medicine
versus alternative medicine and where the two overlap.
David and Laura Flanigan told lawmakers they didn't want others to
go through their heartbreak.
As their son Sean was battling terminal cancer, they said they turned
to alternative therapies.
"When you're told that your son is going to be saved, the thought
of, 'Oh, how real can this be?' escapes you," David Flanigan
said.
Brian O'Connell presented himself as a naturopathic doctor, though
he had no real medical training.
He gave Sean a dangerous blood-cleansing treatment that only hastened
his death.
O'Connell is now serving a 13-year prison sentence after admitting
to criminal negligent homicide in the death of Flanigan.
"It's hard but we know we have to do it for Sean because he doesn't
have a voice right now and we have to be that voice for him,"
Laura Flanigan said.
Lawmakers were shown phony diplomas in naturopathic health, a part,
they said, of a growing problem.
But legitimate providers said the required licensing will only put
them out of work.
"There are also countless traditional natural health care practitioners
in good standing and work ethically to perform their duties in natural
health and they want to help consumers," said naturopathic doctor
Cheryl Strum.
The Flanigans said they believe in naturopathic medicine but that
it needs to be better regulated. They said they thought they had checked
O'Connell out. They said he had a wall full of diplomas, but it turned
out they were all meaningless.
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