Why can't you go to school to study naturopathy in the U.S?

Naturopathy is the use of fruits,vegetables,herbs sometimes combined in pill form as a remedy to illness. It also involves living more healthy. Why is it illegal to practice here? Meaning you can't go to college here to be a naturopathic doctor.To me it sounds like natural cures would be better than so many of these chemical drug with all their side effects. What if the cure to aids could be found in the U.S if there were naturopathic studies here. I mean we have a lot of smart people here.

It's not illegal to study or practice but unfortunately you cannot make any claims about "curing" anyone unless your "cure" is approved by the FDA.

So why doesn't anyone send natural substances to the FDA to test?
Because it's VERY expensive to run the tests and the trials - usually runs into the tens of millions of dollars to get something approved.

So why do companies spend the money on getting artificial substances approved and not natural substances?

Because natural substances/chemicals cannot be patented (because, obviously, you didn't invent a natural substance), only artificial substances/chemicals can. Since no patent can be issued for natural substances, there is no way the cost of getting an FDA approval can be recouped since as soon as your cure is approved anyone can market and sell it for less than you can since there are no costs to recoup for the third party.

So, what if a natural substance is discovered as curing something?
This happens all the time. The active ingredient in aspirin is derived from white willow bark. Pseudofed nasal decongestant is synthetic ephedrine (ephedrine is from the Ma Huang herb).

More info:
http://www.naturalhealers.com/qa/naturop...
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Naturop...

NOT FOR U.S.

I don't know where you got your information but you CAN study naturopathy. Naturopathy is illegal in a few states but by no means ALL of them.

And Bastyr University is a fully accredited university teaching natural medicine.

You can.

It's jut FDA issue and economic intest of big pharmaceutical companies.

Pharmaceutical companies and the FDA can make a lot off money of treating sicknesses, so they deny that anything except for a drug can treat sickness. People are suffering and dieing from this policy. The health care crisis is all about greed. In the U.S. aids cannot legally be cured naturally. If you try to sell an aids cure, that is not a drug you, well be taken to jail and the product, well be confiscated and destroyed! I just don't trust the industry. They talk about helping people, and lie about the safety of under-tested drugs. If they are so greedy, why do they offer drugs for free? The government pays drug companies for "free drugs". If you pay taxes you are paying for dangerous drugs to be prescribed to children who don't need them. The government payed for the drugs my brother was taking the day he drowned. One of the drugs causes suicidal thoughts the other drug causes seizures. My brother was healthy before taking these drugs. He never requested treatment. He was given these drugs only because he could not say no.

it's not illegal to study naturopathic medicine...or at least if it is, i've never heard about it.

simply, when you complete your studies, you have an *N.D.*, not an M.D.

most of the nauturopaths i've run into also often have a LaC (liscensed acupuncturist), or other degrees.

and yea, i've found "natural" medicine to be waaaay more effective with waaaaay less side effects.