Researchers use animals as proxies for human physiology and extrapolate the results of animal research to human beings but using animals as proxies of human physiology can be problematic. For example, in the late 70’s early 80’s there were studies using mice as proxies of human physiology that found artificial sweeteners cause bladder cancer in mice and therefore, also human beings. However, in later studies, researchers discovered that mice have completely different bladder physiology than human beings and artificial sweeteners do not cause bladder cancer in people, but that doesn’t stop witch doctors… I mean naturopaths from citing those early studies, while disregarding the later studies debunking those earlier studies.
Absolutely! Animal studies have to involve careful understanding of the differences between test subjects and humans. And, there are significant limitations in place concerning ethics. The problem with naturopathy is that there are NO standards or regulations related to whether a proposed solution actually works, is safe, or has interactions with well tested medications from medical science. There are also no standards related to dosage. Naturopathy is dangerous voodoo.