Word for someone preferring homeopathic treatments to western medicine

Question

Similar to an anti-vaccinationist, I'm looking for a word that means someone who prefers homeopathic treatments instead of prescription drugs or refuses (or even simply distrusts) medical treatment altogether possibly for religious or personal beliefs. This may or may not be hypernymic to anti-vaccinationist.

I realize this question could attract terms that could be considered derogatory, but hopefully there's a term that isn't.

Example sentence:

• The Simpsons episode "Brother's Little Helper" shows certain cynicism for prescription drugs as opposed to homeopathic alternatives, the writers may be ________.

Answer 1

Homeopathyphile or homeopathophile, a neologism, alas

homeopathy, definition from Merriam-Webster

a system of medical practice that treats a disease especially by the administration of minute doses of a remedy that would in larger amounts produce in healthy persons symptoms similar to those of the disease

homeopathy etymology, from Etomonline

1830, from German Homöopathie, coined 1824 by German physician Samuel Friedrich Hahnemann (1755-1843) from Greek homoios "like, similar, of the same kind" (see homeo-) + -patheia "disease," also "feeling, emotion" (see -pathy). Greek homoiopathes meant "having like feelings or affections, sympathetic."

We all know that -phile is Greek (see Dictionary.com):

a combining form meaning “lover of,” “enthusiast for” that specified by the initial element: [example] Anglophile

Thus, we get homeopathyphile, which, when entered into the Oxford English Dictionary, returns:

No dictionary entries found for ‘homeopathyphile’

Nor does the OED recognize homeopathophile.

Searching further, I found a reference on Twitter:

A patient was blown away by what a homeopathic remedy could do...And so, a homeopathyphile was born

The OP hoped there was a term that was not derogatory, and I manufactured one for him with three Greek roots -- impeccable etymology. Maybe it will emerge from the twitterverse into mainstream English.

Addendum: Thanks to @Peter A. Schneider for the alternate homeopathophile.

Answer 2

Quack bait? Skeptic of Western medicine? Pyramidologist? Voodooist. Christian Scientist? Devotee of Ayurveda? Snake Oil Sipper? Crystal Gazer? NewAger? Tree Hugger? Druid? Purple Birkenstock wearing earthy crunchy homeschooling antivaccine hippie freak? See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience and particularly https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_topics_characterized_as_pseudoscience

Answer 3

A constitutional homeopathist is defined here¹ in this New York court case as:

[...] one who uses homeopathic remedies to treat the entire person instead of using homeopathic remedies to treat the diseases.

Although in this case the word is being used to describe the doctor who administers the homeopathic remedies, the definition given there and the meaning asked for by the OP does not preclude words that cover both practitioner and patient.

It also appears to me that the adjective constitutional applies to the "entire person instead of diseases" restriction and that homeopathist is the general term.

Aside: The judge appears to have agreed with @HotLicks...

---

^{1 _{General Finding, paragraph 4}}

Answer 4

Anti-allopathic or allopathophobic.

allopathy Pronunciation: /əˈlɒpəθi/ NOUN

allopathy:

The treatment of disease by conventional means, i.e. with drugs having effects opposite to the symptoms. Often contrasted with homeopathy.

Source: Oxford Dictionaries

Answer 5

Personally, I'd use "clueless" or one of its synonyms to call them out in no uncertain terms.

completely or hopelessly bewildered, unaware, ignorant, or foolish

Because it's just that... clueless:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_topics_characterized_as_pseudoscience

Quacks or crazies would also work in your sentence.

I understand your concern about not wanting to be derogatory or offensive to anyone, but there are times when quacks need to get called out and labeled as such - quacks - irrespective of how offensive it may sound to a US ear. The reason is you do NOT want to give them any notional plausibility, respectability, or acceptability. They're quacks.

To illustrate what's at stake, see how things played out with "anti-vaxxers" in the US. We've no qualms prosecuting these quacks in Europe. Had they been dismissed and ridiculed as quacks and prosecuted all along in the US, instead of being labeled something more respectable sounding by journalists et al in the name of freedom of speech and political correctness, there might not have been a resurgence of diseases that had been long gone in the US.

With lives potentially at stake here too, I'd call them what they are: quacks.

Answer 6

The Simpsons episode "Brother's Little Helper" shows certain cynicism for prescription drugs as opposed to homeopathic alternatives, the writers may be on homeopathy lobby´s payroll .

Or, homeopathy advocates.