Health Officials to Target Homeopathic Remedies

From CBS News:

U.S. health officials plan to crack down on a growing number of unproven alternative remedies, focusing on products containing dangerous ingredients that have occasionally been linked to serious injury and death.

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday issued a new proposal for regulating homeopathic medicines that have long been on the fringe of mainstream medicine. The agency plans to target products that pose the biggest safety risks, including those marketed for children or for serious diseases.

But under the government’s framework, the vast majority of low-risk products would remain on the market. Popular homeopathic brands include Zicam Allergy Relief and Cold-Eeze.

Click here to continue reading at CBS News.

14 Comments

    • Meir

      Yeah right on! Chemotherapy has proven to be medicine’s boon, right? Proven, right. Slither back into your allopathic hole.

    • Yosef

      What is that supposed to mean? I’m a medical practitioner and think the FDA has its own agenda. Medication kills enough Americans that they don’t need to search elsewhere for a few reported deaths. I keep getting emails from medical agencies regarding the dangers of antibiotics and most providers I know will give in to patients demanding them even when not needed. That should be a focus as the resistance to antibiotics is critical where we don’t have treatment options and it’s only getting worse. Let’s focus on reality.

  • wow

    Look up how many deaths occur yearly with properly prescribed medications and then decide where the FDA should look. The FDA just came out with changing the status of trisclosan, which is in almost every home (soaps, toothpaste), from GRAS to not.

  • Milhouse

    Homeopathic “remedies” are incapable of harming anyone, for the exact same reason that they’re incapable of helping anyone — there’s nothing in them! They’re nothing but very pure water or alcohol. The whole stupid theory of homeopathy is that the less of the “active” ingredient is in the remedy the stronger it is, so the strongest ones have none at all.

    • ahavasyisroel

      Once someone goes down the anti-medicine rabbit hole, there is no limit to the amount of harmful substances that might be added as part of a homeopathic remedy. There are no standards, no controls.

  • DaasTorah

    B”H! All this homeopathy shtus hurt people who think it’s real and works. It’s just fake and doesn’t work at all!

    • Milhouse

      You don’t need experience to know that a ridiculous theory like homoeopathy can’t work. It’s physically impossible.

      I myself once heard a qualified practitioner of Chinese traditional medicine tell someone that to cure a sore leg she should peel a cucumber and stand it in a glass of water. That’s it. No need to drink it afterwards, or to apply it to the leg, just put the cucumber in the water, and the leg will get better. Do you seriously think one needs to try this before making fun of it? It’s obviously ridiculous, it can’t possibly work, and trying it just to verify that it doesn’t work is itself foolishness. The same thing is true of homoeopathy. It can’t work, therefore it doesn’t.

  • A friend

    Ignorance. Pure ignorance. Allopathic medicine kills people more than homeopathic medicine kills people. Do you know that at the end of the 1800s beginning of 1900s there were homeopathic pharmacies all over the country? Do you know that as big pharma started rearing its ugly head and manipulating the American health care system they pushed the homeopathic pharmacies out? There is something called BALANCE! There are times when homeopathic medicine is called for and other times when allopathic medicine is called for. The problem is that any MD that tries to have that balance and prescribe alternative and allopathic medicine is quickly silenced by the establishment. That’s what happened to my family doctor and others that I personally know about. The FDA isnt interested in your well being, they are interested in $$$ and nothing else. Sad reality in the USA. Europe and Asia are healthier and are are more open to alternative medicine.

    • Amused Observer

      Oh my goodness, oh my goodness . . . where to start? Let’s start at the beginning, then:

      – Science- and evidence-based medicine has saved many orders of magnitude than fairy-tale based (i.e. homeopathic) “medicine”. Homeopathic practices have, of course, lead to death when ill people have chosen it over actual medicine.

      – Just out of curiosity, do you know the average lifespan in the late 1800s/early 1900s when there were homeopathic “pharmacies” all over the country? How has it changed since then?

      We’ll start with those.

    • Milhouse

      There is never a time for homoeopathic “medicine”. If you’re thirsty go to the sink and drink a cup of water, and it will do you at least as much good as any homoepathic remedy. Better still, have a nice cup of hot tea and say a kapitel tehillim. They will certainly do no harm, and they’re more likely to help than whatever the homoeopath recommends.

      Did you hear about the homoeopath who forgot to take his pills one morning, and died of an overdose? :-)