The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has caught itself in a trap of precedent and logic that should force it, finally, to regulate homeopathic products. FDA regulations require that drugs and treatments be “scientifically proven safe and effective.” Homeopathic remedies, except when people rely on them to treat serious conditions, are usually safe as water—which they actually are. Some homeopaths claim… return to article
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Reader Comments (3)Page 1 of 1 pages“shaking and serial dilutions—even to the point that not one molecule of the active ingredient remains—create a memory of the long-gone ingredient”
Based on known science, homeopathic remedies shouldn’t work. If it actually works (with significantly greater effectiveness than a placebo), then science needs to expand its theoretical basis.
The problem is that a lot of commercially available medication do not work significantly better than a placebo.
It’s not just big pharma that’s at fault, either. Doctors in the 1800s said the germ theory of disease was nonsense, even though Anton van Leeuwenhoek discovered germs in the 1600s. Doctors and scientists like the Italian Agostino Bassi, Hungarian Ignaz Semmelweis, English John Snow, French Louis Pasteur and German Robert Koch were attacked by their fellow colleagues, despite the evidence they produced. Millions of men needlessly died from infections in World War 1 because of this. Only in the 1930s did Fleming’s discovery of penicillin stem the tide of established Western medical opinion.
The same thing happened with lime/citrus fruits and scurvy. James Lind formally proved that scurvy could be treated with lime in 1747. It took 50 years before navies started implementing this cure in general. Scott’s (1912) Antarctic expedition still died to the last man, partly because of scurvy.
Posted by Calvin Loh on Jul 15, 2009 at 4:21 PM Calvin,
I’m genuinely curious, how many commercially available medicines can’t be shown to have a statistically significant effect above placebo? This isn’t a trick question, I don’t know the answer.
Posted by tom shuttleworth on Jul 16, 2009 at 9:53 PM Do you own Matrixx stock (Nasdaq - MTXX)?
I work with a law firm investigating reports of possible securities law violations by Matrixx Initiatives, Inc., the maker of Zicam.
In a letter to Matrixx, the FDA concluded certain Zicam products may pose serious risks to consumers.
When the letter was released, Matrixx stock plummeted from approximately $19 per share to less than $7 per share. Since December 2007, insiders have sold more than $2.7 million worth of Matrixx shares.
Learn more: www.hbsslaw.com/matrixx
Posted by HBSS on Jul 22, 2009 at 8:22 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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