Don’t Waste Money on Homeopathic “medicines”
When you or your child is sick and all you care about is relief, you will be delighted with any promise the pill bottle makes. But in some of these packages there are no medicines at all, only homeopathic “medicines”. Their creators are legally allowed to lie to you and tell you that these products cure diseases, even though this is definitely not the case.
Violators include brands such as Hyland’s , Boiron , Cold- Eeze and Zicam . Before you start scrolling through the comments to tell me that I should be more open, let’s be clear about something. Homeopathy may not mean what you think.
How do we know homeopathy is useless
Homeopathy does not mean natural , herbal, or home remedies . Medicines called homeopathic correspond to a particular theory of the eighteenth century, which has since been strongly denied, but is still used due to a loophole in the policy of the Office of sanitary inspection by the Food and Drug Administration . The idea is that you can treat a disease with a drug that causes the same symptoms (“like cures like”) if you reverse the action of the drug by diluting it to infinitesimal amounts.
Take coffee, for example. Coffee keeps you awake. Thus, the homeopathic company Hyland’s mixes one part of a raw coffee bean preparation (“Coffea cruda”) with one million parts of water and uses this as a sleeping pill in its Hyland’s 4 Kids Cold ‘n Cough Nighttime . The red onion preparation (Allium cepa) is also used to combat the common cold and colds.
Caffeine doesn’t work that way. Even if it was 1 part per million caffeine (and not one part per million raw coffee beans , which are not pure caffeine), there is no way that diluting it would turn it into sleeping pills.
This theory originated in the days when we did not know that bacteria and viruses cause disease, and even before we knew that substances are made of molecules. It turns out that some homeopathic dilutions are so extreme that you have a better chance of winning the lottery than finding the only molecule of the parent substance in the bottle you buy from the pharmacy.
Homeopaths realize this, shrug their shoulders and say that “something other than molecules must act ” (ie magic). So when you buy a homeopathic medicine, you pay ten dollars or so for a tiny bottle, mostly water. Or sometimes it’s a small pack of sugar pills, and sometimes it’s hard alcohol . If this product is prepared according to FDA regulations, there is absolutely no medicine in it, but the packaging may still indicate that it will cure coughs and colds.
Homeopathic medicine manufacturers are perfectly legal to lie to you
These products are legal because back in 1938, the main author of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act was a physician trained in homeopathy and wrote the definition of “medicine” to include homeopathic medicines.
The government maintains a database of homeopathic ingredients and how to use them, but you have to pay $ 110 a day to get familiar with it. Fortunately, FDA regulations also allow you to use this freely available 1902 medical text as long as you “[view] it along with other available literature.”
This and other similar texts are based on ” provings ” describing what the drug does to healthy people. Just because a homeopath says something has been clinically proven does not mean that he has tested whether it works against the disease; this means that they have collected data on what he does with people who are not sick.
This means that the symptoms that the medicine causes in healthy people and the symptoms that it is intended to treat are the same. So, our 1902 text describes coffee extract as causing and curing insomnia. It also states that coffee is beneficial for arousing sex drive, relieving toothaches, relieving labor pains, and treating diarrhea “for housewives who care a lot about their household and have difficulty managing it.”
Unlike supplements, which cannot say they cure, prevent, or cure a disease, over-the-counter homeopathic medicines must indicate at least one indication . Unlike supplements, homeopathic medicines can also indicate on the packaging that they are “safe and effective.” Remember that they do not contain active ingredients, so they may be safe, but they may not be effective if we do not consider the placebo effect when you feel better because you think you have taken the medicine.
If this sounds like bullshit, you’re right, and the Federal Trade Commission agree with you. Last year, the FDA announced that it was considering changing the rules for homeopathic medicines and solicited comments from interested parties. The FTC, which regulates advertising, sent the agency a frankly honest letter . Some quotes to choose from:
FTC staff are concerned that the current FDA regulatory framework may conflict with the Commission’s advertising justification policy, which could harm consumers and create confusion for advertisers.
[FTC Law] Section 5 … prohibits fraudulent or fraudulent conduct or conduct in or affecting commerce, such as deceptive advertising or labeling of over-the-counter (OTC) drugs. Section 12 prohibits the distribution of false advertisements or that affect the trade of food, medicine, devices, services or cosmetics.
For health, safety, or efficacy claims, the FTC generally requires advertisers to have “competent and reliable scientific evidence.” …
In other words: FDA, you are telling companies that they can lie to consumers, but the law prohibits companies from lying to consumers, so this is really embarrassing .
In the same letter, the FTC also describes some of the tests they conducted, including two focus groups showing that consumers have no idea that real medicines and homeopathic medicines are regulated differently, or that one is tested for efficacy and the other – No.
The FDA is considering this and has yet to announce any decisions on whether to change the way homeopathic medicines are regulated.
Shop carefully to avoid these useless “drugs”
Some departments of the pharmacy have more homeopathic remedies than others. There are a lot of coughs and colds in the children’s ward (and they put them at eye level, as you can see above) because real cold medicines are not safe for children under the age of four . It’s nice to be able to buy something when your child is not feeling well, which is why homeopathic medicine and nutritional supplement manufacturers are sure to sell products for babies and children. The fact that homeopathic remedies are “safe” is probably also a selling point.
In truth, these fake medicines are only safe if the ingredients are actually in homeopathic doses and if the manufacturers have not added any herbal medicines to the list of “inactive ingredients”. Some cold medications include licorice root extract , amount not specified.
Some homeopathic products – a kind of double scam, because in fact they are not homeopathic. Zicam nasal swabs contain significant amounts of zinc, and zinc may indeed have some benefit in reducing the duration and severity of cold symptoms. Great, except that getting zinc in your nose can permanently lose your sense of smell . Zicam has changed the composition of its strokes * .
It is best to avoid homeopathic remedies entirely. They can be harmful, and even robbery at best. The homeopathic remedies on the store shelf in the photograph cost between $ 7.39 and $ 11.49. You can pour tap water for a pittance.
Here’s how to tell if something is homeopathic:
- It says “homeopathic” (look for the fine print)
- The reverse side lists the scientific-sounding names of the ingredients, with “HPUS” written next to each.
- Overleaf lists number / letter combinations after each ingredient, such as “6X” or “200C”. They refer to dilutions: 6X is one part per million and 200C is one part per … well, this is what Google told me it works:
If you are not used to reading the reverse side of first aid kits , both conventional and homeopathic remedies look very scientific. For example, the coffee extract is described as “Coffea cruda” (the false Latin word for “raw coffee”), and the flu remedy oscillococcinum is described as “Anas barbariae hepatis et cordum”, which means the heart and liver of a muscovy duck . This is also false Latin, because the real scientific name of the Moscow duck is Cairina moschata . Don’t let the jargon confuse you; it’s all bullshit.
Apart from children’s cold medicines, you can actually find homeopathic remedies in many drug store locations. There are even times when the same product will be available in a homeopathic and non-homeopathic version. Arnica tablets, for example, do not contain arnica, but arnica gels from some manufacturers do not actually contain much of it (“1X7%” means the gel contains 0.7% arnica). So, does the gel work to reduce pain and prevent bruising? We do not know; maybe , but it hasn’t been tested in the same way that real drugs have been tested. Good luck with that.
The placebo effect is a real thing, but if you feel the need to trigger it, buy chicken soup or lemon tea instead of giving money to people who lie to you for profit. It’s ludicrous that our pharmacies are full of this junk, and that antiquated medical theorists get a special exemption in the 2016 drug laws. Don’t fall for this nonsense.