3 ms·
And you can buy homeopathic remedies at CVS. At best this is a kind of placebo. At worst it's people being dumb, which is not illegal. Move on!
by slibhb 3y ago
And you can buy homeopathic remedies at CVS. At best this is a kind of placebo. At worst it's people being dumb, which is not illegal. Move on!
- RandallBrown 3y agoAt worst it's harming people with something poisonous or toxic.
- slibhb 3y agoSelling poison is illegal.
- sitzkrieg 3y agoethanol is poisonous and legal otc
- slibhb 3y agoIf you sell ethanol as a cough medicine, you are breaking the law!
- mrguyorama 3y agoThe FDA has found (after it was reported) homeopathic teething baby medicine where belladonna (nightshade) was claimed to be the homeopathic source but instead of being diluted to nonexistence like normal homeopathy there were dangerous levels of belladonna in the tablets. Unregulated supplements do not need to contain what they say on the bottle, and they can also contain things the bottle does not say they contain. That is legal.
- klodolph 3y agoHomeopathic medicines are generally non-toxic because they only contain fillers / non-active ingredients. You may be thinking of herbal remedies.
- klodolph 3y agoThey are not labeled clearly, IMO. Oscillococcinum is labeled with “flu-like symptoms” “body aches, headache, fever, chills, fatigue” “medicine” and “works naturally with your body”. These fall on a spectrum between misleading and outright lies. While “fever” may be seen as an only misleading label (the label doesn’t say that it treats fever in any way, so you could make that argument), there are some outright falsehoods on that box. “Works naturally with your body” is an outright falsehood. It would have to work, in order to work naturally with your body. “Medicine” is another outright falsehood. The shit should be regulated into oblivion.
- slibhb 3y agoDo you really think the government should regulate use of the word "medicine"? Ditto for claims like "works naturally". I think it's pretty clear that this stuff is alternative medicine. Your suggestion would be like forcing astrology books to include warnings. I think you have to treat people like adults here, which includes realizing that they are going to do/buy dumb things. Only when those things come at a significant risk is it worth interfering.
- klodolph 3y agoYes, I do believe that the government should regulate use of the word “medicine” in trade. It also regulates a lot of other words, like “ketchup” and “ice cream”. The government regulates what “12 fl. oz” means when you buy a can of root beer, and regulates exactly how the number of calories should be printed on the wrapper for a chocolate bar. Notice how a lot of desserts in the frozen section of your grocery store are labeled “frozen dairy dessert”. That is because those specific desserts are not permitted to be called “ice cream”, just like how oscillococcinum should not be permitted to be called “medicine”. There’s a balance here, but oscillococcinum is not an edge case. It is pseudoscientific fraud. I’m glad that this isn’t the Wild West of snake oil salesmen like we had back in the day. People used to really get hurt! I think more of these regulations would improve the situation even more—herbal supplements, for example, should be labeled with the quantity of ingredients more accurately—right now, it can be a bit of a crapshoot due to the variations between vendors or even between different batches from the same vendor.