9 ms·
I still don't understand why these can be sold in American pharmacies.
by borbtactics 2y ago
I still don't understand why these can be sold in American pharmacies.
- Apreche 2y agoThey couldn’t. But then a law called the DSHEA was passed that changed all the rules.
- spenczar5 2y agoI for one am glad they they sell clean water in pharmacies, and support its continued sale!
- Tagbert 2y agoBecause they are not labeled as medical products. It is a loophole.
- explaininjs 2y agoBecause every bottle is clearly labeled “The FDA has not evaluated this for treating any condition”. There are a great many products that the FDA hasn’t evaluated that are still sold, why should these be any different?
- calvinmorrison 2y agoBut why are businesses like CVS hawking snake oil while also having trained pharmacists on staff.
- Angostura 2y agoIt makes money
- KennyBlanken 2y agoMost pharmacies used to sell tobacco products (they only started to do so after a couple of states started banning the practice.) Walgreens still does (in states where it isn't banned from doing so). https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/pharmacy/walgreens-tests-tobacco-free-stores-but-won-t-stop-all-tobacco-sales.html https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/pharmacy/walgreens-tes... > "The safety of our patients is very important, but we also have to do what our customers are requiring us to do," Walgreens CEO Stefano Pessina told the WSJ. "We see that when we don’t sell tobacco, we have a lot of [negative] reactions."
- jfengel 2y agoBecause a lot of those bottles also make claims that are in violation of the FDA rules. The label is not sufficient. They need to avoid making claims that they can treat or diagnose some condition. They do their best to hint at it without crossing the line, and frequently blatantly do cross it. The FDA does not have anywhere near the manpower to enforce it. And when they do finally get around to it, the brand vanishes, and a new one appears with exactly the same product lineup. The sector has long lost any entitlement to benefit of the doubt. They are knowingly making illegal claims and using a disclaimer as a fig leaf even though everything else on the package contradicts it.
- vikramkr 2y agoIt's not illegal and its not in violation of FDA rules. That disclaimer text is from a specific law that gives them exemption from those rules: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_Supplement_Health_and_Education_Act_of_1994 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_Supplement_Health_and_... It's not a manpower issue, it's not a legal issue. It's not against the law because they wrote the law. There is no line they try to avoid crossing because that line was erased by lobbyists in 1994.
- jfengel 2y agoAs I said, it's not the disclaimer. It's all of the other text that contradicts it.
- vikramkr 2y agoIt's the other way around, the 'FDA has not evaluated' text is indicating that these products are different and part of a special loophole created just for them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_Supplement_Health_and_Education_Act_of_1994 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_Supplement_Health_and_... The reason that these get to make health claims and stuff without regulation, and get special treatment, is lobbying resulting in that act. Otherwise they would have been regulated.
- underseacables 2y agoIt's considered a dietary supplement, which is governed by the dietary supplement health enforcement act, which in turn classifies dietary supplements as a food product.
- EForEndeavour 2y agoVery much false. 1. Under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, homeopathic products are subject to the same requirements related to approval, adulteration and misbranding as other drug products. https://www.fda.gov/drugs/information-drug-class/homeopathic-products https://www.fda.gov/drugs/information-drug-class/homeopathic... 2. Homeopathic products are "classified as either over-the-counter (OTC) or prescription medicines." https://www.chpa.org/about-consumer-healthcare/faqs/faqs-about-homeopathic-medicine# https://www.chpa.org/about-consumer-healthcare/faqs/faqs-abo...
- vikramkr 2y agofrom that same link: > There are no FDA-approved products labeled as homeopathic; this means that any product labeled as homeopathic is being marketed in the U.S. without FDA evaluation for safety or effectiveness.
- EForEndeavour 2y agoThat's beside the point of the comment I replied to, which falsely said homeopathic products were classified as dietary supplements.
- pizza234 2y agoThey're even covered by some insurance plans. A friend of mine is an orthopedic surgeon, and they explained to me that for mild problems, which would normally heal on their own, it's cheaper to cover a placebo rather than real medication.
- Waterluvian 2y agoIt’s even cheaper to offer nothing. Some humans are just quite something.
- vog 2y agoWhile I hear this argumentation a lot, I still struggle with this: If you have "mild problems, which would normally heal on their own", buying no medication at all would be even cheaper. And from an ethical point of view, the idea of financing a whole (homeopathic) industry that uses your money to produce fake science, even with a single cent, should make one shudder, shouldn't it?
- vog 2y agoTo those who downvoted: Would you dare to explain your disagreement?
- rafaelmn 2y ago> If you have "mild problems, which would normally heal on their own", buying no medication at all would be even cheaper. But placebos actually outperform no intervention.
- vog 2y agoOkay, fair point. But then, why prescribe the most expensive placebos where you co-finance societal harmful behavior, rather than just prescribing the "harmless" placebos that are not homeopathy, which are usually even cheaper and don't have any ideological overhead?
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
- Angostura 2y agoAren’t they normally sold as supplements’ not medicines, to circumvent regulations?
- jxy 2y agoTHE PLACEBO EFFECT: It works even when you know it's a placebo.
- vog 2y agoThis is an incorrect summary of the placebo effect. The placebo effect does require the patient to either believe it is effective, or at least not knowing clearly it is ineffective. This is why clinical studies don't tell neither group (neither the treated group nor the control group) who is in which group, to not spoil the results. And also, this is why homeopathy puts so much effort into spreading the belief they are effective despite all odds, up to the point of trying to convince people to abandon basic scientific principles.
- vog 2y agoContrast this with advertisement, which actually does work even when people know that it is ads, and which still does work on people how know how ads work. Also, contrast this with psychotherapy, which usually does work even better if the patient understands how it works, because it enables them to become an active and more effective part of the therapy.
- tpoacher 2y agostudies don't tell you about being on a placebo because of blinding, not because it would stop the placebo from working.
- BalinKing 2y agoGP is actually correct according to Wikipedia[0] (for what that's worth): There seems to be evidence that "open-label placebos"—i.e. "where the patient is fully aware that the treatment is inert"—still have positive effects. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo#Effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo#Effects
- BugsJustFindMe 2y agoWell, the placebo effect is real so the products do actually work. Weird line, sure, but still.
- pfdietz 2y agoThey are powerful placebos, so the believers have become permanently duped.
- golergka 2y agoPlacebos work even if users know it's a placebo. I don't for a second believe in any of homeopathy claims, but I still buy and use it, because placebo works. Especially so when price and all other medicine-looking rituals around it are maintained.
- slibhb 2y agoPeople want to buy them and we live in a free country.
- whamlastxmas 2y agoUnless we want to make people accountable for running their own sophisticated clinical studies for every single product we buy, we should probably have some rules in place around false claims and false advertising.
- slibhb 2y agoWe have those rules about how homeopathic "medicine" can be labeled. At the end of the day, people are allowed to buy dumb shit. 50% of my local CVS is make-up, which is way more egregious than echinacea root extract.
- whamlastxmas 2y agoYes but it’s clearly not good enough
- rqtwteye 2y agoMaybe we should also have some rules around false claims and false advertising around food in general. I think this causes more damage than homeopathic stuff ever can do.
- TheRoque 2y agoIn France they were funded by the social security up to 15%, but luckily this stopped in 2021. I had some as a kid and my mom is still a strong "believer" in them. I don't see any harm in selling them IF and only if they don't prevent people from taking other "real" treatments. But other than this it's just placebo.
- andrewflnr 2y ago> and only if they don't prevent people from taking other "real" treatments This is the dominant harm, yeah. As we know from infosec, few things are more dangerous than a false sense of security, and that's exactly what ineffective drugs provide.
- NewEntryHN 2y agoMost of homeopathy usages target little aches and whatnots that require no treatment (beyond patience), so I guess it could also act as a buffer against overmedication.
- vikramkr 2y agolobbying: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_Supplement_Health_and_Education_Act_of_1994 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_Supplement_Health_and_...
- blendergeek 2y agoIf the homeopathic remedies don't harm anyone (I know that some have, this comment only references the remedies that don't), what is the problem with them being sold and used? Many cold medicines have side effects, some are even abused recreationaly. Given that human bodies tend to recover with or without cold medicine (and given the shaky legs that Phenylephrine stands on), what is the issue with people using "fake medicine"? Homeopathic remedies cannot be abused recreationaly. They aren't precursors to meth. They are better in every way (except the don't work better than a placebo). But, if all a patient needs is a placebo (people recover from the common cold just fine without medicine), homeopathic remedies are perfect. Remember the hippocrattic oath: First of all, do no harm. Safe, well prepared homeopathic remedies shouldn't do harm. Many cold medicines do.
- dymk 2y ago> what is the issue with people using "fake medicine"? Because people are being tricked into thinking they’re taking medicine, preventing them from seeking out medical care.
- blendergeek 2y agoThe choice is over the counter cold medicine vs homeopathic "remedies". Neither of these cure diseases. Neither of these prevent the seeking of medical care. Both of them may make people feel better (the placebo effect can be powerful). Only one of these is frequently abused by teenagers as a recreational drug.
- blincoln 2y agoThere are plenty of people who take homeopathic and other alternative products instead of prescription products because they can't afford the prescription products, and fraudulent advertising makes them think the alternative is more or less equivalent. I actually had someone at a pet store try to sell me homeopathic medication instead of dewormer because they were out of actual dewormer. Do you think that's harmless to someone who doesn't know the difference between giving their pet real medication vs. magic woo water?
- derbOac 2y agoI might be downvoted for this, but I tend to have a kind of libertarian take on this. I absolutely do not believe in homeopathy beyond placebo effects, and I understand the harm they do by opportunity costs in pursuing other treatments. But at the end of the day I feel like all medications should basically be handled like homeopathy products. They should be available to anyone, barring some kind of competency ruling or disagreement by the pharmacy over what they want to sell to whom, and the FDA should basically ensure that they are what they say they are on the label. I'm glad there's skeptics out there calling BS on homeopathy but where I diverge from them is in somehow preventing it from being available. It's water, it's labeled accurately, so let people do what they're going to do. If they weren't doing this I doubt they'd be doing something more "mainstream" anyway, or complying with it. They might even be doing something even more actively harmful. I guess I see it as a slippery slope from banning homeopathy to something much murkier where reasonable experts disagree. Real medical science can get very grey really fast and I'm not sure I trust regulatory authority figures to always make the best decisions about what to do. Better to leave it to the consumer and whichever provider they trust most. Demand product purity, prevent health claims on the label, whatever, but I think my question is "why aren't more medications sold in American pharmacies?"
- vikramkr 2y agoits not about banning availability, its about making them required to prove the health claims theyre making. If you didn't have any requirements to prove your drug worked before selling it, youd take away a pretty huge market incentive to make drugs that work (health is about as far from a perfect full information free market as you can get -- homeopathy doesn't work at all and those companies are making plenty of money). These regulations also force research into and labeling of side effects, and skimping on that led to an opiod crisis. Honestly don't really see the economic or societal argument for deregulating medicine. If you want a system where to get an fda stamp you have to prove it works but can sell whatever otherwise with no consequences until you kill someone or destroy their gallbladders (https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2024/05/fda-determines-that-tara-flour-is-not-safe-500-were-sickened-by-the-ingredient/ https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2024/05/fda-determines-that-t...) - well that's what we already have now so given it hasn't changed in decades, even with recent attempts to do so after all the strip mall stem cell clinics and GRAS issues and all, I don't think your opinion is that out of the mainstream. And in terms of why aren't more sold in pharmacies - no clue what you're talking about there lol. Have you not seen the A-Z supplement whatever aisles full of all this unregulated crap? You can buy whatever you want unless the DEA has an issue with it.
- Ekaros 2y agoWhat should not be allowed to sold in pharmacy? Or should that even be asked. I think this is pretty relevant question. Should pharmacies have some extra regulation that limits them from selling anything but exactly approved products? Or specific models of such? Like only certain toothbrushes?