While some alternative medicines might have something to contribute (maybe some plants really do have beneficial health effects) or are not ridiculous on their face (what little I know of osteopathy at least starts from sensible ideas) it still remains that there are a lot of obviously bogus products, most notably homeopathy.
I know that they are usually sold not as medicines but as (something close to, or squarely) food items. Even so, they must make claims in one way or another. If they make claims, they actually have to deliver on them in some reliable way, otherwise they are committing fraud or selling a defective product. If I sell you a product which is supposed to do A, B and C and that product realiably fails or can be demonstrated not to do it or only has a placebo effect, then I have not fulfilled my contractual obligation towards you and you are entitled to reimbursement. If a judge/jury is sensitive to the law & economics perspective, punitive damages may also be awarded.
Have I gotten something wrong here? Has it happened? Surely some greedy lawyers have sniffed an opportunity for a class action lawsuit.
A whole class of attorneys styling themselves “Zicam injury lawyers” sprang up after users of the “homeopathic”* cold remedy reported impaired or lost sense of smell. The company has paid out millions in a settlement.
*Zicam probably counts as alternative, but not necessarily homeopathic, since supposedly there was enough zinc in the product to be connected to the loss of smell (anosmia), and typical homeopathic products contain little to no active ingredient.
I suspect there are other successful legal actions that have been undertaken against supplement firms, but one thing to remember is that if your claims of efficacy are vague enough (i.e. “supports prostate health”) under DSHEA, the legal underpinning that these firms rely on, then it’d be hard to prove they lied to you about the product working for a particular condition.
They typically avoid making direct claims, or more to the point, what are legally defined as claims. They try to make statements that suggest, but do actually claim, certain benefits. These might be along the lines of “enhances ___,” “indicated for ___,” or “helps with ___” (I forget the exact wording). I’m sure they keep a careful eye on court rulings and regulatory action and try to get as close to the line as they can without overstepping it.
I think Oscillococcinum is the latest to be brought to light. Not sure if there is litigation pending, but they’re being called out on false claims by a number of agencies.
The claimed active ingredient (dessicated muscovy duck heart, no less) has never been proven or even tested for flu symptom relief, let alone the claim that it will shorten the duration of illness. Aside from that, there’s not enough in the stuff to constitute a dose. Heck, there’s not enough to constitute an ingredient. It’s not even a single molecule per dose. The ingredients clearly state the pills are 85% glucose and 15% sucrose.
However, it’s made by a European manufacturer, so litigation opportunities may be limited.
In which case, pharma companies or universities spend money investigating which plants known from history actually do have measurable effects, and which are just based on magical correspondence or other ideas and don’t have effective ingredients.
Homeophatic medicine is not sold as food supplement, but as medicine in pharmacies, and therefore the pharmacies are liable for making them right. Yes, there is a thriving business of selling food supplements over the internet with the claim of “These vitamins cure cancer, but big pharma conspiracy has forbidden them, and I, the tireless crusader, am sending them to you from a different free country” (the big recent scandal was Dr. Mathias Rath) - but that’s because jurisdiction in the internet is difficult.
If stuff is sold as food supplement with a claim like “strengthens the immune system” than that claim is to vague to be measured or sued for.
But if the claim is that “this contains your daily requirement of calcium/ iodid/ whatever in better form by grinding algae/ egg shells down naturally” then the content of the product needs to meet a certain amount, and that can be sued for.
Which is why serious companies and supporters of alternative medicine always advise people to buy from known companies with a reputation so that they get the ingredients promised, and not less, and no mercury or arsenic to “lengthen” the product (as happens when you buy directly in the Asian market/ India/ China / over internet).
This is of course why Doctors who discover that tea of wolfsbane cures lyconthrapy will advise people to not drink tea but take a pill because the concentration of the active component will vary in a tea, but all pills have the same amount.
You ever looked into a normal food section of a supermarket and what the ads promise there? There’s a whole art form involved in marketing and ads on how to create impressions in the unwary consumer while still leaving enough legal wriggle room to not be held accountable. A yoghurt with active bacteria may help your intestine flora, but it won’t make you super-healthy compared to before or block every cold this winter despite the ads showing you exactly that.
