# Who regulates Homeopathy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 4, 2016, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-regulates-homeopathy/745141 "2016-02-04T15:26:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-regulates-homeopathy/745141/21 "2016-02-05T20:42:52Z")
> [@bump](#): > > You know, there’s got to be a way to combine the notion that every glass of water you drink has a few molecules from Jesus’ blood with homeopathy, and make a colossal pile of money… Ah, but was the water beaten with a horsehair stick so it knows that it has Jesus’ blood? ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-regulates-homeopathy/745141/22 "2016-02-05T22:17:24Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Ah, but was the water beaten with a horsehair stick so it knows that it has Jesus’ blood? Someone is going to HAVE to come up with an emoticon with its eyes crossed and its tongue sticking out. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-regulates-homeopathy/745141/23 "2016-02-05T23:57:09Z")
> [@bump](#): > > You know, there’s got to be a way to combine the notion that every glass of water you drink has a few molecules from Jesus’ blood with homeopathy, and make a colossal pile of money… Or rather an infinitesimal pile of money diluted a few extra times. It makes it stronger! ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2016, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-regulates-homeopathy/745141/24 "2016-02-06T00:16:52Z")
There’s a parallel to the fact that public and for-profit schools are more-or-less regulated, but home schooling is not. OSHA makes and sometimes enforces regulations on workopathy, but homeopathy is left alone. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2016, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-regulates-homeopathy/745141/25 "2016-02-06T01:07:26Z")
OK, wild hypothetical to try and ask the question the OP asked, and not to describe how homeopathy is bogus. Say my company claims to make FDA registered pharmaceuticals, but actually fills the bottles with homeopathic 5,000,000X diluted toxin. In that case the FDA will shut me down/arrest me. Say I claim to make kosher/halal meat, but a quick check shows its 10% pork. There are a variety of ways to be punished for that. Even 'tho I, personally, loves my bacon. Likewise if I claim free-range, cruelty-free, vegetarian fed, pesticide free, whatever. There’s some advocating agency. What if someone claimed they were making homeopathic medicine, but it was instead traditional medicine. Who would punish them? Say the homeopathic medicine for headache is 10,000,000X dilution of nux vomica. I label the bottle that, and its instead aspirin. Who’s going to get pissed/punish me? It is legal, as far as I know, to sell aspirin for a headache, unless its to people who are allergic, so you see why the false label would be a problem. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2016, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-regulates-homeopathy/745141/26 "2016-02-06T03:06:24Z")
But does the FDA give a shit if the homeopathetic companies go through the arcane and elaborate processes and ultimately end up with water with nothing in it, as opposed to going down to the local supermarket, buying a crapload of purified water and reselling it at an obscene mark-up _as long as the end product they sell is exactly the same when tested?_ THAT is the question: are homeopathetic companies required by law to go through homeopathetic processes to get the product they sell and, if so, is this checked on? ---
**Author:** ![Ignotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecc23a/32.png) [@Ignotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignotus)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2016, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-regulates-homeopathy/745141/27 "2016-02-06T03:25:28Z")
> [@](#): > > **Who regulates Homeopathy?** > Not it’s effectiveness, but the claims of how often and in what way the different solutions are diluted. One single guy among 7+ billion people. That’s why he’s so powerful! ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2016, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-regulates-homeopathy/745141/28 "2016-02-06T03:41:13Z")
> [@Arkcon](#): > > What if someone claimed they were making homeopathic medicine, but it was instead traditional medicine. Who would punish them? Say the homeopathic medicine for headache is 10,000,000X dilution of nux vomica. I label the bottle that, and its instead aspirin. Who’s going to get pissed/punish me? It is legal, as far as I know, to sell aspirin for a headache, unless its to people who are allergic, so you see why the false label would be a problem. In 2014, the FDA did force a manufacturer to recall a batch of homeopathic medicine [because it contained antibiotics.](http://www.medicaldaily.com/homeopathy-products-recalled-after-fda-finds-they-may-contain-antibiotics-272446) [FDA press release.](http://www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch/SafetyInformation/SafetyAlertsforHumanMedicalProducts/ucm390002.htm) I don’t know whether the antibiotics were deliberately added or it whether the product was accidentally contaminated. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2016, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-regulates-homeopathy/745141/29 "2016-02-06T12:55:24Z")
I question whether “homeopathy” is well enough defined to answer the question. When I think of homeopathy, I think of the “law of similars” and the concept of “tinctures” which are dilutions that grow more effective as they are further diluted. I had a real MD suggest to me that I try homeopathic remedies for a specific ailment, which amazed me, so I started questioning her. She had never heard of the law of similars or of tinctures, and did not know that homeopathy taught that diluting an agent could make it more effective. I think that to her “homeopathy” meant something like “alternative medicine”. And I myself believe that alternative medicine can sometimes be effective, because sometimes it is based on something that the medical profession will later come to find is effective in a technical sense, and sometimes it involves psychological mechanisms that we don’t understand but acknowledge can be significant. So, to regulate homeopathy, one first has to draw a line around what exactly it is. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2016, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-regulates-homeopathy/745141/30 "2016-02-06T13:03:31Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > There’s one guy at the U.N… He watches over the entire industry. > > He is…The Most Powerful Bureaucrat In The World. > 😉 _“I don’t always drink healthful elixers. But when I do, I verify that they are diluted with enough water to lower the concentration to less than one molecule per [del]liter[/del] gallon.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2016, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-regulates-homeopathy/745141/31 "2016-02-06T15:20:48Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > I question whether “homeopathy” is well enough defined to answer the question. > > When I think of homeopathy, I think of the “law of similars” and the concept of “tinctures” which are dilutions that grow more effective as they are further diluted. > > … > > So, to regulate homeopathy, one first has to draw a line around what exactly it is. [In the United States, drugs listed in and made under the standards listed in the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States are recognized as homeopathic drugs](http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/ComplianceManuals/CompliancePolicyGuidanceManual/ucm074360.htm). The Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States even has [its own web site](http://www.hpus.com/). ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2016, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-regulates-homeopathy/745141/32 "2016-02-06T16:08:07Z")
> [@Alley\_Dweller](#): > > In 2014, the FDA did force a manufacturer to recall a batch of homeopathic medicine [because it contained antibiotics.](http://www.medicaldaily.com/homeopathy-products-recalled-after-fda-finds-they-may-contain-antibiotics-272446) Articles/press releases about this recall don’t specify how the FDA was alerted to the problem (which could’ve caused major problems for people allergic to penicillin), but I doubt heavily that it was through “spot checks” of the manufacturing facility. I’ve never heard of any regular agency procedure for such checks, even for differently-regulated health products (pharmaceuticals of course have to be proven effective and reasonably safe before approval, while there is no such approval process for “dietary supplements” or homeopathic products). I agree that it’d be ludicrous to try to test homeopathic products for accurate dilution, seeing that the vast majority of them are diluted to the point that it’d be hard or impossible to find a single molecule of the alleged active ingredient in them. How do you prove that something is 6X as opposed to 50X? Is there a magical procedure for analyzing water to find out if it was “succussed” (shaken) according to manufacturing directions? ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2016, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-regulates-homeopathy/745141/33 "2016-02-06T17:00:33Z")
So, the FDA regulates homeopathic drugs. Apparently for the veracity of their non-effectiveness on scientific grounds. Thinking about this too much makes my head ache. I should go find something to apply. ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2016, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-regulates-homeopathy/745141/34 "2016-02-06T17:15:00Z")
> [@Arkcon](#): > > So, the FDA regulates homeopathic drugs. Apparently for the veracity of their non-effectiveness on scientific grounds. Thinking about this too much makes my head ache. I should go find something to apply. [I suggest this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ozmx_NeEAE) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-regulates-homeopathy/745141.md?page=1)