FDA Alert...on Homeopathy

The FDA released an alert in September of this year. Homeopathic "Teething tablets and gels" are to be avoided by consumers and unused portions discarded because of reports of weakness, flushing, difficulty breathing, and seizures, in a few children who have received the problem-specific, combination remedy from Hyland's. The company has voluntarily recalled the product.

The online news source, Vox.com, reports that "The US government is finally telling people that homeopathy is a sham". Golly, I hate online news. Simmer down.

No. The FDA reported on exactly what one would expect to see when millions of people use a medicine unsupervised, a medicine that comes from a system, a philosophy that is completely different from the thing we all use a reference point for understanding medicine, health, and healing: "Western technological biomedicine" --WTB.

In homeopathic circles there has been an argument among many different philosophical perspectives. I practice "classical" homeopathy, the origin-story of homeopathic medicine. Therapeutic homeopathy, is a more European practice, and one frequently used by naturopaths and chiropractors (however this is by no means the case among all NDs and DCs). It's fairly straightforward and easier to prescribe, and certainly enables the practitioner to see more patients in less time. There are other variations, but I needn't digress. It's enough to add that one related homeopathic prescribing philosophy is that if you throw a bunch of remedies together in a mixture, only the "right" one will act: "combination remedies".

Many remedies are made from toxins, poisonous plants, and venoms. If "like cures like", and if the proving* data of Hahnemann are to be believed, then it follows that the wrong remedy could, in susceptible individuals, be enough to trigger a bad outcome.

I tell my students, if it's strong enough to cure you, it's strong enough to kill you. That may be a bit of an overstatement for some therapies (e.g., Reiki), but the harm will be proportional in any case. Nature doesn't give any free lunches.

I've also shared that things like Zicam Intranasal Spray should be avoided because it can cause the loss of sense of smell. It's "homeopathic"--that is the company legally uses a loophole in the FDA regulations concerning homeopathic remedies. The law provides that all the remedies in the Homeopathic Pharmacopea of the United States automatically can be marketed. By potentizing even a small part of a product it can be labeled "homeopathic" and marketed for specific indications (colds, teething, etc.).

Both the homeopathic pharmaceutical industry and the allopathic industry are each using homeopathy in a way in which it was not conceived and cannot be.

The whole premise of the art is that each person is, at some moment, in some state of imbalance. Think of it as an imbalanced manifestation of some unifying field. The practitioner must understand the field in that moment and prescribe (or not) on that basis alone. When used as a "specific" agent to treat a communal diagnosis (the "name" of the "disease" in WTB) it ought to fail much of the time. In fact studies of the remedy Arnica montana for bruises and sprains--its homeopathic indication--fails about have the time and performs no better than placebo.

For my part, I'm surprised that it has taken so long for this phenomenon to emerge. How could it not? If we develop the picture of symptoms statistically associated with a verum (real) remedy in a homeopathic proving trial (see again note * below), then it follows that if people randomly take remedies on a regular basis using an allopathic model (or at best a weak homeopathic model) some are going to start to show symptoms of some remedies.

Ok, ok. I'm getting into the weeds here. Let me just say that WTB is a great thing. It does some things that only it can do, and it does a lot of things fairly well. I mean, if I (or one of my patients) has pneumonia, I might take a remedy, but I'll certainly have some antibiotics on stand by! The antibiotics will not be without harm, but it beats dying, and medicine--of any sort--is never perfect.

But the pursuit of perfection, practice, doesn't come without an ethics. In the case of homeopathic medicine, sound judgement prevents poor outcomes, and when done well, at least the homeopath listens, even cares. In the opposite case I would argue that allopathic practitioners also care, but their care is constrained by the necessarily industrial, high throughput model I detailed in the previous entry.

I would argue that WTB is also more motivated for profit than anything homeopathy can muster. Homeopathic medicine is a "weak force" medicine. Before interpreting that as self-deprecation, recall that the "weak nuclear force" is one of the building blocks of the Standard Model of physics. It's necessary, critical, but only to a point. Thus, don't ever expect homeopaths to rake it in using classical methodology.

Although it will hurt the industry's revenue, I can't argue against the FDA. Homeopaths will have to come to terms with their "weak" science--that is, a weak-force medical technique that nevertheless can have profound effects on the organism. The "science" of that: you have to thoroughly understand the possibilities and constraints imposed by an alternative medical system. Allopaths will have to accept hypothetical models other than what they are used to in order to properly judge whether or not homeopathy is "a sham", as Vox.com put it.

Other have tried to put homeopathy in the grave. Even I have my doubts. However there are enough studies that leave tantalizing loose ends--genuine effects--that it remains unburied. However homeopaths will have to revisit their philosophical origins in order to determine not only if the basic system is really effective, but how these other, admittedly more efficient, systems have a place, and if so how the whole thing should be regulated. Right now, every homeopath is his own captain.

I have advised families who have members not under my treatment** that they can try things like Hyland's Teething Remedy. On balance many fewer are harmed in this way than by regular medicine. In recent years, since the Zicam incident, I am a bit less free with this, and half the time warn people away from these combination remedies and faux-homeopathics. I don't know the details of these incidents reported by the FDA. It isn't many I'm sure, but it urges caution in the use of these combinations.

I am certain that in low potencies I've never seen a reaction that was truly grave, and I am also certain that in high remedy potencies there lies hazard in careless prescribing--how could it not? This is consistent with homeopathic--and natural--theory: there's no free lunch. I have the clinical experience to confirm this. But larger systematic studies of this effect in the community are lacking. I would like to come up with a way to evaluate this system on the system's terms (there are a few clinical trials but results and quality vary).

I am certain that I have seen clinical improvements that are not satisfactorily explained away by "placebo effects" or the "clinical encounter" and similar psychosomatic phenomena. Not that I haven't seen those too--every doctor has! However, homeopaths are humble in the face of placebo effects; allopaths (physicians and pundits) aren't, viewing them as a confounder in most cases and a "miracle" in others. Yes, people do get better just because they would anyway. We recognize that. The best of us recognizes all of these phenomena. Hahnemann did! Surely allopaths have the right set of intellectual tools to do consider homeopathy on its own terms: rigorous scientific philosophy accepts the twin pillars of hypothesis and falsifiability. Sometimes opponents seem weak on the first part and too-quickly convinced on the latter part.

Homeopaths aren't anti- or psuedoscientific (ok, some are), rather we just choose to offer people something we have a method for evaluating the effectiveness of, and take on some faith that the effects are real, even if we don't understand the mechanism. When the method is properly applied, I've seen some pretty amazing things happen. And it's all happened safely.

And safety is why I am glad that the FDA is forcing homeopathic medicine to come to terms with its own philosophy.


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Notes:
* Hahnemann's original drug testing in which subjects received the real remedy or a placebo, and after several homeopathic-strength doses, would report on symptoms (or lack of) which would be recorded. These are considered the first systematic drug tests.

 ** Under my treatment, patients are not to use any other remedies under any circumstances unless I direct. The reason is beyond the scope here; maybe I'll write about that later. But it makes sense: why interfere with such a subtle and poorly-understood process? If they need some support, there's drugs, herbs, nutritionals and so on.