Leading U.S. Physicians Issue Strongly Worded Letter to FTC in Response to FTC Statement on Homeopathy

WASHINGTON - Dec. 2, 2016 - PRLog -- Integrative physicians in the U.S. today issued a strongly worded response to an FTC statement on homeopathic medicines.

In the letter to FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez, the American Institute of Homeopathy (the nation's oldest extant medical society) pointed out a number of serious errors in the FTC's statement. Items in italics are taken from the FTC statement – followed by the response of the physicians' group:

·        That "homeopathy … is based on the view that disease symptoms can be treated by minute doses of substances that produce similar symptoms …"

The AIH physicians point out that "homeopathy is not based on a 'view' or an opinion. It is based on reliable, reproducible, clinically acquired, empiric evidence gathered through two centuries of corroborated data, assisted by thousands of practitioners worldwide, demonstrating the actions of different medicinal substances in living systems, aka: the science of homeopathy."

·        "Many homeopathic products are diluted to such an extent that they no longer contain detectable levels of the initial substance."

"This statement fails to acknowledge contemporary research on the topic. One dozen independent laboratories worldwide have confirmed that these nanostructures persist, and that they are biologically active. Many other homeopathic products (particularly those sold OTC and described as 'low potency' have dilute amounts of the original substance that remain chemically detectable by straightforward titration."

·        "… homeopathic product claims are not based on modern scientific methods …"

"This statement is false and misleading. The active ingredients within most OTC homeopathic products have hundreds or thousands of case reports from physicians who have used these medicines. These reports of direct clinical experiences establish a collective, real-world dataset that demonstrates which conditions have been observed to respond to treatment. Such historical data is similar to the types of information used to demonstrate effectiveness for many conventional OTC medicines on the market today.

"In addition, hundreds of state-of-the-art double-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled studies, many in peer-reviewed journals, demonstrate the superior efficacy of homeopathic medicines in a wide range of conditions, including asthma, depression and anxiety, chronic illness, allergic rhinitis, hypertension, headaches/migraines, sepsis, mild traumatic brain injury, otitis media, cancer, and many other conditions. The American Institute of Homeopathy maintains and continually updates an extensive database, available free to the public, with over 6,000 research articles."

We strongly object to the FTC's characterization of the entire field of homeopathic medicine as being without scientific evidence of efficacy. These comments are unqualified and wholly lacking in merit. It is a system of medicine used successfully by tens of thousands of physicians and over 500 million consumers worldwide. The release of this Enforcement Policy Statement serves only to align the FTC with several recently released scientifically fraudulent reports by a variety of pseudoscientists and lowers the credibility of this valued consumer protection agency.