Homeopathic treatments may be popular, but since 2016, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has mandated that anyone selling such alternative remedies must also provide proof of their efficacy or label them as scientifically unproven. The thinking is that many consumers are buying diluted and/or ineffective treatments in the hopes of curing health issues without the use of conventional medicines. Often, homeopathic remedies involve treating sick people with very small amounts of substances that would cause similar symptoms in healthy people. The FTC argues that such methods don't work, even though Americans spend billions of dollars on them every year. The FTC wants homeopathic product manufacturers to acknowledge that despite their claims, they have little to no evidence of their effectiveness. According to the FTC, product labels and advertisements need to include the caveat that "claims are based only on theories of homeopathy from the 1700s that are not accepted by most modern medical experts.”
A pound of cure:
- The first pills in powder form were created by a 19th-century machine invented to press graphite into adequate drawing tools.
- Bloodletting was used to "cure" illnesses for thousands of years, and some medieval barbers even offered it along with shaves and haircuts.
- The World Health Organization has compiled a list of "essential medicines" every two years since 1977; the number of medicines has grown from 208 to more than 340.