[hughrlomas]

Meanwhile their shelves are flooded with homeopathic "remedies" that appear legitimate. These items deceive consumers that have been raised to assume items stocked in a pharmacy have actual medical benefits.

People offload their trust to an authority, a pharmacy, to stock actual medicine. Just like when they go to a grocery store they expect to buy actual food and not sawdust shaped and packaged as food.

Try looking for cold or flu medicine, or earache drops at CVS. You will find the tiny print "homeopathic" on nearly every item being presented on the shelf. All of them are mimics that have all of the trappings of medicine (official looking labels, colors, words) but none of the results.

I think this is an ethical failure that is worse than the sale of tobacco, because it not only dupes people looking for proven medical solutions to say, their child's earache that bring home a vial of water instead, it also continues to lend credence to the industry of swindlers and snake oil.

[Baeocystin]

You are 100% correct, and why your comment is grey is beyond me. It is pure predatory behavior via mimicry, and people suffer because of it.

[crazygringo]

I'd certainly never noticed anything homoepathic before at CVS (and all the real medicine is still there) and so was inclined to dismiss it, but just did a quick search for "cold medicine":

https://www.cvs.com/search/?cp=%5B%7B"key"%3A"source"%2C"val...

I am actually rather shocked to see that 3 of the first 20 items listed (Zicam, Cold-eeze, CVS Non-drowsy cold remedy) do indeed say "homeopathic" on the front label.

But 3 out of 20 is certainly not "flooded" or "nearly every item". And those 3 are just lozenges, where the main action is the sugar that coats your throat anyways, so I don't see any evidence it's trying to trick people from buying actual medicine.

But still, I wasn't aware "homeopathic" products were sold at legitimate drugstores at all, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

[thaumaturgy]

CVS (and others) have sold homeopathic asthma rescue inhalers for quite a while. They appeared on the shelves immediately after Primatine Mist became unavailable. This is infuriating because asthma rescue inhalers are one of those "do not fuck with" things and a chain of multiple morons thought it would be okay to sell aerosolized water in place of actual medication.

I get a little wound up on a number of topics, but this is one where, if I had the opportunity, I'd gleefully kick square in the goolies every single person involved in putting that product on the shelf. And I'd buy a pair of steel-toed boots first.

[crazygringo]

Holy crap.

How is that legal? Is there no law by which they could be sued for misleading representation of a life-saving medical product or something?

It seems like such a no-brainer of a law. Serious question: why is this the first I'm hearing about it? I've literally never seen an article about this in any newspaper and I read a lot of news. And this is exactly the kind of stuff that journalists tend to discover and expose.

Where is the outrage, and how is this still being permitted?

[colejohnson66]

The FDA was bought off by a big homeopath company a while ago from what I heard. However, recently, they’ve began cracking down on false claims through the FTC.

As for the outrage: it’s because it’s too common; you don’t want to alienate a large portion of your viewer base by “exposing” homeopathic remedies

[hn_throwaway_99]

I think it's gray because in my opinion it's not true. I've been to CVS many times, and while there may be some products, I don't see the shelves overflowing with homeopathic remedies.

Also, it's important to remember that "homeopathic" has multiple definitions in this context. There is the definition of "a substance in a dilution so minute that it's likely non of the actual molecules exist in solution", but that BS is not what you'll find at CVS.

Instead, you'll find stuff like Zicam, which is marketed as a "homeopathic preparation" (TBH I have no idea why), but it most definitely contains sizable amounts of the active ingredient, zinc. While the jury is still out on whether zinc is as effective in shortening the duration of the common cold as advertised, there is certainly a sizable number of studies that support it. I take it and it definitely seems to work for me - whether that's placebo effect or not I have no idea.

[Baeocystin]

The makers of Zicam have been sued hundreds of times because they put so much Zinc Gluconate in to their product that it (permanently) destroyed people's ability to smell.

https://www.rn.com/headlines-in-health/zicam-alert/

The CVS here in Gilroy has, at a rough estimate, about 20-30% of their pill-shelf space dedicated to homeopathic stuff. It's awful.

[astura]

https://centerforinquiry.org/blog/cvs-homeopathy-and-the-dc-...

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/cvs-selling-homeopathic-rem...

[com2kid]

I accidentally purchased homeopathic burn cream once.

The word homeopathic was written on it in VERY small print. It was sold right next to all the other burn creams.

It does happen.

[briandear]

I can’t say homeopathy is at the same level as tobacco, but it is a fraud and unethical to push vials of water as medicine. French pharmacies make a killing selling these fake medicines. What’s unethical is that, in France, actual pharmacists promote that crap. It’s literally a placebo that they are claiming “works.” You could take an entire store’s worth of homeopathic remedies and you’d have nothing more than a full stomach. If they want to sell that stuff, they should put a label on it that says: “absolutely no active ingredients of any sort, this is just a product to make you feel as if you took actual medicine.”

[colejohnson66]

> You could take an entire store’s worth of homeopathic remedies and you’d have nothing more than a full stomach.

You could also get better. The placebo effect is a real thing. People wouldn’t fall for the snake oil if it never “worked.”

[stallmanite]

So preachers selling holy water as cancer cures are being ethical then? Come on

[colejohnson66]

Did I say that? No. Notice how I used the words “snake oil”? I was making a point about the placebo effect. Nothing else.

[rubidium]

I hear you, but “ethical failure year is worse than the sale of tobacco” is a stretch. Tobacco killed millions. Homeopathic stuff is typically harmless and not a major killer.

Also I usually find Tylenol PM just fine at my cvs. Along with benedryl, ibuprofen and other routine “real” meds.

[Baeocystin]

It is 100% fraud, taking advantage of ignorance and selling people false medicine. There is nothing harmless about that. It prevents people from seeking real treatments, and there are real long-term consequences to public health that come along with that.

[catalogia]

> "Homeopathic stuff is typically harmless and not a major killer."

Does that analysis include people who neglect to seek real medical attention because snakeoil crackpottery has lured them into a false sense of security?

(I would not expect as many people to be harmed by homeopathy as cigarettes, but nevertheless I don't think you should characterize it as harmless.)

[newnewpdro]

Fleecing ignorant people is not harmless.

I'd presume a substantial correlation between ignorance and poverty, the last thing these people need is wasted money on ineffective treatment.

[bbanyc]

Homeopathic stuff is typically harmless but there was a case in the 2000s where Zicam sold a "homeopathic" nasal spray at a low dilution of zinc (i.e., it actually contained zinc) as a cold remedy. The result: hundreds of people caused permanent damage to their senses of smell.

This changed my attitudes towards consumer protection a lot. I thought I was smart enough to tell medicine from snake oil, but Zicam ads had high production values and looked just like ads for Tylenol or NyQuil. It was a far cry from the laughable marketing of that other '00s homeopathic product, HeadOn. (Apply directly to the forehead!) So I thought it was a legit product until the news of the lawsuits came out.

[colejohnson66]

> Homeopathic stuff is typically harmless and not a major killer.

Homeopathic stuff may be harmless, but homeopaths are sometimes actively harming themselves or others by not getting proper treatment.