Stop FDA’s attack on Natural Homeopathy & Compounding!

Mainstream Medicine has failed Chronic Disease

Government’s exploitation of COVID-19 fear to abuse Americans has collapsed whatever remaining trust ever even existed in institutions such as the government, media, big business, and health authorities.1 And with mainstream medicine’s failure to stem the real epidemic – chronic illness – families are increasingly demanding more natural treatments to gain health.2 Government should not, therefore, be persecuting alternative-health approaches like traditional homeopathy or pharmacy compounding. Please support Representative Griffith’s bill – when reintroduced – to protect compounding, and urge Congress to overturn – or withhold Appropriations for – the latest homeopathy guidance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).3

FIRST, Homeopathy has been successfully and safely used for more than 200 years. In fact, a century ago, many hospitals operated not under the mainstream-medical-school regime called allopathy (relying on chemical medicine to treat disease symptoms, not causes), but rather on a more natural approach called homeopathy – treating the body as a whole and promoting treatments that elicit the body’s own self-healing mechanisms. President Abraham Lincoln found superior outcomes via homeopathic hospitals, while homeopathic flu treatments during the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918-1919 (which killed some 20 million worldwide) were greatly successful.4 The death rate for those patients treated with allopathic drugs was 30%, compared to a death rate of only 1.5% for those treated with homeopathy. In other words, homeopathy was 98% successful.

Homeopathic remedies are like allopathic drugs in one sense, in that they occasionally fail or become contaminated – in which case the FDA has an already-existing power under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938, to recall products dangerous to the public for fraudulent labeling or improper manufacturing processes.5 The FDA codified this approach in 1988 but then withdrew it in 2019 in favor of pre-approval, which will smother the homeopath market by redefining them all as “unapproved, new drugs.”6

Not only is it too expensive to gain FDA approval for natural, unpatentable treatments, but it also is impossible. That’s because natural substances are not patentable, and homeopathy is not applicable to mass testing – since its therapies are individualized based upon each person’s unique situation.7

It is unsurprising that the FDA – funded as it is by Pharma user fees – is attacking Pharma’s competitors. Among other things, homeopathy is popular for allergies, arthritis, and pain – each a billion-dollar market for Pharma.8 Outrageously, large pharmacy chains now face lawsuits for selling homeopathic products on a shelf located “too close” to Pharma alternatives.9 FDA’s guidance is targeting homeopathic products first that use, not oral or topical application, but rather injection – and those for more serious health problems. Hence, the persecution, for example, of mistletoe injections, an increasingly popular cancer treatment alternative.10 Please withhold funds in the Appropriations bill from FDA’s homeopathy pre-approval guidance.

SECOND, in addition to targeting homeopathic products, the FDA is targeting the specific practice of compounding – that is, the mixing of ingredients into medicines by local pharmacists. Compounding is critical, especially for those patients who are allergic to the fillers and preservatives used in mass-manufactured pharmaceuticals, or who need a different dose or delivery system (topical or sublingual, for example, instead of a pill).

Seeking to protect drugs from competition, Pharma special interests goaded Congress in 2013 to limit compounding with the so-called “Drug Quality and Security Act (“DQSA”).” This Act claimed that it would create a helpful safe harbor for compounding but instead it required pre-approval by the FDA, which has outlawed compounding of healthful ingredients like Coenzyme Q10, ginger root powder, ginkgo biloba, and colloidal silver, among countless others.

Further, in 2016, the FDA violated DQSA’s intent by outlawing the use by a doctor in his or her office of compounded formularies not specific to a patient. This unlawful limitation jeopardizes the safety of patients who need the compounded solution immediately and cannot wait for personalized versions. U.S. Congressman Chris Stewart (R-UT) wrote a letter – co-signed by 61 other Representatives – opposing FDA’s restrictions on compounding.11

Later, in 2019, Rep. Griffith introduced H.R. 1959 to restore office compounding and remove from FDA pre-approval those homeopathic remedies already legal under the “monograph” process.12 That bill did not pass, but when the Congressman reintroduces his bill, we expect to support it for the above reason as well as its solution to a related problem over interstate deliveries of compounded pharmaceuticals.13

Given the failure of mainstream medicine to stem the inexorable increase in chronic disease – the real epidemic – it is time for the FDA to stop persecuting natural cures just because they hurt special-interest pharmaceutical profits. The National Health Federation has other campaigns to protect nutritional supplements and replace the rogue FDA with private certification, which we hope everyone will support. Meanwhile, we need Congress to stop the FDA from targeting homeopathy and compounding.14

Links:
1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/madelinehalpert/2022/07/05/trust-in-us-institutions-hits-record-low-poll-finds/?sh=546cdd2adbd5
2. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/consumer-packaged-goods/our-insights/feeling-good-the-future-of-the-1-5-trillion-wellness-market
3. https://www.linkedin.com/in/leon-wisniewski-a38174b/; https://homeopathychoice.org/write-congress/#/26; https://homeopathychoice.org/what-were-doing/
4. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/abraham-lincoln-homeopathy_b_2177808
5. https://www.venable.com/insights/publications/2019/10/fda-and-homeopathy-the-end-of-diluted-enforcement
6. https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidance-documents/drug-products-labeled-homeopathic-guidance-fda-staff-and-industry; https://advocacy.sba.gov/2020/01/27/homeopathy-industry-threatened-by-new-fda-guidance/
7. https://advocacy.sba.gov/2020/01/27/homeopathy-industry-threatened-by-new-fda-guidance/
8. https://homeopathycenter.org/find-a-remedy/
9. https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/money/2023/02/02/homeopathic-products-fda-cvs-walmart-lawsuit/11165717002/
10. https://healnavigator.com/treatments/mistletoe-for-cancer/
11. https://stewart.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=358
12. https://www.consultdranderson.com/h-r-1959-preserving-patient-access-to-compounded-medications-act-of-2019/
13. https://rollcall.com/2020/10/16/for-states-fdas-compounding-memo-is-all-stick-no-carrot/
14. https://national-health-federation.rallycongress.net/ctas/stop-fda-threat-to-consumer-preferred-supplements?iframe=1; https://national-health-federation.rallycongress.net/ctas/restoring-trust-in-health-authorities?iframe=1