Why Americans for Homeopathy Choice Fights

Summary of Today’s Episode:

Hello! This is the first of our new communications program we are launching, Homeopathy Choice Insider. Every Monday, you’ll be getting an email from us where we will pull back the curtain and provide you with a quick 3-5 minute insider’s view of what we work so diligently to do, each week, at Americans for Homeopathy Choice. Our goal is to create a very strong, educated, and informed group of members who support our advocacy work. The more you know about what is happening, the better able you’ll be to help strengthen homeopathy in the US. But we also know how precious your time is, so I will keep our weekly Insiders bulletin short, succinct, and to the point. So today I am going to share with you about the background on why AFHC fights the good fight against the FDA. Our efforts started in 2017 when the FDA released a draft guidance on homeopathic medicine. Guidance documents are used by agencies like the FDA to share with us how they interpret and enforce laws, and draft guidance on homeopathy is called a draft because it has not yet been finalized and is still in draft form. What’s so concerning about this guidance is the FDA’s new stance on homeopathic medicines: In the document, FDA has demonstrated a complete reversal of decades of policy and legal interpretation around the legality of homeopathic medicines. The draft guidance reads, “…this guidance is intended to provide notice that any homeopathic drug product that is being marketed illegally is subject to FDA enforcement action at any time.” So here FDA is being a bit misleading. It seems like the FDA is saying that only the homeopathic products that are being illegally marketed are going to be targeted by the FDA…but this begs the question: how many homeopathic medicines are being illegally marketed? Which ones are they? Well, according to FDA’s draft guidance that’s all of them. Yep. Every. Single. One. This means that the FDA is stating that they have the authority to pull any homeopathic medicine from the market for any reason or honestly, no reason at all. Think about it. If the agency believes something is being illegally marketed, what reason do they need to pull it off, other than this one belief? Like I mentioned before, this draft guidance is something that hit the fan in 2017 and has continued to impact our access to homeopathic medicines today. We can see that the FDA’s general attitude about homeopathic medicines has become more strict in other areas, such as manufacturing. Let me put it this way: If any of you have noticed that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find some homeopathic remedies or get homeopathy kits, you can thank the FDA’s current concerning stance on homeopathic medicines. But there is also a lot of hope, and I want to share that with you! Stay tuned, every Monday as we bring to you the Homeopathy Choice Insider. There, we will rekindle your hope as you hear about our strategy, our work, and how you can help. Our job is not to change the world, our job is to steward the gifts we’ve been given. That’s it for today! And we will see  you next week when I bring you another valuable piece of information on our important advocacy work