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Comment by vorpalhex | Hacker News Reader

If homeopathy consisted of selling tubes of plain water with a label of "may help the common cold", I wouldn't really have a problem with it.

Instead recommending people to take crazy doses of supplements, making entirely crazy claims like "cures strep throat" or "can prevent infections" or generally pushing unregulated supplements is absolutely preying upon the weak, weakening the ability of medical providers to actually do their job and is nothing more than naked profiteering by private companies. Anybody supporting or pushing homeopathy is immoral.

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>selling tubes of plain water with a label of "may help the common cold", I wouldn't really have a problem with it.

AFAIK they would also need the standard FDA disclaimer of

>This/these statement(s) have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

edit: apparently there's an exemption for homeopathic medicine, so they don't need it. That's a shame. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quack_Miranda_Warning#Homeopat...

I thought the products I've seen in mainstream stores have the disclaimer. But maybe I should look again.

The products in the drug store always say, I believe, something like "this has not been determined to cure or prevent any condition or disease by the FDA".

So that meets with your approval?

Obviously you can't say something is plain water whether or not it is - surely the placebo effect requires the recipient to think there is medication, and isn't it common knowledge that something like a bitter taste enhances it?

This product may cure cancer.

* This has not been determined to cure or prevent any condition or disease by the FDA. Please note that Prop 65 of California law requires us to disclosure that this packaging may contain a known carcinogen. Long disclaimers are really hard for the average consumer to read and parse in any meaningful way and by using both small text and dense fonts manufacturers are able to make disclaimers extremely ineffective.

Legal does not imply ethical or moral.

You would probably appreciate the "CBD" market, with that attitude.

There are issues with the CBD market both in bad claims about what CBD can/will do, and bad claims about the actual content of CBD product.

That's not a reflection on CBD itself.

Texas specifically is working on adding legal requirements around purity testing and what claims can be made. While there's a downside of cost I think that strategy is the most worthwhile.

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