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Unabridged version
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Despite the fact that there are over 300 clinical trials published in peer review medical journals, the U.S. government's Federal Trade Commission1 (FTC) has deemed homeopathic medicine to be unproven scientifically. This governmental agency will now require manufacturers of homeopathic medicines to provide the following two statements in their marketing of over-the-counter homeopathic medicines: (1) there is no scientific evidence that the product works and (2) the product's claims are based only on theories of homeopathy from the 1700s that are not accepted by most modern medical experts.
Obvious evidence of the FTC's bias in this ruling is that the word "homeopathy" was not even coined until 1805, and the founder of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann, MD, did not write his first book on the subject until 1810. The first homeopath to come to the USA wasn't until 1825. And yet, the FTC asserts that homeopathy is based on theories from the 1700s?
 The fact that the FTC is not being honest or accurate on historical facts will lead anyone to question whether they are honest or accurate in their assessment of homeopathic research. In actual fact, research showing the efficacy of homeopathic medicines have been published in many of the most respected medical journals in the world, including The Lancet,2,3 BMJ,4,5 Chest6 (the publication of the American College of Chest Physicians), Rheumatology7 (the publication of the British Society for Rheumatology), Pediatrics8(publication of the American Academy of Pediatrics), Cancer9 (journal of the American Cancer Society), Pediatrics Infectious Disease Journal10 (publication of the European Society of Pediatric Infectious Diseases), European Journal of Pediatrics11(publication of the Swiss Society of Pediatrics and the Belgium Society of Pediatrics), and numerous others. And yet, the FTC insists that there is "no scientific evidence" that homeopathy works? Really, none?
It should also be noted that the prestigious World Health Organization (WHO) has deemed France to have the BEST health care in the world. It is therefore important to note that according to a recent survey published in the respected medical journal, Family Practice,12 95% of French pediatricians, dermatologists, and general practitioners use homeopathic medicines. Further, 43% of all health and medical professionals prescribed at least one homeopathic medicine in a 12-month period. And ALL of these statistics were gathered from the government's prescription records, making this data precise and accurate. The practice and usage of homeopathic medicine is also substantial in Germany, Italy, Netherlands, India, Pakistan, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina. And yet, homeopathy is "not accepted by most modern experts?" Is there absolutely no respect for minority schools of thought in medicine for the first time in medical history? Is conventional medicine so perfect that it can only allow for medical treatments that a majority of medical experts accept? Or…are there efforts influenced by Big Pharma to reduce competition in health care?
To be clear, the work of the FTC is vital for consumer protection; but it is clear that this governmental agency is ignoring important scientific evidence, and one must wonder if they are protecting Big Pharma from competition more than protecting the consumer.
To understand how and why the F.T.C. has such obvious bias against homeopathy (and various alternatives to Big Pharma), it is helpful to know something about history…and then, to learn something about the body of scientific evidence that presently exists for homeopathic medicines.
History of Attacks Against Homeopathy
Due to the impressive successes that physicians found from homeopathic medicines in the treatment of severe infectious disease epidemics in the 19th century, homeopathy grew so rapidly that the American Institute of Homeopathy was established as this country's first national medical organization in 1844. A rival medical organization was formed just two years later asserting that one of the reasons for their formation was to slow the growth of homeopathy. That organization called itself the American Medical Association.
 Homeopathy continued to grow in America in the 19th century and was called "the new school," while conventional medicine was deemed to be "the old school." By the early 20th century, there were 20 homeopathic medical schools in America, including Boston University, University of Michigan, Ohio State University, University of Minnesota, Hahnemann Medical College, and even the University of Iowa.
At the turn into the 20th century, George Simmons became the new President of the American Medical Association, and he devised a brilliant plan to make the AMA rich and powerful. Simmons created the AMA's "Seal of Approval on Drugs." To get this award, drug manufacturers did not require ANY evidence on safety or efficacy of drugs. Instead, the drug-maker simply needed to divulge the ingredients of their drug (an important consumer protection) AND, more importantly, they were required to pay for advertisements in EVERY local, regional, and national AMA publications (a legal form of bribery). This "collaboration" between the AMA and Big Pharma led to a significant increase in membership in the increasingly rich AMA, growing from 8,000 members in 1900 to over 70,000 members in 1910.
The "collaboration" between Big Pharma and government has been substantial in the 20th century and even more so in the 21st century. In fact, for the past couple of decades, Big Pharma has spent almost 50% more (!) in lobbying politicians than the closest industry13 (the insurance industry). When you take this fact into account and then realize that Big Pharma spends its greatest amounts of advertising dollars for TV news programs, you can see and understand Big Pharma's strategy to "own" the news and politicians. This strategy has worked too well.
Evidence of serious corporate shenanigans on health products is just beginning to be uncovered. According to the British Medical Journal,14 recently uncovered evidence has verified the extraordinary extent to which key public health experts at the Center for Disease Control (CDC) have been influenced by big money given by the sugar industry to take any blame away from sugar for today's obesity epidemic.
Verifying additional problems at the CDC, Dr. William Thompson, a senior scientist at the CDC has obtained whistleblower status after he admitted to falsifying research to show that there is no correlation between vaccination and autism when, in fact, his research actually showed that there was a correlation between vaccination and the autism rate in all children and was found to be 250% higher in black children than those children not vaccinated.15 Yet, CDC Director Tom Frieden16 has attempted to block Thompson from testifying in a civil hearing asserting, "Dr. William Thompson's deposition testimony would not substantially promote the objectives of CDC or HHS [Health and Human Services]."
According to Robert Kennedy Jr. one of the key people in this cover-up at the CDC is Dr. Colleen Boyle who is the Director of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, one of the CDC's centers that evaluate autism rates. This same scientist was previously found to have orchestrated the cover-up of Agent Orange and dioxin toxicity in the 1970s; and rather than punish her, she was rewarded with a plum position that enabled her to cover-up the vaccine-autism connection.17
Needless to say, the media has repeatedly asserted that there is "no connection between vaccines and autism"; and yet, the media has carefully avoided reporting on this whistleblower case. Recent reports about serious levels of anxiety from employees at the CDC18 are well-founded because the Trump administration may be more forthright in investigating corporate and scientific fraud. Trump has expressed his support for vaccines but has also expressed direct concern about the inadequacy of safety studies on them.
The additional reason that issue of vaccines is discussed here is that Americans do not know that there are virtually no double-blind and placebo controlled studies that show that vaccines are safe. The few times that vaccine research has used a "placebo," they do not place pathogens in the placebo but they actually still insert mercury or aluminum adjuvants in the placebo, thereby destroying the ability for real scientific evaluation of safety from these neurotoxins. Even one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, the Cochrane Collaboration,19 has acknowledged that the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine research on safety is "largely inadequate." And yet, Big Pharma spins the fact that there are so few real tests for safety to mean that "vaccines are safe." (When you don't really test with a real placebo, you cannot evaluate safety issues.) To make matters worse, not only are vaccines allowed to be marketed despite the paucity of safety evidence, several states are now making them mandatory for children who wish to attend public or private schools.
As important as regulatory agencies are for consumer protection, it is disturbing how much corporate involvement has influenced these governmental agencies. Instead of providing consumer protection, there seems to be much more corporate protection, and it seems obvious that Americans want a serious change from this corporate swamp.
This discussion about the swamp surrounding vaccine research and governmental agencies is provided here because there is also a swamp surrounding homeopathic and natural medicines and regulatory agencies.
Homeopathic Research
Additional obvious bias was evidenced when the FTC's ruling cited old and incorrect information asserting that homeopathic medicine is "so diluted that no single molecule of the original substance remains." In actual fact, an important study in 2010 was published in the famed journal, Langmuir20(published by the American Chemistry Society), that verified that six different homeopathic medicine were found to have nanoparticles of the original medicinal agents even after they were diluted 1:100 two-hundred times and this fact was confirmed by three different types of spectroscopy. Further, the nanodoses that remained in water were, according to Archives in Internal Medicine,21comparable to the nanodoses to which many common hormones and cell-signaling agents are known to operate. Based on this research, anyone who says that there are "no active ingredients" or "no molecules" in homeopathic medicines are basing such assertions on disproven theories, not scientifically verified facts.
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