June 23, 2009 In the United States, there are “drugs” and there
are “dietary supplements.” Each are chemicals intended to
improve your health, but they are held to very different
standards of regulation: Before drugs can be sold, a company
must prove to the Food and Drug Administration that their
product is safe and effective. Dietary supplements, meanwhile,
do not need approval from the FDA before they are marketed;
companies do not need to prove that these substances are safe or
effective before they are sold. If a supplement proves harmful,
though, the FDA can ban the substance, like it did with ephedra
in 2006. The Zicam warning issued last week by the FDA reveals a
little-known third class of chemicals marketed for your
health—homeopathic drugs. These are technically drugs, but they
do not have to go through the long approval process; they
receive automatic approval from the FDA as long as the
Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia Convention of the United States adds
the substance to their list. No long trials, no s