Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Good riddance to bad rubbish
One week ago, the FDA issued a warning regarding three Zicam products: Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Gel; Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Swabs; and Zicam Cold Remedy Swabs, kids size. The long overdue warning stems from the FDA receiving 130 reports of anosmia (loss of the sense of smell) since 1999. (You can count on that 130 number being the tip of the iceberg; our legal friends are interested in finding others who have been similarly affected.)
Because homeopathic products are regulated in a similar fashion to dietary supplements and not as drugs, prior FDA approval was not required for the Zicam “remedies.” But Zicam is more than a homeopathic treatment — it contains hefty amounts of zinc gluconate, which might be the culprit in these cases of anosmia.
While I’m not a huge fan of the FDA, I do think the loophole for dietary supplements and homeopathic products is ridiculous. These things get marketed as remedies, so they should be subjected to the same standard of proof as any other medication. Homeopathic agents have escaped this level of scrutiny because we docs tend to view them as placebos — sugar pills — which they often are. You see, the idea behind homeopathy is this: poisons which cause particular symptoms can, in diluted form, be used to treat diseases that have those same symptoms. The dilutions are usually so extreme that none of the poison’s molecules remain. No matter — that compound’s vibrations (or whatever) are still present. Spray this on lactose beads and you have yourself a cure.
Yup. Lactose. Milk sugar.
So, yes, we’ve winked at homeopathy all these years because we figured that snake oil salesmen will always be among us; better that our patients take a sugar pill than some tonic that might do them some harm. But this Zicam story makes me question that belief.
The AP story is worth reading, as is the excellent Quackwatch article, which includes the math demonstrating that not a single molecule of the original substance remains after a typical number of homeopathic dilutions.
What I learned on The Colbert Report tonight: Zicam is one of Rush Limbaugh’s big sponsors. Watch it here.
D.
I was never a big fan of that sort of thing. I figured it you took aenough of something for it to ‘cure’ you, then you took enough for it to affect you, and that could be bad.
You placed this in the category ‘sex’, and one wonders why.
However, I completely agree with you. It is strange that we require rigorous testing of medications, yet allow ‘natural’ products to make the same claims of efficacy without meeting the same tests. Or meeting the same safety requirements. St John’s wort springs to mind here.
My ex wife is a big health food nut (which is weird for a number of reasons) but she isn’t any healthier for spending however many hundreds of dollars she spends on plants ground up and put into little capsules.
Noxcat: Oh, I don’t know . . . even meds with horrific side effects have their uses when it comes to saving a life. But for the common cold? People should know better.
Dean: another one that comes to mind is kava, a root marketed as (among other things) a sleeper, which would sometimes cause liver failure. Kava has been used by Pacific islanders for hundreds of years (perhaps longer), so who knows where the truth lies. Genetic differences between Polynesians and Europeans? Dosage differences (islanders used it as a tea, while the root was sold in the US in powder form, in capsules)? Rare side effect hitherto unnoticed among Pacific islanders?
It’s a shame no one has worked it out yet — the stuff worked wonders for my insomnia.
Herbal remedies are big in Europe (Bach flowers?) and I’ve done a number myself (St. John’s Wort, Valerian, and some other antidepressant stuff). My concern is that the stuff isn’t subject to the same processing and quality regulations (I used to work for Abbott Labs in manufacturing and they have to comply with a lot of regs to make sure that dosages are consistent, there aren’t any contaminants), whereas regular medicine is. If I’m taking a certain dose of St. John’s Wort, I want to know that the next box of capsules I buy will have the same amount of the effective ingredient.
So no need for all the clinical tests for herbal stuff, but a definite need for manufacturing consistency and quality. On the other hand, the herbal stuff contains active ingredients that can interact with medications, so maybe more regulation is needed.