Ever been skeptical of symptom relief claims made by medicine made of things like crushed bees or poison ivy?  It seems you are not alone–the FTC is skeptical too, and a recent FTC announcement may leave marketers scrambling to change the claims made on homeopathic drugs.

Homeopathy, dating to the 1700s, is based on the theory that disease symptoms can be treated by minute doses of substances that produce similar symptoms when provided in larger doses to healthy people.  While many people believe in these remedies, the efficacy claims for these products are generally not supported by modern scientific methods and are generally not accepted by modern medical experts.

Last week, the FTC released an Enforcement Policy Statement on Marketing Claims for OTC Homeopathic Drugs.  In the statement, the FTC provided specific guidelines for marketing the efficacy of homeopathic remedies.  The FTC acknowledged it has historically not pursued many enforcement actions against homeopathic marketers, but stressed that the same rules apply to marketing homeopathic drugs as other health-related products, and indicated its lax enforcement may be a thing of the past.

Generally, an advertiser is required to have adequate substantiation for any claim, but the substantiation that qualifies as "adequate" is more demanding for health-related claims.  For health-related claims, an advertiser must have "competent and reliable scientific evidence" to support the claim.  And for claims that a product can treat or prevent a disease or its symptoms, the FTC has required support in the form of well-designed human clinical testing.  This is a real problem for homeopathic drugs—most have absolutely no scientific support for their treatment claims (let alone the human clinical testing required).

So what is a marketer to do – how can you identify what the homeopathic drug supposedly treats without saying (expressly or implicitly) that it is effective at doing so?  After all, for the vast majority of homeopathic drugs, the case for efficacy is based solely on traditional homeopathic theories and there are no valid studies using current scientific methods showing the product's efficacy.  So just making a treatment claim could violate the regulations.  The answer according to the FTC: disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer.

The FTC is recommending that homeopathic drug marketing include disclaimers that consist of at least two components: (1) a statement that there is no scientific evidence that the product works and (2) a statement that the treatment claims are based only on theories of homeopathy from the 1700s that are not accepted by most modern medical experts.  And it is not enough to put these disclaimers in the fine print.  As stated by the FTC any disclaimer "should stand out and be in close proximity to the efficacy message; to be effective, it may actually need to be incorporated into the efficacy message."  The FTC also warns against marketers attempting to spin this into a positive; says the FTC: "Marketers should not undercut such qualifications with additional positive statements or consumer endorsements reinforcing a product's efficacy."

The FTC's new guidance helps define clear rules and puts marketers on notice of the pitfalls of marketing homeopathic products.  If in doubt about whether a advertising message is misleading, consider consulting an attorney and obtaining consumer surveys to ensure the advertisement is clear and not misleading.

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