Those who can make you believe in absurdities can convert that belief into financial instruments with a significant cash value
By 
Steve Lubet reminded me this morning that Scott and I have engaged in a certain amount of informal and indirect debate on the very difficult scientific question of who is the dumbest current US senator, with Ron Johnson (R-Cheeselandia) and Tommy Tuberville (R-SEC) both putting forth their bona fides on numerous occasions.
Well Tuberville has just made a really strong move, with some help from Mike Lee:
Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Tommy Tuberville (R- AL) have recently introduced a bill that would limit the FDA’s ability to regulate the blatant pseudoscience of homeopathy. This is how they frame it: “The Homeopathic Drug Product Safety, Quality, and Transparency Act will provide a pathway for homeopathic medicinal products to be lawfully marketed by the Food and Drug Administration without needlessly banning safe products that simply do not fit into the same legal categories as traditional pharmaceuticals.”
They are promoting this bit of malfeasance with the usual tropes:
“Americans have a right to manage their own health and choose treatments that are right for them, including homeopathic methods,” said Senator Mike Lee. “The current federal regulatory framework is designed around traditional pharmaceuticals, but it is ill-equipped to review the safety and effectiveness of homeopathic products.
“I’ve long been an advocate for homeopathic medicine,” said Senator Tommy Tuberville. “The reality is that too many Americans today are hooked on pharmaceuticals when they could be using homeopathic remedies, which are often cheaper and can yield miraculous results.”
How did we get here?
Selling a product to the public that demonstrably does not work with claims that it does work is, quite simply, fraud. So why is this allowed at all? Partly because of a US Senator who was a homeopath, Royal S. Copeland (D-NY), who is responsible for creating the current framework in which the FDA regulates homeopathic products. Essentially homeopathy is in its own category, and does not require evidence for safety or efficacy. The FDA decided that homeopathy was too small a market to waste their limited resources on so they just accepted the homeopathic pharmacopoeia as a list of approved products – no evidence required.
However, in 2019 the FDA reviewed its regulation of homeopathy because of the growing industry, and they did strengthen their regulations (although not nearly enough). Mainly they required greater scrutiny of manufacturing for safety and quality concerns, while still ignoring the complete lack of any effectiveness. Meanwhile the FTC changed its regulations requiring more transparency in labeling – again, good but not far enough.
Royal S. Copeland sounds like somebody who is ripe for one of Erik’s grave visits, as I had never heard of him. Note too that some tentative steps toward doing something about the homeopathic fraud took place in the federal administrative agency bureaucracy during the first Trump administration.
Religious nut job extraordinaire Russell Vought is in charge now, to help make sure that no mistakes of that kind are allowed to happen this time around.
. . . As a Wolverine! all I can say is UGH:
He graduated in 1889 from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor with a degree in medicine.[2] After graduate studies in Europe, Copeland practiced medicine in Bay City, Michigan, from 1890 to 1895.[2] Copeland was admitted to the Homeopathy Society of Michigan on May 21, 1890, and was made secretary of the society in October 1893.[2] He was a professor of Ophthalmology and Otology in the University of Michigan Medical School’s Homeopathic Department from 1895 until 1908.[2]