Don’t assume homeopathy, unregulated by the FDA, is safe. In some cases, the homeopathic medicine does contain traceable amounts of the original medicinal substance. Consider the case of Zicam, a homeopathic cold remedy pulled from the market in 2009 after reports of users permanently losing their sense of smell.
Zicam is 2X, making it a 1-percent solution. A dose of Zicam contains more than 100 microliters of solution, and 1 percent of that is zinc gluconate.
Zinc substances have been known for decades to cause hyposmia, a reduced ability to smell, and anosmia, a loss of smell. In regards to zinc gluconate, a study published in 2009 in PLoS ONE summed it up with the damning title “Zicam-Induced Damage to Mouse and Human Nasal Tissue.” A 2010 study in the journal Archives of Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery concluded “clinical, biological and experimental data … demonstrate that intranasal zinc gluconate therapy causes hyposmia and anosmia.”
Similarly, in 2010, the Japanese government began investigating deaths of babies resulting from homeopathic treatment instead of real medicine. Deaths included babies born with a vitamin K deficiency, whose mothers’ midwives administered a homeopathic treatment instead of the much-needed vitamin K injection, well known to prevent hemorrhaging. The infants died from bleeding in the skull.
