Suzanne White Junod, Ph.D.

I. Introduction Since 1938, lawyers, doctors, homeopaths, historians, and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials have questioned the inclusion of the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States (HPUS) in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA). [1] The FDCA defines drug in a number of ways, the simplest being: “articles recognized in the official United States Pharmacopeia, the official Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States, or the official National Formulary or any supplement to any of them.” [2] Many wonder why a new law that established the first premarketing scrutiny of new drugs, stimulated important new scientific advances in drug discovery, and offered the first glimpses of patient protection policies, simultaneously recognize such a seemingly regressive system of drug therapy as homeopathy [3]. Originally …