I increasingly feel sort of isolated in my concerns about this sort of thing and how they are framed, and what it says about the power of the FDA and problems it might lead to in other areas.<p>I think homeopathy is nonsense really, has no scientific evidence in its support, and makes no physical or biological sense.<p>At the same time, I believe if someone wants to place such products on their shelves, they should be able to. In my opinion it doesn't matter if there is <i>any</i> placebo effect, or any effect of any kind, as long as the contents are correctly labeled and are uncontaminated.<p>The lead-up in this piece is misleading. Yes, there have been problems with a number of eye drop products. But — and this is critical — those products were not homeopathic, and still had problems. That is, the homeopathic nature of the products was irrelevant to their safety.<p>So now we're in a situation where, instead of aggressively pursuing eyedrop contamination in general, the FDA is focusing on the putative purpose of the eyedrops, which has nothing to do with the underlying problem.<p>Meanwhile, we're facing ongoing problems with contaminated generic medications, that have been going on for years or even the scale of decades even (it's turned into an interesting exercise, Google "Indian generic medication" at any random time of any year and see what the latest scandal is; e.g., <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-04-04/big-pharma-india-s-drug-industry-needs-a-major-overhaul" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-04-04/big-ph...</a>). These scandals, in contrast to homeopathy, seem to get slaps on the wrist from the FDA without any dramatic calls for complete market removal, because they somehow fit in the schema for science-based medicine. Homeopathic products with no evidence of active harm must be removed from the market because they have no efficacy, but tainted medications that are killing people or landing them in the hospital year after year are ok.<p>Homeopathy and the FDA is an odd topic for me, because although I think homeopathy is completely unscientific nonsense, by the same token I also suspect it shouldn't be actively harmful unless there's a different problem, which should really be the focus. I guess I have problems with an agency regulating with reference to intended purpose rather than purity and safety, because for me there's a direct line from that to a failed drug wars, lack of access to needed medications due to overregulation, treatment protocols lacking in scientific or ethical rigor that become de facto standards, and inequities in medical care.<p>I was expecting an article about how the FDA found homeopathic eye drops in particular as a class of eye drops to be systemically contaminated, and how they were going to pull them off the market until manufacturers complied with safety inspections. But that's not what I found at all.<p>Put it a different way: what is the <i>actual safety</i> concern about these eyedrops? Is it about the homeopathy, or contamination? Is it possible for homeopathy per se to be unsafe? Which, then, should be the real focus of the FDA?