Walmart and CVS face lawsuit for putting fake homeopathic products next to real drugs

Enlarge Getty | Jeff Greenberg

Pharmacy giants CVS and Walmart will face lawsuits for claiming that placing ineffective homeopathic products alongside legitimate over-the-counter medications on store shelves is misleading consumers making people believe that pseudoscientific products are akin to evidence-based, Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs.

The claims come from the nonprofit Center for Inquiry (CFI), which filed nearly identical lawsuits against CVS and Walmart in 2018 and 2019, respectively, in an attempt to permanently boot homeopathic products from drugstore aisles. CFI claimed that the deceptive placement of the water-based products violated the District of Columbia's Consumer Protection Procedures Act (CPPA).

Two lower courts initially dismissed the lawsuits. But, in a unanimous decision last week, a three-judge panel of the District of Columbia's highest court overturned the dismissals in a consolidated appeal, allowing the lawsuits to move forward.

The CFI may need more evidence to prevail at trial, Senior Judge Phyllis Thompson wrote on behalf of the panel. "But, at this point, we cannot say that it is implausible that a reasonable consumer would understand [CVS and Walgreen's] placement of homeopathic products alongside science-based drugs as a representation that homeopathic products are effective or are equivalent alternatives to the FDA-approved over-the-counter drugs beside which they are displayed."

Dangerous dilutions

As longtime readers of Ars know, homeopathy is a demystified pseudoscience that deals with toxic substances meant to be diluted into oblivion. The practice is based on two absurd concepts: that a toxic substance that produces the same symptoms as a disease can be used to cure that disease (as cures as); and that the therapeutic potency of a substance increases with increasingly ritualistic dilution, even far beyond the point where not a single atom of the starting substance remains (law of infinitesimals). In fact, some homeopaths believe that water molecules may have a "memory" of substances.

At best, homeopathic products are aqueous placebos. At worst, they are badly diluted poisonous potions. The latter is not only hypothetical. In 2017, the FDA confirmed high levels of the toxic substance belladonna (deadly nightshade) in homeopathic teething products intended for infants. The FDA finding follows reports of 10 infant deaths and more than 400 product-related illnesses.

Enlarge / A homeopathic product that hides on a CVS shelf alongside real medicine. CFI As such, consumer and advocacy groups, such as CFI, have long opposed the sale of homeopathic products. And the CFI does not mince its words. "Homeopathy is hogwash," the organization wrote of its lawsuit against Walmart. "All the evidence shows that it doesn't work on any level...