Zicam Not Alone in Side Effect Reports

Homeopathy sprang from the inventive -- some would say fanciful -- mind of German physician and chemist Samuel Hahnemann in the late 1700s. Experimenting on himself, he became convinced that if an ingredient causes a symptom in a healthy person, it will treat the disease that causes the same symptom. He also theorized that diluting ingredients to minuscule, even untraceable, concentrations paradoxically makes them more powerful.

To this day, homeopaths put forth mystical-sounding explanations involving "vital force" and "healing energy." And with arcane ingredients like "nux vomica" and "arsenicum album," many homeopathic medicines sound like something brewed in a druid's kettle.

In 1938, Congress passed a law granting homeopathic remedies the same legal status as regular pharmaceuticals. The law's principal author was Sen. Royal Copeland of New York, a trained homeopath. "He did it in such a sneaky way that nobody really noticed or paid attention," says medical author Natalie Robins.

And that law has remained in force ever since.

Almost reduced to obsolescence in the United States, homeopathic remedies have revived in recent decades with the burst of interest in vitamins, herbs and other unconventional treatments. Since 2002, the U.S. homeopathic remedy market exploded by 89 percent to an estimated $830 million last year, according to market research company Mintel. By 2007, homeopathic remedies were taken by almost 4 million Americans, or 2 percent of adults, federal data show.

Pharmacist Albert Lavender, retired deputy director of the FDA's unit overseeing drug labels, calls it "a big fraud" on the consumer.