US weighs crackdown on homeopathic remedies over 'significant safety issues'

Hearings to conclude on Tuesday into whether reported concerns including loss of sense of smell are cause for greater regulation of booming industry

Sceptics consider homeopathy a joke, a bogus science that belongs in a punchline, not a pharmacy - but US government regulators are suddenly taking it seriously.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is holding public hearings this week to explore whether it should toughen oversight of what has become a controversial, billion-dollar branch of the healthcare industry.