Posts Tagged ‘pharmacy practice’
From ethicist Dr. Chris MacDonald, a column on Rexall’s recent advertisements promoting homeopathy: The problem, of course, is there’s no reliable evidence that homeopathy works, nor any plausible reason to think that it even could work. In commercial contexts, that’s pretty bad. And it’s worse still when the company selling the stuff is a company […]
Filed under: articles | 2 Comments
Tags: ethics, health fraud, homeopathy, pharmacy practice, rexall
The other day a parent asked me if she could give her 2-year-old Tylenol liquid along with some cough syrup she had purchased at the pharmacy. I was a bit surprised, as cough and cold products for young children have been pulled from pharmacy shelves for a few years given their lack of efficacy and […]
Filed under: articles | 12 Comments
Tags: ethics, homeopathy, pharmacy practice
Jimmy Wales, the cofounder of Wikipedia, was given some bad advice by a pharmacy: Last week I was in a pharmacy (chemist) in London just around the corner from my apartment there. I had a sore throat and cough and wanted to buy some soothing cough drops. I did, buying a brand that contains benzocaine. […]
Filed under: articles | 5 Comments
Tags: homeopathy, pharmacy ethics, pharmacy practice
I’ve been calling on pharmacies to stop selling homeopathy since my very first post, almost (gulp) four years ago. Despite looking like medication, homeopathy is an “alternative” medicine system invented in the 1800′s which rejects established facts about biochemistry, physics, and pharmacology. If homeopathy works, then the rest of medicine we rely on could not […]
Filed under: updates | 16 Comments
Tags: homeopathy, pharmacy practice
For a blog established to examine the role of science in pharmacy practice, I’ve given a disproportionate amount of attention to homeopathy. Which is frustrating, because homeopathy is not something that pharmacists, or the pharmacy profession, should even need to discuss. Unlike herbal remedies, and some supplements, there isn’t even any science to discuss. As […]
Filed under: articles | 18 Comments
Tags: health canada, homeopathy, natural health products directorate, pharmacy ethics, pharmacy practice, pharmacy regulation, university of Toronto
It’s on almost every pharmacy’s shelves. I’ve written at length about the problems with homeopathy in pharmacies. In fact, it was the subject of my very first post, over three years ago, where I described how homeopathy is an elaborate placebo system, with “remedies” that contain no active ingredients. Homeopathy was “invented” in the late […]
Filed under: articles | 18 Comments
Tags: homeopathy, pharmacy practice, pharmacy regulation
Today’s post is a guest contribution from a Canadian pharmacist who is writing under the pseudonym Sara Russell: For several years after graduating from pharmacy school, when I’d answer the question “What do you do for a living?”, it would be met with responses like “Good for you!”, “You must be so smart!” or simply […]
Filed under: commentary | 9 Comments
Tags: pharmacy practice
Thanks to Andy Lewis of the excellent Le Canard Noir who flagged this pharmacist opportunity: The Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine is hiring a pharmacist. Normally pharmacist positions don’t justify blog posts – but this is a unique pharmacy. Until recently, this was the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital. Yes, the United Kingdom’s National Health […]
Filed under: articles | 6 Comments
Tags: cargo cult pharmacy, homeopathy, integrative medicine, integrative pharmacy, national health service, pharmacy practice
Imagine your pharmacy features a blood pressure measurement device. It has never worked correctly. Sometimes it give incorrect high results, suggesting hypertension. In other patients it misses hypertension completely. You’ve been advised by hypertension experts that this particular model isn’t accurate and shouldn’t be offered to consumers. Despite this, you continue to promote it to […]
Filed under: articles | 26 Comments
Tags: cmaj, food allergy, food intolerance tests, food sensitivity, foodscan, hemocode, IgG blood tests, metro morning, naturopath, naturopathy, pharmacy ethics, pharmacy practice, rexall, yorktest
It Takes a Village – Skepticism in this Small Town
In my last post, I introduced myself as a pharmacist in a small-ish town, eager to combat the growing acceptance of pseudoscience into the mainstream. I love living where I live for a multitude of reasons. But I’ve found it rather challenging to wave the flag of skepticism. I have no problem displaying my preference […]
Filed under: commentary, guest post | 34 Comments
Tags: fluoride, pharmacy practice, public health, skepticism