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#1 |
The Grammar Tyrant
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 21,540
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Pharmacists: Hang Your Heads in Shame!
It has long seemed to me that pharmacists must carry much of the blame for the proliferation of non-scientific, pseudo-medical products and services.
Every pharamacy I even deal with sells enormous amounts of products that clash violently with the idea of the science-based medicine they're actually there to dispense. This week, I've been dealing with a woman who was employed by a pharmacy as the homeopathic remedy salesperson. One of her causes for concern is that other people are selling homeopathic remedies without checking with her first, and that could be dangerous for people! The struggle to tell her that you could safely prescribe the entire stock to someone and guarantee no side-effects apart from the volume just about had me rupturing myself. Yet, in the cold light of science and reason, the owners of the pharmacy are simply selling out for the money, despite the fact that their own training tells them this stuff is bollocks. To my mind, if we want to make progress in combating the myth of alternative medicine, the first step needs to be from pharmacists, who taint the entire scientific medical community in pursuit of a few extra dollars. |
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#2 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: In the woods
Posts: 1,929
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Where there is demand there will always be supply. Are doctors prescribing homeopathic "medication"? Or do the pharmacies keep it in supply because idiotic customers request/purchase it. Either way, a homeopathic remedy salesperson must be the easiest occupation in the world.
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#3 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 31,691
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Pharmacies aren't there to dispense science-based medicine.
They're there to dispense whatever medicine people want. They dispense a lot of science-based medicine because it turns out a lot of people want that. But not everyone. Some people want something else. And pharmacies are there for them, too. Yes, pharmacies are complicit in some of the woo that pervades their societies. But they're pretty far down my list of people to hold responsible for woo. |
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#4 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Sep 2012
Posts: 1,163
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Every time I go to pick up a prescription, I scour the shelves just to find a woo product to complain about but I never find any. I need to live where you lot live.
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#5 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 21,526
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But she is not a pharmacist. Your thread title attacks pharmacists.
In America, none of the prescription medications sold by pharmacists are homeopathic. The pharmacist may not own the pharmacy. The owner may want homeopathics sold there even if the pharmacist would not want that. |
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#6 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 31,691
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#7 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 11,630
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Yep. They usually just work there. My nearest pharmacy also sells Lego, princess costumes, and vinyl records.
However, there's a few pharmacist-owned pharmacies around, and I think it might be appropriate to direct criticism at them. One of the nationally known Canadian skeptics is a pharmacist, he is frequently criticizing his peers over exactly this. Scott Gavura. He and a couple of colleagues run a blog: [science-based pharmacy] |
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"Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness." - Terry Pratchett |
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#8 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 31,691
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It's a win-win proposition for the owner.
"This side of the store is where we make money off all the people who want scientific medicine... And this side of the store is where we make money off all the people who want homeopathic tea." |
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#9 |
Quester of Doglets
Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 1,462
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I would preach caution here.
It has recently come to my attention that some products which are sold as "homeophathic" actually do contain ingredients, and in some cases, quite dangerous ingredients. Unless you live somewhere where the term "homeopathic" is strictly controlled I don't think you can rely on the products having no ingredients. |
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We would be better, and braver, to engage in enquiry, rather than indulge in the idle fancy, that we already know -- Plato. |
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#10 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 11,630
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I recall a show called Grace Under Fire where Dave Thomas' character ([Doug McKenzie] Dave Thomas - not the Wendy's Dave Thomas) is a pharmacist that refers to his altmed aisle as "the profit center."
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"Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness." - Terry Pratchett |
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#12 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 11,630
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"Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness." - Terry Pratchett |
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#13 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: The Great Northwet
Posts: 20,031
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It's not the actual pharmacists, of course, but their employers. Who care at a homeopathic level whether a product is actually useful as long as they make a buck.
Note this quote from the OP:
Quote:
Oh, and in the USA, labeling laws are so weak that you can call any damn thing "homeopathic" and get away with it. Zicam has a 1X concentration of one zinc compound and 1C of another. That's 10% and 1%, respectively. |
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#14 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 5,053
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Franklin understands certain kickbacks you obtain unfairly are legal liabilities; however, a risky deed's almost never detrimental despite extra external pressures. |
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#15 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 21,526
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Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
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#16 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: The Great Northwet
Posts: 20,031
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They are, after all, carrots.
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#17 |
I would save the receptionist.
Moderator Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Florida
Posts: 26,060
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Once several years ago, I took a homeopathic product off the shelf in a Walgreens and asked the pharmacist about it. He flat out told me it was worthless. So, be kind of careful with the word "pharmacy." In the US, the pharmacy with its professional pharmacist is a separate entity inside the "pharmacy" or, I guess, sundries shop. Besides, whatever homeopathic crap they're selling barely rates next to their sale of cigarettes. Focus on that. |
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#18 |
Thinker
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 193
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#19 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Mesa, AZ
Posts: 4,963
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This is correct. "homeopathic" in marketing is often used as an umbrella term that includes herbals, naturopathics, and homeopathics proper.
The item may contain active ingredients in efficacious proportions. And I've seen some very questionable ingredients that really ought not to be available without at least a doctor's permission. The last place I worked at as a pharmacy tech was a supermarket (Kroger). There were lots of over the counter items as supplements and so-called "natural remedies." The pharmacist had no say in what was on the store shelves, not even the regional store pharmacy coordinator. If there's a demand for such a stupid product as Airborn," the store carries it. |
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"At the Supreme Court level where we work, 90 percent of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons for supporting our predilections." Justice William O. Douglas "Humans aren't rational creatures but rationalizing creatures." Author Unknown |
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#20 |
Nasty Woman
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 71,563
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I was looking for zinc lozenges last fall when I had a URI (some evidence, not conclusive and not harmful before anyone gives me grief about zinc for a cold). I didn't see the homeopathy label on Zicam and took it up to the pharmacist to ask what 1X translated to in milligrams. He said there is no way to know what is in the stuff because it was homeopathy.
I blame Walgreen's and Bartell's for selling the stuff but the pharmacists don't seem to be doing much to educate their employers. |
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Restore checks and balances no matter your party affiliation. |
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#21 |
In the Peanut Gallery
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 43,018
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Some positive news from Australia. Health Insurance Funds included "natural" remedies amongst services they funded. A lot of them have been dropped from their schedules. They still fund marginal treatments like chiropracty, but some progress at least.
More relevant to the OP, Blackmores is a huge "supplement" provider, with homeopathic treatments galore. They take up massive shelf space in our pharmacies. |
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A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. Sir Winston Churchill |
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#22 |
The Grammar Tyrant
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 21,540
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I'm 100% confident it's demand driven - they are catering to morons who buy it.
I don't believe that's a reasonable stance for a health professional to take. In a tie with colour healing. The person who employed her is. That's good, but do any of their shops sell them? In NZ, they do, with few exceptions and this isn't one of them. They haven't ever sold them in NZ. Also, cigarettes aren't in any way unscientific - they work fine, as life expectancy of smokers shows quite neatly. |
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#23 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Nelson, New Zealand
Posts: 10,384
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By Law, all pharmacies in New Zealand must be owned by pharmacists
http://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/r...ip-and-control
Quote:
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As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. - Henry Louis Mencken - Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920 |
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#24 |
Muse
Join Date: Jul 2016
Location: Purgatory, PA
Posts: 751
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I always wonder why people are so quick to attack the selling of cigarettes but not that they sell alcohol.
Anyway, at least in my part of the USA, the mass majority of pharmacies are not pharmacist owned. Only a small handful of mom and pop shops are still pharmacist owned. From the sounds of it, it you ask the pharmacist about something from the "profit isle", they tell you it's rubbish. I still feel that the fault lies in laziness of people to not educate themselves on these things and just take a commercial as gospel. |
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#25 |
Hyperthetical
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: A pocket paradise between the sewage treatment plant and the railroad
Posts: 14,490
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The pharmacy stores in my area also sell board games for kids that kids will not enjoy, makeup products that will not make anyone using them more beautiful, greeting cards that belittle rather than celebrate the recipient and/or the intended occasion of the greeting, magazines full of recipes that few buyers will actually attempt and for those few will not come out looking like the picture on the cover, lottery tickets that deepen buyers' impoverishment, and snacks and soft drinks that will enhance rather than ameliorate ones craving for snacks and soft drinks.
Most of the many shortcomings of our health systems arise ultimately from being components of a consumerist society that expects happiness and health to be things that are for sale. |
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#26 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
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Posts: 78,464
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#27 |
Fiend God
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#28 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 21,526
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Maybe the pharmacist is selling the homeopathics as a way of generating extra income to put his kids through college. But homeopathy is a scam and he should make extra money in other ways. He could just double the prices of his prescription medications. That would work.
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#29 |
Fiend God
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#30 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Dec 2008
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#31 |
Show me the monkey!
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#32 |
Fiend God
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#33 |
Master Poster
Join Date: Jun 2006
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#34 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: The Great Northwet
Posts: 20,031
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According to the rules of homeopathy, 1X means 10%. Which is far from what's usually considered homeopathic. Zicam's nasal spray had to be removed from the market because it contained so much zinc people were permanently losing their sense of smell.
Most here in the USA are owned by large corporations. If they can make a buck selling fake medicine, booze, and tobacco, they will. |
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#35 |
Show me the monkey!
Join Date: Jul 2005
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Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
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#36 |
Fiend God
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#37 |
Merchant of Doom
Join Date: Sep 2002
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#38 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Nov 2017
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#39 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Nov 2017
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What am I missing? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8678384
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#40 |
Merchant of Doom
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Not in Hell, but I can see it from here on a clear day...
Posts: 13,139
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The homeopathic labeling on Zicam means it has a much lower standard of regulation than things actually sold as medicine, even though it has actual active ingredients.
When it was first released, it was found to have high enough levels of zinc to cause damage to the nasal passages, possibly including loss of the sense of smell: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2765727/ http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Coldand...ory?id=7853178 https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/n...ays-loss-smell |
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