Homeopathic products should not be sold in Australian pharmacies because they place consumers at “unacceptable risk,” an independent review of pharmacy regulation for the Australian Department of Health has found.
In his interim report, review panel chairman Stephen King found homeopathy and homeopathic products should be kept out of pharmaceutical benefits scheme-approved pharmacies.
“The only defense put to the panel regarding homeopathy was that it was harmless and able to be used as a placebo in certain circumstances,” the report said. “The panel does not believe that this argument is sufficient to justify the continued sale of these products in pharmacies.”
Ian Carr, a pharmacist and member of Friends of Science in Medicine, welcomed the finding and said homeopathic products could be harmful if used in lieu of evidence-based treatments for serious conditions.
“My biggest complaint about the status of homeopathy is not that people are essentially putting placebos into their bodies, it’s that they are putting their trust in a certain way of thinking that has no evidence base,” he said.
“It means they’re not looking in the right places for information, which is concerning if they are suffering from serious health problems. Yes, there is always a small risk that scientifically proven medicines carry, but those medicines also offer a huge benefit. Homeopathy carries a small or medium risk with no benefit,” he said.
Homeopaths say that illness-causing substances can, in minute doses, treat people who are unwell and dilute these substances in water or alcohol.
They say the resulting mixture retains a “memory” of the original substance that triggers a healing response in the body.
These claims have been disproven by multiple studies.
In 2015 the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council reviewed 225 research papers on homeopathy and found there were “no health conditions for which there is reliable evidence that homeopathy is effective.”
“People who choose homeopathy may put their health at risk if they reject or delay treatments for which there is good evidence for safety and effectiveness,” it said.
An independent company reviewed the council’s analysis and appraised the evidence to prevent bias, drawing the same conclusions.
Carr said the interim report on pharmacy regulation was not tough enough on the wider complementary and alternative medicine sector.
In September last year the Australian government announced a more comprehensive system of post-market monitoring of products, which would provide the Therapeutic Goods Administration with better information about emerging safety issues.
Because of these and other changes under way, the panel had made no further recommendations on complementary and alternative medicine products (CAM), King said.
However, Carr said he would liked to have seen a more critical look at the sale of such products in pharmacies by the panel.
“I’m particularly concerned by pharmacies that place naturopaths in the pharmacy environment, given naturopaths promote treatments that are unscientific and unproven,” he said.
Professor of public health and medicines policy expert Ken Harvey agreed.
“There should be a completely separate section for CAM products and there should be a clear sign in that section that tells customers: ‘These products have not been evaluated by government to see if they work and they may interact with medications. Talk to a pharmacist,’” he said.
The report also found that community pharmacy expenditure and funding was “insufficiently transparent,” a concern given that community pharmacies draw funding from a range of federal, state and territory government programs.
Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) president Joe Demarte said the interim report had raised some concerning issues for the sector.
“We will consult with members from all areas of practice to comprehensively assess the interim report, which will inform PSA’s detailed response,” he said.
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the