On the provision of homeopathic products within a pharmacy
Background
The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee published a report in February 2010 on the use of homeopathy within the health service . Amongst its recommendations and observations were that, as pharmacists should ensure they “provide scientifically accurate advice to patients” and there being, in the Committee’s view, no scientific or clinical evidence to support omeopathy, the only advice a pharmacist could reasonably give about such products is that they are placebos.
The Committee did not, however, advocate the removal of homeopathic products from within pharmacies, but instead expressed its view that “Although the availability of homeopathic products in pharmacies could be interpreted by patients as an endorsement of efficacy, in our view it would be pointless to seek to remove homeopathic products from sale in pharmacies. Many pharmacies sell ranges of non-evidence-based products and homeopathic products are easily available over the internet in any case. We consider that the way to deal with the sale of homeopathic products is to remove any medical claim and any implied endorsement of efficacy by the MHRA other than where its evidential standards used to assess conventional medicines have been met and for the labelling to make it explicit that there is no scientific evidence that homeopathic products wrk beyond the placebo effect.”
This guidance has been produced in light of the Science and Technology Committee’s recommendations, existing Standards and Guidance from the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland , and the considerations of the Standards, Legislation and Practice Committee, and the Public Forum, of the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland.
Download full report : www.homeobook.com/pdf/ireland-homeopathy-pharmacy.pdf
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