Nearly one third of pharmacists are recommending complementary and alternative medicines with little-to-no evidence for their efficacy, including useless homeopathic products and potentially harmful herbal products.
The finding comes from a Choice survey of 240 pharmacies including Priceline, Chemist Warehouse and Terry White. Mystery shoppers were sent in to speak to a pharmacist at the prescription dispensing counter and ask for advice about feeling stressed.
Three per cent of the pharmacists recommended homeopathic products, despite a comprehensive review of all existing studies on homeopathy finding that there is no evidence they work in treating any condition.
Twenty-six percent recommended Bach flower remedies to shoppers, homeopathic solutions of alcohol and water containing diluted flower essences. The solution was invened by a British homeopath, Edward Bach, who claimed to have a psychic connection to plants. A comprehensive review of all existing studies on Bach flower solutions found no difference between the remedies and placebos.
The Choice survey also found products containing a B group vitamin complex were recommended by pharmacists for stress in 46% of cases. Other frequently recommended products were St John’s wort and valerian. There is no good evidence that these products reduce stress.
Fifty-nine per cent of people were just told the complementary and alternative product recommended to them worked, and 24% were told the product was scientifically proven, without any evidence being provided to them, the survey found.
A prominent public health expert and the director of Medreach, Dr Ken Harvey, famously quit his job as an adjunct professor with Victoria’s La Trobe University in 2014 after the university struck a $ 15m, six-year deal with vitamins manufacturer Swisse.
He said the Choice survey demonstrated that some pharmacists were failing in their professional duty to consumers.
“Pharmacists are giving crazy advice, and it is dangerous in some cases,” he said.
“My view is that pharmacists, if they are going to sell these products, need to have a big shining sign over the shelves of the complementary and alternative medicine section that says ‘these products have not been assessed by the government regulators to see if they work, please talk to pharmacist’.
Harvey said it was not uncommon for manufacturers of complementary and alternative medicines to do deals with pharmacists so that when customers filled a script for a prescription medicine, the pharmacist would recommend a “front of shop” product to “complement” the prescription medication.
“Pharamacists are giving poor advice and they clearly have a conflict of interest,” Harvey said.
“There is no doubt about that companies. Vitamin companies come into their stores and stick their products on the shelves and provide the pharmacist with posters and pamphlets, and the pharmacists wash their hands of it. But they’re abdicating their professional responsibilities.”
National president of the Pharmacy Guild, George Tambassis, said people trusted pharmacists, and therefore they had a duty-of-care to be aware of available clinical evidence about the therapeutic and marketing claims made about products sold in their stores.
In a statement, the Guild said it was “essential that consumers have access to objective, informed advice about complementary medicines, and by far the best place to obtain that advice is at a community pharmacy”.
Pharmacology lecturer Ian Musgrave from the University of Adelaide said while he expected shop assistants might not be up to date with the latest evidence for complementary and alternative products, he expected better from pharmacists, who have at least four years of university education.
“I would suggest that we need more education, potentially post-graduate education, on herbals and complementary medicines, especially seeing as now a number of pharmacies have a substantial section with these products,” he said.
Unproven alternative medicines recommended by third of Australian pharmacists
