UK pharmacists are breaking their own ethical code on a daily basis when selling homeopathic medicines, a leading expert in complementary medicine has warned.
The ethical code states that pharmacists who sell homeopathic remedies, herbal medicines or other complementary therapies, must assist patients in making informed decisions by providing them with the necessary information.
But in an open letter to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, Devon, criticizes high street pharmacists for selling homeopathic remedies without informing customers that they contain no biologically active agents and are no more effective than sugar pills.
In the letter, Professor Ernst says that ‘customers are frequently misinformed by promotional material available in UK pharmacies and verbal advice given by pharmacists. Thus pharmacists breach their own mandatory ethical code on a daily basis’.
Professor Ernst calls for ‘urgent action’ to make sure that the ethical standards are followed by high street chemists.
Comment: Homeopathic remedies are prepared in a completely different manner than pharmaceutical drugs or herbal medicines. What a deceptive article! Furthermore it is well known that homeopathy is useful not only for infants but is used in animal care as well. No placebo effect going on there. It seems the real issue here is one of control and that everything must be the same. How many people are allowably harmed with pharmaceutical drugs? If any other system of medicine hurt so many people there would be justifiable outrage. Why is this acceptable in the allopathic system of care? Why should there not be room for choice and health freedom?
The ethical standards of the HPUS and ethical homeopathic pharmacy should definitely be followed. Not the allopathic system for homeopathic medicines.