The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 274 No 7341 p336
19 March 2005

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· Public liability insurance
· Community pharmacy
· New contract
· Council election
· Prescription charges
· Repeat dispensing
· ETP
· Complementary medicine
· The Society (4)
· The Journal (2)

Letters to the Editor

Complementary medicine

Current practice and ethical concepts not always in agreement

From Professor E. Ernst, FRCP

Alison Blenkinsopp asks (PJ, 12 March, p296) whether pharmacists who sell herbal medicines such as St John’s wort must provide evidence-based advice to customers on the essentials, eg, efficacy, safety and quality of such products. Is this not an utterly rhetorical question? Surely there are moral, ethical and legal obligations which leave no doubt about the answer. Selling health care products without knowing the basics about them should not even be a consideration for pharmacists. Professor Blenkinsopp writes that “it is clear that St John’s wort does not help” for severe depression. Ironically, this statement is not what the most recent trial data show.¹ When it comes to complementary medicine, current practice and ethical concepts do not always seem to be in agreement and commerce and evidence can be dangerously far apart. It follows, I think, that pharmacists have a lot of catching up to do.

Edzard Ernst
Director, Complementary Medicine
Peninsula Medical School, Exeter

Reference

1. Szegedi A, Kohnen R, Dienel A, Kieser M. Acute treatment of moderate to severe depression with hypericum extract WS5570 (St John’s wort): randomised controlled double blind non-inferiority trial versus paroxetine. BMJ 2005;330;503.

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