FIP (International Pharmaceutical Federation congress)
|
Our extended coverage of the recent FIP
congress is published in a 40-page supplement, writes Graeme Smith (on the
staff of The Journal) . Readers can ask for a copy now
|
FIP congress supplement ready now
 |
How to request a copy
Write to:
Emma Kerby-Evans
The Pharmaceutical Journal
1 Lambeth High Street
London SE1 7JN
Tel: 020 7572 2414
Fax: 020 7572 2504
E-mail: emma.kerby-evans@pharmj.org.uk |
For
the third year running, The Pharmaceutical Journal has collated
its reports from the World Congress of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical
Sciences
in a supplement (pictured right).
The supplement contains coverage
of the proceedings of the 67th congress of the International Pharmaceutical
Federation (FIP), which took place in Beijing, China, from 31 August
to 6 September 2007.
Once again the FIP secretariat will be distributing copies from its
headquarters in the Netherlands to FIP members and to all those who
attended the congress.
Readers who did not attend the congress but
who are interested in reading about what went on there are encouraged
to request their
own personal
copy of the supplement (see Panel right). Highlights
The supplement begins with a report of the address of FIP president
Kamal Midha. Dr Midha told the congress that strong leadership is essential
to ensuring that pharmacists’ dedicated efforts produce fruitful
results. “The health of all of us depends on each of us,” he
said.
The theme of the congress this year was “From anecdote to evidence:
pharmacists helping patients make the best use of
medicines” and the supplement contains reports on the four practice
symposia, which examined:
• Personal, cultural and social belief systems
• The use of medicines
• Technical, scientific and evidence-based information resources about
medicines
• Future issues with conventional and complementary and alternative medicines
The supplement also reports on two of the science symposia. One of these,
on the growing importance of natural products, discusses the quality
of natural products and research that is being carried out into them.
The second, on the challenges of biologics, noted the importance of this
market, which is predicted to rise to a value of $79bn by 2010, amounting
to 18 per cent of the total drug market.
Extensive coverage is given to an important joint practice/science symposium
on combating counterfeiting. Speakers from around the world discussed
the problem and described how their various countries are facing up to
this global problem.
David Pruce, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s director of practice
and quality improvement, was just one of several speakers from the UK
whose presentations are reported. Mr Pruce spoke at a session for policy
makers, where he told participants that pharmacists must be cognisant
of their professional accountability.
A timely session, run jointly by the community and industrial sections
of FIP, looked at how the impact of waste medicines on the environment
could be lessened. However, a presentation by Stockholm City Council
pointed out that there are no methods available to evaluate the possible
effects of life-long exposure to extremely low levels of environmental
drug residues on receptor mechanisms in humans.
There are other reports from sessions on the use of pictograms, the world-wide
problem of non-adherence, responding to emergencies, cost containment,
life-long learning and information resources on the internet.
Next year’s congress will take place in Basel, Switzerland, and
the 2009 congress is scheduled to take place in Istanbul, Turkey. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal