Welcome to the current edition of i2P (Information to Pharmacists) E-Magazine dated Monday May 1, 2017.
Since our last edition we have celebrated ANZAC Day and that event seemed to be a little more poignant than for previous years.
Apart from a definite thinning of the ranks, terrorist threats affected attendee numbers at the Dawn Services held in Gallipoli and at Villers-Bretonneux, in France.

Comparisons have been made by various commentators relating to the countries involved in a global upheaval just over 100 years ago and the countries involved in conflict today – they are almost identical.
The added threat by North Korea to drop an atomic bomb on Darwin has also created an extra dimension of tension and sombreness, and we can only hope that these tensions can be reined in.
It certainly makes you reflect on the relative peace and calmness of Australia’s environment compared with that of other countries in the northern hemisphere.
We indeed remain the “lucky country” – for this moment in time.
But many other issues remain with newer versions appearing.

The conflict that never seems to resolve on the battlefield of community pharmacy has elevated tensions a few more notches with the publication of a letter, (accessed at this link – The Future of the Pharmacy Industry), created by Rhodes Consulting, basically supporting the views of the pharmacist trade union, Professional Pharmacists Australia (PPA).

It adds little to the debate, particularly as Rhodes Consulting have no apparent credentials to point to in respect of Community Pharmacy, and appear to have at least one supermarket among their client base.
They actually list three supermarket clients on their website, but the profile for each listing is identical, leading to the thought that it is the same client repeated three times?

The PPA and Rhodes Consulting add little to the debate by focusing on existing structure and ownership, Location Rules and a miscellany of issues critical of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia (PGA), already debated at length.
All sides still seemingly not looking to solutions that might bring the profession together, such as expanding “core activity” to embrace an expansion of cognitive services and promotion of a role for clinical pharmacists in a community pharmacy setting, and tracing the real cost of health back to manufacturer overpricing and hidden payments to politicians and other health practitioners.

Australian patients love their pharmacies and want to access them more.
Opportunities abound, but there is also an urgent need to restructure service delivery to enable appropriate patient engagement and proper pharmacist remuneration.
It is an equation that can be balanced realistically if leadership conversations begin in a mutually positive direction.
That is the basic problem – our leaders seem to be totally blind and have been so for some considerable time.
The nexus must be broken because to remain divided allows for decisions to be imposed on community pharmacy that will never suit a mutual purpose.
And new disruptors are rapidly appearing on the horizon such as Artificial Intelligence (bringing mechanisms of humanoid robots that can deliver health information or underpin teleconference-type consultations (needed for pharmacy-in-the-home programs); 3D printing processes, printing drugs that may see compounding pharmacies competing against generic manufacturers (particularly for the perpetual drug shortages); the lack of activism by pharmacy leaders in not moving to secure the medical cannabis market for pharmacy and the rise of Scientism that acts to disrupt valid pharmacy markets such as clinical nutrition and complementary medicines (see lead article).

i2P notes that the South Australian state government has removed their restriction on prescribing medical cannabis so that GP’s can prescribe for patients without having to be registered – for two months only. And it is restricted under Schedule 8 of the Poison’s Act.
This is not much of a concession and it is time that some of these decision-makers took time out to learn about the active ingredients in cannabis, their lack of toxicity and with most active constituents being non-addictive and non-psychoactive.

Recently The Huffington Post media organisation set out to compile a list of every person who has ever died solely as the result of a marijuana overdose.
They found that there are no recorded instances of anyone dying from a fatal dose of marijuana alone.
Nothing has changed since the last time HuffPost highlighted this fact in 2013.

Whole plant cold-extracted cannabinoids need to be rescheduled as Schedule 3.
Hot extraction of THC components need only be Schedule 4.
The artificial bias that has been built around medical cannabis will only disappear when health practitioners begin to learn about the benefits of marijuana and the natural body endocannabinoid system that expects to find cannabinoids to assist numerous other body systems.
First education start point – learn the names and actions of each of the 80 identified cannabinoids discovered to date and assign them individually to a more appropriate Poison’s Schedule. Most active versions will fit into Schedule 3 while those with any degree of psychoactivity will fit into Schedule 4.
They are of low toxicity with minimal side-effects, and there are many patented drug products with a more destructive profile available quite freely to the market-at-large.
There is no need for a Schedule 8 classification and the term “medical cannabis” should be reserved to describe the family of cannabinoids.
One size does not fit all and patients who urgently require cannabinoid treatment will continue to suffer until the calcified and apparently biased bureaucracy gets off its lazy butt to do something useful.
The recent case reported in national media involving a child being kidnapped by its parents from a Queensland hospital is a case in point where the child was being inadequately treated for epilepsy and was sustaining over 100 convulsions per day while doctors watched on helplessly.
The parents knew where to obtain CBD oil but knew they would face obstruction from the medical authorities, so they kidnapped their own child and drove to Newcastle. gave the child CBD oil and then placed the child in local hospital care (but with added authoritarian bedside police guard).
And this represents 21st century Australian medical care?
And to compound that medical care there were parental claims that the child was in such a parlous state because of vaccine damage.
We live under conditions of “Scientism” which misuses medical evidence as a form of authoritarian control mechanism.
Our lead article describes this phenomenon and i2P will continue to draw attention to this added overlay of control until it disappears.

Our lead article for this edition discusses the concept of Scientism.
Scientism is a real word found in most dictionaries and the perspective that unifies its cult adherents is definitely not beneficial to human health or genuine health care. It has created a movement only interested in control and there are no boundaries it will not destroy to gain its objectives. It claims to be the “one true health religion” and it pursues its perceived transgressors with a religious zeal.
Read: Scientism – A Sinister Method of Control

It seems that almost daily there are published solutions or “pointers” to the resolution of dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease. Overwhelmingly these solutions are derived from clinical nutrition sources.
And it appears, contrary to traditional information, brain cells and other nerve tissue can regenerate under the right conditions. In those discoveries lies a pathway for clinical pharmacists and it is respectfully suggested that you read this article by Gerald Quigley concurrent with Peter Sayer’s article on Health Literacy.
Read: Dementia – can we educate and reduce risk?

I believe that this article, written by Peter Sayers, is one of the most important articles i2P has published.
It sets out a genuine solution for community pharmacy direction (and associated problems) and it establishes a unifying process to involve all pharmacists to be in partnership, basically on the same page.
We are indebted to Peter for his “thought leadership” and designing a process that can arrive by evolution rather than by an imposed revolution.
We all know that the latter will be inevitable and disruptive process that will injure the whole of pharmacy.
It is with that view in mind Peter requests that pharmacy leaders either adapt or carry his concept for implementation under a new public-private partnership independent of the existing PBS product.
Read: Health Literacy – A Concept for a Valid Direction for Community Pharmacy

The concept of “Soil Health” seems to have unified a range of competing interests under the one banner, including the agribusiness Monsanto.
Whether from genuine interest or seeking a method of control, Monsanto has contributed research funds to progress the soil health movement – the first really positive event that has involved Monsanto in a better light.
Can we find a similar event that might rationalise the vaccine industry combatants?
Read: Soil Health Impacts Human Health – A New Perspective to Consider

There are many forces seeking to dominate the health professions, including pharmacy.
In not trying to understand how they exist or how they operate is to bury your head in the sand.
While measures of their activities are hard to quantify because they all rely on secrecy the old axiom of “you can only manage what you can measure” still applies.
The more you understand your enemy the more efficiently you can deal with them.
Read: How contaminated is Australia’s Health Gateway?

On the surface it seems that legal marijuana for recreational use has not spiked overall use in young people, as predicted.
But it does seem to be impacting on other forms of legal intoxicants, namely cheaper wine brands.
Of the two, alcohol wreaks more damage, so why haven’t Australian authorities moved to remove restrictions in Australia.
What is the real cause of government foot-dragging for both medical and recreational use?
Read: Understanding Medical Cannabis – 1.Legal Marijuana has not Created Higher Usage in Young People 2. Wine Producers Find Legal Marijuana a Competitor

Industrial and factory farm corporates have adopted practices that destroy the environment and are now affecting human health through production of chemically contaminated foods and genetically modified foods.
Production at the lowest price to drive market share at a maximum profit generates collateral damage.
Notably you and me.
i2P seeks to understand how we might cope with these overwhelming practices and how we may assist patient health and ultimately our own.
Read: Industrial & Factory Farming – 1. Monsanto International Tribunal 2. Glyphosate-Free Food Certification

The safe vaccination debate is continued here, despite the fact that it is not recognised by the extreme pro and anti-vax participants.
The pro-vax proponents sustain their immoral position with dishonest tactics and communications.
The anti-vax proponents also hold extremist views because vaccination principles are sound.
It is only the manufacturers who are the real villains in this drama because they continue to make unsafe vaccines and develop new vaccines without any formal evidence.
The consistent reports submitted by Dr Judy Wilyman illustrates clear examples of Scientism, a corrupt system of power that is permeating the entire medical spectrum of health delivery.
Read: Safe Vaccination Debate – 1. Judy Wilyman Report 2. 130 Studies Linking Vaccines to Neurological & Autoimmune Diseases, 2017

And we finish our current offering with a media release from PSA.
Other leadership organisations do not seem to have generated much in the last news cycle.
Read: PSA Media Releases – International pharmacy expert headlines flagship conference

We hope you enjoy the content provided in this edition and we invite readers to comment in the panel provided at the foot of each article.

Neil Johnston
Editor, i2P E-Magazine
Monday 1 May 2017