The weeks are certainly speeding up as it only seems yesterday that I wrote the last editorial and the day before that again – when the new format for i2P was introduced.
Welcome to the current edition of i2P (Information to Pharmacists) and the very topical material we have this week.

Ebola appears in almost every national TV and international TV news bulletin – yet awareness in what assistance pharmacists can provide in the event of an outbreak within Australia, does not appear to have arrived at our local pharmacy as yet.
In the absence of any official advice, we c an at least start a discussion and assist any patient making an inquiry.
My view is that we are going to start experiencing Ebola in Australia and if we get a real outbreak, Australia will not have the resources to fight it.
Some sort of a local survival plan needs to be discussed, so i2P has made its first contribution towards that discussion.
And it is interesting that there are new directions to pursue.

We also have included an article on air pollution and another on food processing because the amount and variety of illness is increasing from these sources and possibly contributing to those “epidemics” of respiratory diseases and diabetes, just to name two. More knowledge from research needs to flow so that these challenges can be identified and met.
And in a similar vein we have published an article on the various forms of seating systems being employed in schools, given that being seated for long periods causes difficulty in learning as well as contributing to lifestyle illness.
New innovations are being utilised around the world on a daily basis and this could eventually become a pharmacy problem, if the automation of dispensing reaches a level where pharmacists begin to sit for long periods replacing those long days of standing that caused tired legs but evidently made pharmacists the healthiest of the health professions.

There is also a message for clinical pharmacists written by Peter Sayers.
This is your time if you can organise and mobilise to promote your cause and deliver a range of quality professional services.
All the sanctions are in place (except perhaps for the AMA) and all that it would take is a bit of courage for a leadership group plus the tenacity and time to work things through. The AMA is becoming increasingly irrelevant as it seems to have a meaningless rant for every pharmacy occasion.
Most of these rants are increasingly being disregarded by their targeted audiences in favour of collaboration at the coalface.
It is not a policy that can last and the AMA is doing a disservice for its own members and health in general and certainly does not represent grounds for a leadership role in primary health care.

All the media releases from PSA, NPS and ASMI are available to read with an interesting one from ASMI talking about complementary medicine research and how it could contribute to savings in the health budget of governments.
This actually provoked a major outcry from some Skeptic medical professor in WA stating that what was being promoted as complementary medicine was really mainstream medicine because the evidence was in place.
Seems the supporters of complementary medicines can’t win – criticised for nil or insufficient evidence in the first place and then challenged for their categorisation as complementary medicines when evidence is in place.
The Skeptic arguments are looking a bit ragged.

Finally, we have Harvey Mackay telling us how, as average people, we can become successful if we keep a focus.
This advice can be applied to all aspects of pharmacy management and clinical service delivery.
Enjoy your read of i2P over this week.

Until next week,

The Editor.