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Time for common sense and good science to prevail in the Australian vaccination debate
In recent weeks we have seen a media led campaign that has resulted in sensible debate about vaccination being sidelined by hysteria and misinformation.An artificial dualism has emerged where people are cast as either ‘pro’ or ‘anti’.This mitigates against myriad other positions, such as being in favour of vaccination in general, but having concerns about…
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Pharmacist Jobs Destroyed by Automation?
We always knew that automation would be disruptive to pharmacy and displace pharmacists. Nobody really objected to that possibility because high initial machinery costs generally slowed down its introduction, giving time to make structural adjustments to pharmacist jobs. But it never happened! It was always assumed that the role of pharmacists would evolve to that…
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The Most Cost-Effective MMR Services in the World
Editor’s Note: John Cook is a new writer for i2P. He brings with him an ability to see through “bulldust” and is not frightened to ask the question “Why?” He brings a fresh perspective to i2P and we are pleased to have him as one of the team. With all the current doom and gloom…
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Freedom of Speech in Australia and the HPV Vaccine
Editor’s Note: The incident described in the material below is presented by Judy Wilyman, a PhD candidate. As a PhD student, she of all people is mentored in the correct aspects of developing medical evidence. As she has developed her thesis she has found many shortfalls in official evidence, particularly that surrounding the hysteria that…
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Report on Government Services 2015 Volume E: Health – the Silo You Will Struggle to Live In
This year marks the twentieth edition of the Report on Government Services – a remarkable milestone for a unique report providing comparative information on the performance of government services (so says the government). The Report is produced by the Productivity Commission for an inter-governmental Steering Committee. Peter Harris, Chairman of the Productivity Commission and the…
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The Patient-Centred Primary Care Collaborative
This article contains an evidence-based report on US physician-led Patient Centred Primary Care (PCPC) “Homes” that are likely to be modeled and supported here in Australia. i2P would simply like to expand the debate for pharmacist-led models that will initially evolve from clinics that will be established in community pharmacies. Many of these clinics will be…
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Withdrawn drugs – our patients deserve better
Patients are dying because of year-long delays in withdrawing dangerous drugs from the global market, according to Oxford University researchers. They say that the danger could be reduced by better reporting of the deaths, and quicker action by manufacturers and regulators. Unbelievably, the time between the first death being reported, and the drug being withdrawn,…
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What is Primary Health Care?
The term is used commonly within all health professions globally. Australian doctors continually make the claim to be the natural leaders of any primary health care initiative within Australia, often disruptively. But Primary Health Care is bigger than any single profession no matter how inflated its point of view. Just how did the term arise,…
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Leadership – How it Fails
In the past, Australian Pharmacy leadership has been characterised by a single word – “reprisal”. This is what you learned to expect if you dared to openly challenge a pharmacy leader. As you might imagine, i2P has survived a number of “reprisal” attacks that eventuated simply because i2P said what it genuinely thought. We have survived…
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Signs Future Clinical Trial Data Will be Transparent
In December of 2012, the BMJ announced a new policy regarding the sharing of data from clinical trials that included that BMJ would not publish material for trials on drugs and medical devices unless the authors committed to making the relevant anonymised patient level data available on reasonable request. This was to apply to any…