In a few weeks, something similar will be happening at your local pharmacy. The Pharmacy Guild of Australia and Blackmores have shaken hands on a commercial agreement that will see pharmacists promoting "companion" products from the Blackmores range. This will be facilitated by a prompt in pharmaceutical software, which will remind pharmacists to recommend a product as treatment for your prescribed drug's side effects. The prompt will identify the item by brand rather than product. With this arrangement, the drink you'll need after a salty meal won't be water. It must be Coke.
In fact, a Blackmores spokesperson referred to the arrangement as being ''the Coke and fries'' deal, providing extra products with prescription drugs, thereby giving pharmacies ''a new and important revenue stream''.
With this in mind, it is difficult to view the plan as a noble enterprise, developed by health providers to ensure a comprehensive, quality service for vulnerable people. This is a commercial venture; a sweetheart deal between two profit driven enterprises to guarantee increased sales for both of them.
The quaintly named Pharmacy Guild of Australia (PGA) is tickled pink. In an industry which relies on prescriptions, selling two products instead of one can only be great for business. Images of caring gentlemen in white coats who work tirelessly at the epicentre of health care provision; the highly respected man servants of local doctors. With this new opportunity to promote companion products and sell medicines via 58 million prescriptions, our trusted pharmaceutical folk will be laughing.
Blackmores is delighted. The four chosen Blackmores products will be endorsed with the pharmaceutical Guild's gold cross logo. Crosses on products, whatever the hue, can only be prestigious and money making. Manufacturers of complementary products have battled claims their products are ineffective and, if taken in conjunction with other medicines, possibly dangerous. Any advances in the credibility stakes is a gold for them.
Enter the Australian Medical Association.
"Outrageous," declares its president, Steve Hambleton.
The association is so peeved about the plan, it scarcely knows where to begin. Monetary gain before quality patient health care; the recommendation and promotion of unproven products; the undermining of the shiny credibility of pharmacists; the up selling of extra products. The association is beside itself with concern.
Sceptics can see the irony here. Given doctors' reputation for flogging various products and regularly hopping under the sheets with pharmaceutical companies, who are they to bleat about others making money from sick people's misery?
And health consumers? Well I am one. Before I decide on the merits of my friendly local pharmacist recommending complementary products, I googled my drug of choice and read the warnings and possible side effects. It was sobering to find a list including fevers and severe shivering, nausea, vomiting, headache, rash, fatigue, breathing difficulties, tongue swelling, rhinitis, dizziness, flushing, increased heart beat, chest pain, muscle and joint pain, stomach pain and throat irritation. I bore in mind the sage words of my specialist.
"Best not to dwell on scary lists. And take fish oil."
I am having problems envisioning how Blackmores could recommend one antidote for this litany of side effects. They had better pass on rheumatoid arthritis and stick to a simpler disease, such as osteoporosis. Calcium and Vitamin D; that should do it.
Perhaps I should ditch the dangerous drug and use complementary products. This is another fear of doctors. After all, we are told that natural products are safer. Whether they work is irrelevant.
I consulted the Blackmores website and followed the prompts to 'Products'. I used their convenient 'Product Assistant' to help find the right product for me. I clicked on the rather large lettering for arthritis, joint, bone and muscle, wondering if the size of the lettering indicated the prevalence of these problems. Arthritis is certainly a growing scourge in this aging, overweight community. I read through the ingredients contained in the many products on offer and discovered that my condition apparently responds to creatine, BCAAs, glucosamine and glucosamine sulphate, MSM booster, glutamine, magnesium, protein powder, whey, comfrey, root extracts, calcium, vitamin B, D and D3, celery and fish oil.
What if these products cause side effects too? What then?
I am confused and forlorn. I decide I don't care whether a company and a guild want to hop into the sack together. My sentimental view of pharmacies disappeared when four local ones closed down in the space of a year. They couldn't compete with a super-sized yellow version or the pink cosmetic warehouse that muscled into their neighbourhood.
These days, pharmacies are more like toilet paper supermarkets than yesteryear's trusted apothecaries. Just because someone in a sanitary supermarket recommends a product, I don't have to pull out my wallet and buy it. I am a grown-up. I may hobble around on sore joints; I may be vulnerable and at times fragile. But I can read and I can still use my brain. I will decide what to ingest and what not to ingest. I will decide if I want a coke with my popcorn. I might even choose to drink water.
And I will cop the consequences.
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