When people went to their GP asking for painkillers, they weren’t prescribed higher doses of codeine or stronger opioids, as some feared.
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When codeine became a prescription only drug in 2018, the number of overdoses dropped, our new research shows. But restricting sales of codeine is only one way to reduce harm from opioids.
Clinical trials are important, but can’t get us to medicine prescribing that is 100% effective.
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Clinical trials are used to establish that medicines work. But these don’t take into account the genetic differences between us that can mean very different outcomes for different patients.
Supermarket pharmacies have been around in the US, UK and mainland Europe for years. But will Australia follow?
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If Australia follows international trends and allows supermarkets to open pharmacies, what are the effects on neighbouring pharmacies? And when does running a business mean health care suffers?
Apothecaries of the 17th and 18th centuries diagnosed illness, mixed up medicine and dispensed it, a far cry from the current turf war between doctors and pharmacists.
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The ‘turf war’ between doctors and pharmacists we see in current debates has a long history.
The current rules seek to ensure most Australians have access to a pharmacy staffed by a highly skilled professional with a pharmacy degree.
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Only pharmacists can own a pharmacy and you can’t set one up within 1.5km of an existing one. But calls to loosen these rules could give health companies a green light to set up more chemist chains.
Contraception forms an integral element of health care for women.
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Whether women should need a prescription to get the pill has long been controversial. But making it available over the counter would compromise the provision of comprehensive women’s health care.
More women would favour the pill over less reliable forms of contraception if it was available without prescription.
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New modelling shows skipping the need for a doctors’ prescription and going straight to a pharmacist for the pill could save the health system A$96 million a year and improve women’s health outcomes.
We may soon have access to a greater variety of medicines without the need to get a prescription from our GP.
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A greater number of medicines may soon be available without a prescription. Under the right circumstances, this would mean you could bypass the doctor and access the treatments you need more quickly.
A new statistical test lets scientists figure out if two groups are similar to one another.
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Evangeline Rose, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Kevin Omland, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Thomas Mathew, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
A new statistical test lets researchers search for similarities between groups. Could this help keep new important findings out of the file drawer?
Canada is the only nation with a broad public health system lacking universal coverage for pharmaceuticals. Despite fears that pharmacare would be too costly, it could end up saving Canadians money.
A pharmacist prepares to grind up a potion from unidentified pills the old-fashioned way.
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