That's pretty awful. On the flipside, here in Montreal I've been very impressed with my local pharmacists at the nearby chain drugstore. They pay attention to drug interactions to the extent of flagging a risk the doctor missed but in retrospect admitted is valid, give me a consult every time I get a new medicine, remember things well enough that I was once asked how my wife was doing with her own recovery from something, and so on.

I used to live in the US and I'm certainly not used to that either. I wish that kind of great pharmacist care were more widespread as a norm.

For some reason, people seem to have evolved to consider nicotine products (for instance) more opposed to the abstract mission of a drugstore than homeopathic products.

I have never smoked or vaped or anything, but it's the homeopathic OTC meds that viscerally upset me, that they should be allowed on the shelves.

Isn't there a social benefit in letting the 10% (or whatever) of people that believe in them get a safe and effective placebo, for many conditions where that's all that's needed?

I see belief in the "placebo effect" as a mind virus. Because it is not just a justification for lying to patients, but entails medical people lying to themselves.

I get tired trying to explain, and if I'm not convincing anyone, maybe it's me who doesn't understand...but, I feel like the key is to ask yourself, if the placebo effect is something that you can scientifically demonstrate, how would you arrange a control group?

Failure to identify a reason for an apparent effect cannot be turned into proof that "nothing" has an effect. It's just a mental short circuit that people get trapped in.

> if the placebo effect is something that you can scientifically demonstrate, how would you arrange a control group?

Easy, just don't give the control group any medicine. Give the other group a placebo. If outcomes are better for the second group, it's evidence that placebos work, just as clearly as the usual trial provides evidence that medicines work.

That's sad

In many countries the pharmacist is a doctor and they are there to handle simple cases. Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia all seem this way. VS the USA (and Japan?) where all the pharmacist does is handout the medicine some other doctor prescribed.