Naughty pharmacists.

I alluded to some badness in a previous comment. Specifically concerning FP10s for Homeopathic medications. The pharmacist concerned must remain unnamed, but it is not me, honest!

One of our fairly local surgeries is an an outlying village. The sort of outlying village that has a church, a statue, a vague history and a pub. Fairly middle-class and a large number of GROLIES. (Guardian readers of limited intelligence in ethnic skirts). One of the GPs likes to dabble in Homeopathy. Strangely she dabbles in Homeopathy for people with minor, self-limiting problems and not for patients with cancer, hypertension or those needing palliative care. There is a certain irony there, is there not? "Yes, I will prescribe this bogus medication for you, but only for minor problems that will go away in three days"

My colleague is renowned for being somewhat of a cowboy. There are a lot of Homeopathic preparations, all packed in nearly identical little plastic pots. Being, like myself, somewhat sceptical and cynical, he decided that he would only keep one pot of Homeopathic medication and dispense those tablets for every Homeopathic prescription that he had.

His logic was flawless-If any professional colleague reported him he could simply say they were mistaken and there was no way that he could have been caught. What would they do, assay the tablets which would contain not one molecule of active ingredient either way.

This started in 1992 and continued until recently. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of prescriptions presented to him and every single one dispensed with Nelsons Rhus Tox. (That's the most diluted one and therefore the strongest, right?!)

How many complaints did he have in all these years? Not one. Not one patient noticed he was taking a harmless placebo and the doctor never realised that her patients remained unmedicated.

So, either Rhus Tox in minuscule quantities is a miracle cure for everything, or all homeopathic medications are interchangeable. Hmm, that's a tough one.