When I was a naive undergraduate, I laboured under a severe misapprehension. I thought that people believed things because they had heard the evidence and believed those things to be true. If somebody believed something that was (in my opinion) wrong, it must have been because they had bad information or had heard a mistaken argument. Therefore, all I had to do was simply furnish them with better information and a logical argument and we’d agree on the facts.

Needless to say, I had a lot of long and pointless conversations back then.
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Walk into any pharmacy in Australia and you are confronted with a bewildering array of boxes and bottles – medicines by the thousands. A pharmacy exists to dispense these medicines, often on behalf of doctors, and provide expert advice on their use and effects. We trust that our pharmacists are well trained and have an interest in our medical well-being.

Pharmacists are also retail stores, however, and the more they sell, the more money they make for their owners. A moment’s reflection on this fact raises an unavoidable conflict of interest. We put our trust in the pharmacist to give us good advice, and in the Government to make sure that what they are selling us is legitimate. Unfortunately, where there’s money to be made, that trust isn’t always well placed. (more…)