“The commercial motivation of the pharmacist transforms the patient into a customer” – Liberation

The pharmacist Alexis Sean points out the drift of the sector, which favors the commercial dimension to the detriment of the strictly medical aspect. And invites his colleagues to redefine their practice.

A doctor of pharmacy and community pharmacist, Alexis Sean is also an expert with the Haute Autorité de santé. In his research work, he is interested in changes in the dispensary pharmacy for better access to care.

How to return to a very distinct separation between pharmacy and parapharmacy? The blur seems deliberately maintained.

Two actors play a key role. Parapharmacy laboratories, to begin with. By packaging tricks, some products are reminiscent of the drug, which enhances them in the eyes of the consumer. Moreover, some drugs take the opposite route and require the status of medical device or food supplement, because they are less restrictive at the regulatory level. These mechanisms contribute to maintaining vagueness among consumers. Thus, the pharmacist must make a relevant selection of parapharmacy products on the basis of objective criteria such as the recommendations of learned societies. [des associations d’experts, ndlr].

Then, the pharmacist: the overexposure of the parapharmacy maintains the confusion between beauty space and health establishment. The layout of the pharmacy must put an end to the mercantile model and be part of a clinical management approach in order to