Page 12 - Pharmacy History 23 July 2004

Vale John F Scown
This year 2004, is turning out
to be a lamentable year for pharmacy with the sad loss of two of its ‘lions’. First it was Kevin McAnuff in January and now in June we had the passing of John Scown.
John, a man very much steeped in a history of his own, was one of the more famous faces at the inaugural meeting in Melbourne when the Australian Academy of the History of Pharmacy was inaugurated.
When the subscriptions were first called for to get the Academy up and running, John was one of the first to hand over his contribution for five years and remarked that he hoped he would still be around when the next one was due, and he was!
John was so active in so many avenues of pharmacy that he had acquired a huge circle of colleagues and friends who all knew him as a sincere and erudite man with a passion for his chosen profession.
His involvement with negotiations with the Government for a better deal under
the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is a bittersweet memory,
Every cent gained was so precious for the pharmacists, and it was the tenacity he displayed and the respect he earned at the highest political levels that
paved the way for the break-through agreements that eventually followed the years of disappointment and frustration.
He was the leader of the negotiating team representing pharmacy and in a key note address to the PSANZ Conference in Adelaide in 1990, he told the audience that:
‘God did not give us the right to provide pharmaceutical goods and services, man did – and if we abuse that right man will take it away from us’.
It is easy to see how John will be spending his time now and when he has resolved that debate we can be sure that he will be looking
to catch up with the likes of Eric Scot, Rupert Frew and Alan Grant- Taylor, to debate again whether
the Guild should agree to yet
another Survey to find the true cost of dispensing a Pharmaceutical Benefit, or many other knotty problems.
So long old pal!
Geoff Miller (Former member of the negotiating team.)
Why were prescription drugs referred to as ethicals?
The word “ethical” has been in use for some forty five years, and was used to define “a pharmaceutical medicine which is not advertised directly to the public.”
The term came into use to define and differentiate wholesale stocks into drugs, galenicals, counter medicines – advertised to the public and/or counter prescribed, and prescription medicines – not advertised to the public. The term is accepted by pharmaceutical manufacturers although the ABPI
code uses the words “medical product” which it defines as a branded or unbranded pharmaceutical product intended for use in humans which is promoted to the medical profession rather than directly to the lay public.
In a sense it was because they were
supplied under a code of ethics, the References
12 ■ Pharmacy History Australia
volume 2 ■ no 24 ■ November 2004
code being not advertised directly
to the public and consequently they were more “ethical” than the counter medicines that were advertised directly.
1. Dr PM Worling, former managing director of UK wholesales, Vestric.
2. Mr JF Scown, former director of Sigma Co Ltd.