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Editorial, page 28
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PBS online: ‘A disaster’
Statin pain
could be
a ‘nocebo’
Only 100 doctors have used authority script website
MICHAEL WOODHEAD
MUSCLE pains reported by
patients taking statins are likely
to be a nocebo effect, findings
from a blinded trial suggest.
The well-known statin side
effect may be due to patient
expectations of harm, conclude
European researchers, who
found that patients reported
more muscle-related adverse
events when they knew they
were taking a statin.
In a randomised trial
of 10,000 patients taking
atorvastatin 10mg or placebo,
rates of muscle-related adverse
events were similarly low (2%)
in both groups during a three-
year blinded period.
However, rates of muscle
aches were 26% higher among
statin users when they became
aware they were taking the drug
during a two-year unblinded
phase of the trial.
The authors said these
nocebo findings showed the
true rate of statin-related
muscle pain was much lower
than the 20% reported in some
observational studies.
It was worrying that many
patients had been scared
into stopping or avoiding
statin treatment because of
widespread media coverage
of claims that statins caused
muscle pains, they said.
“We hope [our findings] will
help to counter the adverse
effect on public health of
exaggerated claims about
statin side effects,” they said.
Dr Karam Kostner, director
12 MAY 2017
GEIR O’ROURKE
THE PBS’ online authority script
system is proving so hard to use
that only 100 doctors have logged
in since its July launch.
The website has been set up to
replace the authority script hot-
line, saving doctors from having to
make some 6.8 million calls a year
to secure approval to prescribe PBS
authority drugs.
But the words “unusable”, “labo-
rious” and “clunker” are just some
of the descriptions Australian Doc-
tor has heard about the system from
frustrated GPs.
The Department of Human Ser-
vices admits that 10 months after
going online, just 100 prescribers
have managed to use the new system.
The system will be integrated into
practice software. says Mr Jongen.
RACGP e-health network chair
Dr Trina Gregory, no stranger to
computers, says the headache of
logging on to the Health Profession-
als Online Services website is only
surpassed by the pain of navigating
through it.
“I seem to hit walls, and every
time I click on something, I get told
that it is blocked,” she says.
Doctors’ groups have long called
for an efficient online replacement
to the hotline, which the AMA has
estimated wastes the equivalent of
25,000 patient consultations every
month.
The Federal Government has even
passed legislation so that computers
can legally be used to approve and
refuse authority script applications.
But Dr Gregory and her tech-
savvy colleagues swap horror sto-
ries about the site, which cannot be
cont’d page 6
Senator Derryn Hinch is leading
a campaign against a surgical
intervention he says has crippled
thousands of women.
ANOTHER
DEVICE
SCANDAL?
A Senate inquiry
will launch
this month into
transvaginal mesh.
News Review,
page 11
cont’d page 6
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accessed through prescriber soft-
ware and requires users to enter a
series of SMS codes to log in.
That complexity means that an
online approval takes longer than
the phone calls to the PBS author-
ity hotline, which currently average
one minute and 27 seconds a call.
“Many GPs aren’t even aware of
the system, and the ones that have
tried it say it wasted so much of
their time they wouldn’t go back
there again,” Dr Gregory says.
“You just get put off by all this
stuff; it’s a disaster.”
AMA vice-president and Mel-
bourne GP Dr Tony Bartone
laments: “I did try it, but I have
basically given up because it is too