Re-thinking Aids

The licensing of medical practices in Singapore is presided by the Ministry of Health (MOH). Applications are made to Central Licensing Branch (CLB) of MOH.

Singapore allows individuals with medical licenses, societies and organizations to start a dental practice. You can choose to register the dental clinic under a business entity; however, you will first have to register with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority of Singapore (ACRA). Once you have establish a business entity with ACRA, you will then apply for a license with CLB.

The procedure to set up a dental clinic is similar to that of a medical clinic. The application for license and fees are to be made to CLB. Application will only be processed when the license fees and complete required documents are submitted. If you plan to have more than one branch for your dental clinic, you are required to file a separate application for each branch. MOH licenses each medical facility individually, and requires a separate license for x-ray laboratory. Each license is valid for two years. The dental clinic has to be issued a license by MOH to practice before you can start offering your services to the public.

Choosing a Name

An important thing to note is choosing the appropriate name for the dental clinic. As of June 1, 2009, The name for any medical facilities cannot have the words ‘Singapore’ and ‘National’ without prior approval from MOH.

Choosing a Premise  Read more...

Drug Company Uses Fake Journal to Sell Its Drugs

In the past, I’ve told you stories of alternative doctors who ran afoul of the law simply because they didn’t follow conventional medicine’s drug mandate. In our culture, drugs rule. But you already know that.

You know that when you take a drug, your life is in danger. What you may not know is that when you don’t take a drug, your integrative physician’s medical license is in danger. That’s how controlling the drug companies are. And they’re very good at what they do. But the documents uncovered in an Australian lawsuit have revealed activities that would shock even hardened advocates of Big Pharma. These documents say that Merck created a fake “peer-reviewed” journal.

Its purpose? To present favorable data on its killer drugs Fosamax and Vioxx. Elsevier is one of the world’s biggest publishers of medical journals. Merck reportedly paid this company to publish the phony journal, The Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, without disclosing the company’s sponsorship.

George Jelinek is an Australian physician and longtime member of the World Association of Medical Editors. He reviewed four issues of the journal that Elsevier published in 2003-4. He testified that the “average reader” (a doctor) would probably mistake the publication for a genuine peer-reviewed medical journal. Only close inspection combined with his expertise enabled him to determine that the journal was really a marketing publication for Merck.  Read more...