Brussels, 16/04/2008 (Agence Europe) - With various patients' and consumer organisations expressing ever stronger support for providing information to patients on medicinal products, EURODIS has expressed serious reservations. EURODIS, which represents associations of patients suffering from rare diseases and their families at European level, has just counselled caution on the part of the European Commission in the public consultation exercise on information to patients, which closed last week.
In the latest review of European pharmaceutical legislation, the Commission, pressed by the pharmaceutical industry to allow laboratories to communicate directly with patients, tried to launch three pilot projects, but these met with opposition from the European Parliament and some member states. While the fact that the internet provides a great deal of uncontrolled information, largely from the United States, may lend weight to the argument for European legislation in this area, the mechanism put in place would have to guarantee commercial neutrality and the reliability of the information provided.
In its statement, EURODIS acknowledges that no one knows the medicine better than the laboratory producing it. It also feels that it is important to provide information for patients and their families, who have to manage treatment and unwelcome side-effects. While in favour of a European mechanism, EURODIS, nonetheless, calls for only verified information (contained in the European Assessment Report) to be put online. This would avoid further delay to the validation of information. Retrospective clearance of the kind of information put online by laboratories would, then, suffice. EURODIS is firmly opposed to the legalisation of so-called push information on prescription medicines through television, radio and any other mass media. All types of advertising run the risk of increasing prices, according to EURODIS. It highlights the key role that patients' associations can play in relaying information on medicines. (O.J.)