In a press release issued on 12 November, CDU MEPs Peter Liese and Thomas Ulmer were openly critical of the ideas put forward by Commission Vice-President Günter Verheugen on information to patients. According to the two MEPs, both doctors, giving patients access to information on medicines could lead to “an increase in costly prescriptions that could carry several side effects”. Is one to deduce that in Germany, prescriptions are written by patients and, indeed, that doctors only...