EU Commission toughens its plans on Rx drug info

The European Commission has adopted revised proposals clarifying the information that drugmakers may supply to the public on prescription-only medicines (article).

The Commission comments that patients are increasingly interested in learning more about they medicines they take, and they want more of a say in how they are treated. But at the same time, they are confronted with a growing volume of information from a variety of sources, and often find it difficult to identify which information is reliable. Increased use of the internet make the need for clarity even more important, it adds; online information on medicines must be accurate and reliable.

"The revised proposals put rights, interests and safety of patients first," said John Dalli, the European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy. They "oblige industry to provide certain key information to patients and set clear rules for additional voluntary information on prescription medicines," and they "further strengthen the control of authorised medicines," he said.

The European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), which had dismissed the Commission's previous proposal as "a disguised way of giving pharmaceutical companies enough flexibility to promote their products directly to the public, in order to boost the sector's growth," said it "cautiously" welcomed the new version, describing it as "controversial and long-awaited."

EPHA secretary general Monika Kosinska: "it is of the utmost importance that this is regulated by law and not by the pharmaceutical industry themselves, despite the opt-outs that we can see built in to this draft."

Moreover, she said the role of the internet should be limited to providing access to the patient information leaflet and safety information from a single portal, and that providing it on pharmaceutical company websites "would  be misleading, confusing and inappropriate."

Ha! They make no bones about it.

The Commission’s revised proposals will now be debated by both the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.