Since last September, an inverted triangle will shortly appear on the inside leaflet of certain medicinal products on the EU market, following a legal act adopted by the European Commission. The symbol will allow patients and health care professionals to easily identify medicinal products that are undergoing additional monitoring, and its accompanying text will encourage them to report unexpected adverse reactions through national reporting systems.
Medication errors are the single most common preventable cause of adverse events in medication practice and a major public-health burden with an estimated annual cost between €4.5 billion and €21.8 billion (World Alliance for Patient Safety 2010). Medication errors refer to mistakes in the processes of prescribing, supplying, dispensing, preparing, administering or monitoring medicines in clinical practice. According by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), in Europe the medication-error rate in primary care is estimated at 7.5% at prescription and 0.08% at the dispensing stage, whereas in the hospital setting the rates vary between 0.3 and 9.1% and between 1.6 and 2.1% respectively.
The PRAC welcomed the appointment by the European Commission of one member and alternate each representing healthcare professionals and patient organizations. Filip Babylon will represent healthcare professionals’ organizations and Albert van der Zeijden will represent patients’ organizations for a three-year period. Their alternates are Kirsten Myhr and Marco Greco, respectively. The meeting was made by the European Commission following a public call for expression of interests and a consultation of the European Parliament. The representatives of patients and healthcare professional organizations will fully participate in the work of the PRAC from April 2013. Their role is to bring the views, concerns and experiences of patients and doctors to the PRAC’s scientific considerations thus enriching its decision-making.
The European Commission has launched a public consultation on how to improve access to justice for consumers and small companies in small-scale cross-border disputes. The European Small Claims Procedure offers a cheap and easy way to resolve cross-border disputes for amounts below €2.000, without complicated legal procedures. The consultation launched today will run until 10 June 2013.
The purpose of Civil Society Day 2013 is to illustrate how European citizenship can best be conceived and achieved if tied in with the economic, social and civic life of the European project and the policies that underpin it.
The freedon and the pluralism of the media are under attack in Europe. The European Initiative for Media Pluralism promotes the idea that European institutions should safeguard the right to independent and pluralistic information as sanctioned by the European Charter on Human Rights.
A group that wants to prevent the privatization of water in the European Union and keep water services in the public sector said its petition has surpassed 1 million signatures. It is the record in Austria, Belgium and Germany. But Italy also contributes with about twenty thousand signatures.
Europe recycles only 25% of its municipal waste, a far-cry from the EU's promise of a resource-efficient economy, says a study released by Friends of the Earth Europe.
On February 6th, the European Parliament approved measures to improve patient access to less expensive medical treatment and prevent a slow placing on the market (Transparency Directive 2012/0035).
Hypericum perforatum (St. John's Wort) has been used for a variety of medicinal indications. Most recent research has focused on its use in herbal form for depression, but its claimed analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties in homeopathic form have also led to a number of studies in patients with acute pain conditions.