100 posts
A European Public Health Care
When I read news like this:#Greek doctor on current situation in Greek hospitals:'jobs get done,only due to basic good will in some,to help people.Nothing really works— Nina-Maria Potts (@NinaMariaPotts) January 27, 2012... I always wonder why we c...
A MedTech map for bypassing market-access roadblocks
Medical device manufacturers routinely design products that, even a few short years ago, were the stuff of science fiction. And letâs not even mention the amazing research underway today that will animate tomorrowâs medical products, from T...
Anders Breivik: cold and calculating, yes – but insane? | Simon Baron-Cohen
Breivik probably has a pyschopath's lack of affective empathy. But that alone cannot explain his terrible crueltyWe can all remember where we were when we heard that Anders Breivik had gone to a summer camp on Utoya island in Norway, dressed as...
US healthcare
Great graph on the inefficiency of the US healthcare system by Lane Kenworthy at Consider the Evidence:...
Latest warmist scare: Cholera!
Another day, another global warming scare. The latest scare is about sea bacteria putting millions of swimmers and sailers at risk: Cholera!A new European report says the warming oceans caused by climate change are leading to the spread of...
A welcome end to the lifetime ban on gay blood donations
I was really pleased to hear that finally the unfair lifetime ban on gay and bisexual men from donating blood would be lifted in the UK . New rules will be based on science rather than prejudice. Instead of a lifetime ban there will need t...
Tobacco and a public consultation: NGOs versus NGOs
England Expects has written a blog post titled “Citizens versus NGOs“, quoting the summary of reponses of government agencies, NGOs and individual contributions from the recently published “Report on the public consultation on the ...
Doctor What next?
So we guessed, did you? A few thoughts before the second half of the series starts in the autumn – I’m not interested in the “I watched the filming and overheard X” spoilers, more in clues already dropped in the shows and in...
Dioxin contamination in Germany: MEPs call for stricter controls, penalties
The EU is considering stricter food security rules following the recent dioxin scandal in Germany. The cancer-causing compound was found in eggs and poultry, some of which were exported to other EU countries. MEPs debated the issue with European Comm...
"The Health Impact Fund: Enduring Innovation Incentives for Cost-effective Health Gains" by Thomas Pogge
Humanity spends over 500 billion euros on medicines each year, some 1¼ percent of world income. Is this money well spent? Data for answering this question are sparse. While new medicines must pass through elaborate clinical trials before they are al...
"Grandma, why don’t you like Democrats?" by Gabor Gyori
I noted last week that I would post an article on healtcare and the US election. One of the data that struck me most in last week’s CNN election reporting was how massively the elderly turned against Democrats. What was striking was not only th...
Know your rights as an EU citizen
Are you moving within the European Union? Are you looking for work in another EU country, or are you setting up shop? Is your employer turning you into an expat? Do you want to spend retirement in another EU member state? Are there family reasons for...
EU free movement of persons and services: Have qualifications, will travel?
The EU Commission has published a report on how things turn out in practice for mobile professionals: Internal Market: Commission publishes reports on how Professional Qualifications Directive works in practice (22 October 2010, press release IP/10/1...
European Parliament votes for 20 Weeks Maternity Leave at Full Pay
The European Parliament has just voted for 20 weeks maternity leave at full pay. You will see from my article for the Guardian Comment is Free section yesterday that Labour MEPs did not support this. We calculated that a woman on the UK nationa...
Guardian Comment is Free article
Yesterday I wrote a piece for the Guardian Comment is Free on the issue of maternity proposals which we will vote on later today. You can read the article here. Filed under: Labour Party Tagged: maternity leave, The Guardian...
Health and safety at work is no joke
The successful rescue of 33 miners in Chile should not mask broader issues of health and safety, and I hope that trade unionists and others will use the publicity generated by those events to highlight European Health & Safety Week (25-29 Oct). .
Woman’s Hour interview on Maternity Leave
I spoke this morning on BBC Radio 4′s Woman’s Hour about the EU’s Maternity Leave Directive which being voted on this week in Strasbourg. You can listen to it again here . The Directive makes provisions for women to have fully paid...
Addicts say: "We want more drugs"
The BBC has a rather extraordinary piece up on its website,Farmers defend controversial EU subsidiesWell, errr of course they do.It is about as controversial as say, 'Navy wants more ships', or maybe 'Dogs reported to be quite keen on bones'.That is...
Swine flu lessons learned
The panic that swept the globe in 2009 following the outbreak of H1N1 has now led to reflection in Brussels. How can we avoid repeating the mistakes made last year? Watch this video clip.
Speaking at the European Parliament World Osteoporosis Day Conference
We really can’t afford to ignore world osteoporosis day, even though MEPs’ calendars at this time of year are jam-packed with various commemorative events, not to mention our usual round of committee meetings and the heavy legislative...
Moving abroad? Working abroad?
Are you moving to another country in Europe and wondering about the practical formalities for your family, work, car or healthcare coverage? Your Europe helps you understand your rights and find practical tips when you move around the EU. Watch those...
Eating Disorder?
I was truly shocked when I saw this article in the Daily Mail today. (And yes, I often read the Daily Mail since I believe it’s a good idea to be familiar with all shades of opinion). According to this research, “forget finding the right...
Quixotic act by Nuttall
BUt welcome for all that, The Morning Advertiser, that pub bible writes today,Bury North MP David Nuttall wants to give pubs the right to choose whether they allow smoking in the premises or not.“This Bill isn’t about completely reversing the smo...
No more sugar in fruit juice, says EU
The European Commission on Wednesday said it is looking at slapping a Europe-wide ban on adding sugar to fruit juice. Currently, juice-packs on supermarket shelves can contain 150 grams of sugar per litre, and up to 20 percent of total contents in bo...
Comesa to petition UN on WHO tobacco ban
The Common Market for Eastern and Southern African is opposed to the World Health Organisation’s attempts to push through a ban of ingredients used in producing blended tobacco.These ingredients are laboratory produced compounds ranging from sweetn...
The EU allocates € 10 million to fight epidemic outbreaks
Today, the European Commission has allocated €10 million from its humanitarian aid budget to reduce the impact of epidemics on vulnerable people in developing countries and to support emergency operations to address outbreaks of communicable diseas...
Small victories
I would just like to congratulate Wiel Maessen. Its amazing what one man, bags of effort, energy, imagination and a funny houseboat can do.Owners of small pubs in the Netherlands have welcomed the lifting of a smoking ban imposed on the hospitality i...
Is that an MEP in your bathroom?
In a list of pointless things that politicians bang on about I have come up with the day's winner. Dentistry.co.uk tells us the amazing news that some MEPs think we should floss more. No really.Dr Thomas Ulmer MEP and Dr Cristian Silviu Busoi MEP mar...
The fight continues...
This week in Brussels I called together a group of health and consumer NGOs who are supportive of using multiple colour coding on food so consumers can ascertain and compare at a glance the nutritional content of food. I convened the meeting followin...
Here’s something to get your teeth into
Here’s an interesting question. What is the involvement of one of the world’s biggest sweet and chocolate manufacturers in a bid to get the EU to do more to improve people’s teeth? It all stems from a call yesterday by two Euro MPs...
Our video guest: Dr. Kisisa, Red Cross Kenya
Our video guest this week is Dr. James Kisia. He is the Deputy Secretary General of the Red Cross in Kenya. On the occasion of his visit to Brussels, Dr. Kisia gave us an interview where he explained the work of the Red Cross in Kenya, the link betwe...
World Suicide Prevention Day
Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. According to the World Health Organisation 1 million people commit suicide every year. That makes 60 deaths per 100,000 a suicide. Or another way to put it, one death every 40 seconds. This years theme is “...
Uniform Codeine Regulation Needed
As some of you may be aware I work for a pharmacy chain. As part of my job I cover the Pharmacy Counter. As of the 1st of August new regulations came in on the supply of products containing Codeine. This has created some confusion which is not helped...
Is nursing war by another means?
It has been reported by EUReferendum and by the Daily Express in the UK, that EU law is preventing safety checks (and in the caase of the Daily Express), language checks on nurses from other EU countries that want to be registered as nurses in the UK...
Whisper it: Our health service is actually quite good.
Noel Whelan makes a very good point about cancer services in this piece, and also a general observation about media attitudes towards health-care in this country. It’s almost impossible to read a positive story in the Irish media about healt...
New tools needed to relieve malaria burden in Africa, study finds
Researchers in the UK have demonstrated that the tools currently available for combating malaria could dramatically reduce the burden of malignant malaria on parts of Africa if a comprehensive, sustained intervention programme were in place.
EU Opens Access to Studies on Drug Side Effects
The European Medicines Agency agreed to make available reports on possible side effects of drugs it has on file, adding a significant weapon to the arsenal of citizens pursuing lawsuits against drug companies.
"scientifically proved to be effective and safe"
This will be fun.According to the Eurpopean Communities Health Care Scheme (JSIS). Money spent on homeopathic remedies will be reimbursed if it,"has been scientifically proved to be effective and safe."We have sent in a question asking how many homeo...
Public Health, Private choice.
You know when it a quite news period when Professor Steve Field's comments get front page staus in the Observer. There is so much wrong with his articlem, after a couple of basic platitudes that I leave it to the far more erudite Longrider to point y...
We are all Roma now
Recent events in France, Italy, Denmark and elsewhere have shown that discrimination against Roma is growing. But the Roma are a vanguard experiencing the prejudices any European citizen might come to face in another country - we must act to defend t...
Commissioner Piebalgs pushes for maternal and child health
From 24th to 26th July, European Commissioner for Development, Andris Piebalgs, will address the 15th African Union Summit in Kampala, Uganda. Maternal, infant and child health will be the core theme of the meeting gathering the 53 African Union Memb...
Seen this somewhere before?
Interesting to see that the Daily Mail yesterday ran a story that you read about on Ooh, Brussels! MORE THAN TWO WEEKS AGO. In its typical Europhobic tone, the Mail’s article talked about the £12m “squandered” on the study, as repo...
Science+Europe=accuracy fail
I went to a very interesting event about science journalism in the UK last year at the Royal Institution which I blogged about about the time. One of my conclusions was that many of the issues faced by science journalism reflect very closely issues f...
Elif: Turkey on the ‘fruit era’ (!)
The prime minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had a shocking speech about drinking in the meeting of World Health Organization (WHO) at which he received a special award from the WHO for his championing of Turkey’s indoor smoking ban. Erdo...
Are potatoes the root of all evil?
The chiropracter sorting my RSI said to me that he wanted to test whether I was sugar sensitive, and that I can’t physically deal with all the stress I’m under at present. Tell me something I don’t know… I should explain, la...
EU: No more mad cows
It seems such a long time ago that Mad Cow Disease first hit the headlines and British beef was demonised across the world. Now, the EU is considering relaxing the rules it put in place to stop the spread of BSE all those years ago. In fact the Europ...
Dope update
As you may have seen, the European Court of Justice made its ruling on the case I mentioned on Tuesday regarding Dutch authorities closing down a coffeeshop which sold marijuana to foreigners. The ruling, from Advocate-General Yves Bot, caught some c...
Bird flu - mistakes made, and lessons to be learnt
Some interesting news from last week's meeting of Health ministers, where they discussed the reaction to the H1N1 (bird flu) pandemic and by all accounts concluded that by acting together the EU's Member States could have negotiated better terms with...
Feeling a little light headed?
The extent of the EU’s commitment to people’s freedom to buy and sell without barriers could even be extended to marijuana. The European Court of Justice is due to rule on Thursday on whether a Dutch law banning “coffee” shops...
More of our money spent on adverts
Still waiting for compensation Just as the British government slashes the amount it spends on information and advertising, the EU announces a two-year €1million (about £850,000) campaign putting up posters and handing out leaflets at railway stati...
Interview: Against medical tourism…
Towards equal medical treatment. French MEP Bernadette Vergnaud talks about harmonising medical treatments to stop citizens from hospital shopping in other EU countries. Here comes EuroparlTV reportage.
‘Hard-core’ lobbying: “voting recommendations” sent to MEPs on food labelling regulation
Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) has collected more than twenty e-mails from industry lobbyists with “voting recommendations” for MEPs ahead of the ENVI committee vote, in March 2010, on the ‘Sommer report’ about the new EU regulation on fo...
Well-being Directive Proposal expected with great concern
In these times of crisis and general concern for the future, the European Commission has decided to take a positive approach by working on a new Directive aimed at promoting the mental and physical state of Europeans. At the moment the draft proposal...
