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Relevant health information for empowered citizens

Citizens need health information that enables them to make informed choices. They do not need ads from pharmaceutical companies disguised as "information".

It is to pharmaceutical companies' benefit to advertise direct to the consumer, in a drive to boost sales. The European Commission supports this aim, in the belief that it will increase companies' "competitiveness".

The history of lobbying by the pharmaceutical companies for EU legislation allowing them to advertise prescription drugs direct to the consumer reveals that the European Commission and the industry launched a massive promotional campaign to convince the public that the ban should be lifted -- all in the name of patients' right to information!

Plain common sense tells us that health information that is reliable, comparative and adapted to users cannot be delivered by pharmaceutical companies who, in a competitive environment, clearly have an interest in promoting their drugs at the expense of other drug and non-drug treatment alternatives.

But citizens are beginning to react in an organised way to the threat represented by the pharmaceutical companies' and the European Commission's plans. For example the Medicines in Europe Forum, Health Action International, the European Consumers' Organisation and the Association Internationale de la Mutualité have written a Declaration which identifies health information's rightful place: relevant information for empowered citizens. This Declaration, available online at www.prescrire.org, should be read and disseminated, to defend patients' right to reliable health information.

©Prescrire December 2006

Source: "L'information-santé aux mains des firmes : la menace grandit" Rev Prescrire 2006 ; 26 (278) : 863-865.

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