European Parliament votes against allowing direct-to-patient information from pharma companies

The European Parliament has rejected Commission plans to allow pharmaceutical companies to provide 'disease education' directly to patients with AIDS, asthma and diabetes, voicing fears that this would open the door to direct-to-patient advertising and that any information provided would not be impartial.

MEPs were apparently also concerned that the proposals would not give patients access to information about non-medical treatments and that the consumption of drugs will rise.

Erkki Liikanen, European Commissioner responsible for Enterprise, said he regretted the outcome of the vote. 'Our proposal would not allow non-solicited advertising for such medicines as is the case in the US. But it would enable these patients to get good, appropriate and officially authorised information if they so request.'

He pointed out that such information is generally obtained on the internet from US based websites, but not all European patients have access to the internet or understand English. 'We must therefore ensure that the information is available to all Europe's patients, that it is correct, appropriate, and authorised by the European Medicines Evaluation Agency.

'Nothing is further from our minds than introducing advertising for prescription medicines in Europe. What we are proposing is to allow Europe's patients to obtain appropriate and authorised information if they ask for it.'

The direct-to-patient information proposal was part of a wider Commission plan to reform European legislation on pharmaceutical products, consisting of one Regulation and two Directives. The proposals now need to be endorsed by the EU's Council of Ministers before being returned to the European Parliament for its second reading.

The European Parliament's decision was also welcomed by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), on the basis that it would be wrong to restrict the provision of information by drug manufacturers to just three disease areas. The industry is strongly in favour of providing information about medicines directly to patients, carers and the public. The inability even to tell people about the existence of rigorously tested medicines was an outdated form of censorship, according to Dr Trevor Jones, director general of the ABPI.

Speaking in a debate in the House of Commons, he said that the lack of good quality, high standard information about medicines and their availability is damaging patients' health. 'The problem is not about those medical conditions where there are excellent patient organisations, but the many, many conditions where, frankly, patients are kept in the dark,' said Dr Jones. 'They often do not know the treatments that are available, and so their condition can deteriorate.'

Other patients are not adequately aware of the limitations of the medicines they take, or of the potential side effects, he added.