10 commitments for candidates to the European Parliament
1. Defend universal access to public health care systems without discrimination for reasons of economic capacity, employment status or nationality. Support the principle of the integration of health aspects into all European policies. Call upon the intervention of the European Commission if the right to health is violated, especially in countries affected by EU mandated public debt reduction policies.
2. Demand the carrying out of an independent health impact evaluation before any substantial financial cut-backs of public health systems when they occur within the context of EU supported austerity measures.
3. Support the creation of a EU fund for health-care solidarity to help EU member states where a hight number of people remain without health-care coverage as a result of EU mandated austerity measures.
4. Promote transparency and public access to data from all clinical trials for existing and new biomedical products.
5. Foster EU cooperation on health technology assessment and promote the use of transparent, unbiased, and robust methodologies to measure the effectiveness and added value of new medicines and technologies
6. Ensure the effective application of the EU Research Programme Horizon 2020 provisions that mandate open access policies for scientific articles and data generated from research financed with EU funding. Support EU policies such as innovation prizes that promote de-linkage between biomedical R and D costs and the price of new medicines.
7. Call for for a new binding EU regulation that demands transparency and full disclosure of the economic relationship between doctors and the pharmaceutical industry.
8. Defend strict EU norms in favour of socially responsible licencing policies for biomedical innovation that has received EU funding.
9. Support the issuing of compulsory licences to guarantee the affordable access to very high-priced life-saving drugs with great evidence of efficacy, such as the case of a treatment against hepatitis C and a few anti-tumoral medicines.
10. Promote fair and equitable EU international trade and development policies that facilitate universal access to essential medicines and that support strong EU funding for research on “neglected” and tropical illnesses that tend to affect countries of the Global South.
Send your support to: david@davidhammerstein.org and teresa.salinas@saludpordercho.org
Declaration written and coordinated by Working Group on Health, Medicines and Innovation (GTSMI), TransAtlantic Consumer Dialogue, Salud Por Derecho saludporderecho.org, Médicins du Monde, Spain, Pharmacists without Borders, Spain, Confederation of Consumers and Users, Spain, and No Gracias, among other groups and individuals.