"MEPs today voted through positive provisions on information on medicinal products today in Strasbourg despite right-wing attempts to put pharmaceutical companies before patients" Czech GUE/NGL MEP Jiří Maštálka said following today's European Parliament vote on the provision of information from pharmaceutical companies to the general public on prescription medicines.

"The right-wing groups tried to dilute this legislation with proposals that would allow health care professionals to personally provide informational material without any quality criteria or control to patients."

"We successfully defended against the risk that pharmaceutical companies will have excessive influence over the health care professional-patient relationship. For patients, health care professionals are the most dependable supplier of facts, not merely dispensers of pharmaceutical company-produced information" Maštálka said.

"The original Commission proposal on this legislation was not designed in the interests of patients and we have succeeded in making it more patient-centred. During the negotiations, we pushed for the "patient perspective" and stressed the need to bolster consumers’ rights to information rather than industry’s right to advertise products. Despite these improvements, the proposal falls short in some areas (for example information on clinical trials) as it let industry set the information agenda and choose the medicines and diseases on which information should be provided. We will continue to work to defend consumers’ rights to high-quality and non-promotional information on medicines."

GUE/NGL PRESS CONTACTS:
David Lundy + 32 485 50 58 12
Gianfranco Battistini + 32 475 64 66 28
Gay Kavanagh +32 473 84 23 20
www.guengl.eu
Gauche Unitaire Européenne/Nordic Green Left
European Parliamentary Group