EMEA "Should Lift Veil Of Secrecy Over Drugs"

The opening for business of the European Medicines Evaluation Agency on january 1, 1995 is an opportunity to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding prescribed drugs and to provide patients and health care professionals access to detailed drug information, according to a report published last week by the UK National Consumer Council.

The study, Secrecy and Medicines in Europe, says that the EMEA is being launched with the promise of a new transparency, but the chances of this happening will be minimized by: - the enormous sums at stake for companies able to beat a competitor onto the market with a major new therapy; - the traditional caution of many scientific researchers about releasing data too soon or to the "wrong" audiences; and - the potential political embarrassment if something goes wrong for the ministers responsible for ensuring efficient systems to control medicines.

It notes the absence of consumer representation in the EMEA, and says the agreed framework will do nothing to end the disparities between levels of information available to UK citizens and those in the USA. Five key points which it says need to be incorporated into the EMEA are: