EP CVD drive fails to address drug rationing

The European Parliament has called on the European Union's member states and the European Commission to tackle cardiovascular disease (CVD), the region's biggest killer. However, Members of the European Parliament focused on prevention strategies, public awareness campaigns and the promotion of healthy lifestyles over treatment, including drugs.

However, a European free-market think-tank, the Stockholm Network, repeated a call to action to address what it termed "the growing burden of high cholesterol." Last year, the group published a report calling for European governments to give greater priority to cholesterol lowering which, the SN argues, involves the promotion of statins (Marketletter April 10, 2006).

Crisis unresolved while drugs rationed