France "is failing on major disease care"

The French drug industry association, the SNIP, has published a newstudy showing that the French health service fails to provide adequate treatment for patients suffering from a number of major diseases. It argues that this is due to the lack of a proper national health policy which can resolve the balance between spending and health care needs.

The SNIP again says that the national health insurance spending initiatives, introduced in mid-1996, apply accounting principles to health care needs, while the industry sees pharmaceuticals as the cornerstone of chronic disease treatment.

The study, conducted by JNB and Annie Chicoye Economics, shows that one French asthma patient in six is treated inadequately, despite the arsenal of drugs available to deal with the condition. Also, cancer therapy represents a "very imperfect" response to patients' needs and, while cardiovascular disease causes some 170,000 deaths annually, almost half the cases of excess cholesterol are not diagnosed, with therapeutic objectives not achieved in over 40% of cases.