Newsletter October 2006

**Updated** EPHA recruits an Advocacy and Policy Officer to work on Global Health

UPDATED - The deadline for submitting applications was 3rd November 2006. The recruitment process is now closed.

Developing a national platform of health NGOs in Cyprus

The Pancyprian Organization of the blind held a seminar and workshop in Cyprus on 17th October 2006 to promote the development of a national platform in Cyprus.
The event which was organised in collaboration with the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) and Civil Alliance Latvia (CAL) was aimed at raising the importance of health issues in Cyprus.
Representatives from Non-governmental organisations and state authorities took part in the seminar and workshop which focused on health (...)

Newsletter October 2006

Welcome to the October 2006 edition of the EPHA Newsletter.
On the 25 October, the European Commission unveiled the EU Strategy to support Member States in reducing alcohol related harm - a very disappointing text for health NGOs which hoped for a stronger commitment from EU officials.
The Strategy predominately promotes an education approach to combat Alcohol related harm which has be proven not to be effective instead of the proven best practice strategies such as better regulation of (...)

Secretariat News October 2006

Conferences and events that EPHA attended
On the 10th October Lara attended a one day workshop organised by the European Citizen Action Service (ECAS) about partnerships of NGOs and local and regional authorities. This workshop was part of the Open Days - European Week of Cities and Regions.
On the same day Anne joined the Parliament Magazine in the MEPs awards ceremony. The Health MEP award went to Françoise Grossetête.
Anne attended the DG Health and Consumer Protection Stakeholder (...)

World Mental Health Day

The 2006 World Mental Health Day Campaign “Building Awareness - Reducing Risk: Mental Illness and Suicide” took place on 10 October. As a leading cause of premature and preventable death, suicide is a major public health issue.
This year’s World Mental Health Day was organised by the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) in collaboration with the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP).
The event aims to work towards improving public awareness, reducing (...)

Meeting with Polish health NGOs to promote the creation of a national platform

Agnese Knabe, the coordinator of EPHA’s activities in new member states, was invited to take part in a meeting organised by Polish NGOs to establish a regional platform on public health in Poland on 25th September. The meeting was initiated by the NGO Foundation for the Children of Copper Basin.
The meeting was a follow-up to the conference “Clean Environment - Healthy Children” held in Legnica 2-3 June 2006 within the frameworks of an EPHA project to establish national (...)

New EU trade rules threaten the health of European babies

In July 2006 EU Member States gave way to the European Commission and voted to adopt a revised Directive on the composition and marketing of infant formulae and follow-on formulae wich relaxes the restrictions of the previous Directive.
According to European health, development and consumer organisations, the revised Directive has paved the way for the establishment of a harmful framework for marketing practices. The Directive will be published in the Official Journal in the autumn to be (...)

Raising Awareness of Continuous Professional Development

Three members of EPHA - European Federation of Nurses Associations (EFN), European Region of the World Confederation for Physical Therapy (Physio-Europe), and the Pharmaceutical Group of the European Union (PGEU) - have drafted a resolution on Continuous Professional Development.
The resolution is to be discussed in the European Parliament and the Council of Europe as a starting point for raising political awareness on this matter among European citizens.
Other members of EPHA are invited (...)

Albanian Association for Prevention and Rehabilitation from AIDS and Drugs

The Albanian Association for Prevention and Rehabilitation from AIDS and Drugs (APRAD) has been very active in following harm reduction strategies in reducing risk of HIV or STD acquisition or transmission.
APRAD publish very informative monthly Newsletters, which offer an interesting insights into its work. The Newsletter follows the APRAD Centre which offer diverse services such as -
Training session for at-risk and vulnerable groups
Condom distribution and clean syringes
Psychosocial (...)

Action for Global health - a European NGO network

Officially launched on the 27th October 2006, this network gathers 15 European NGOs working on health and development issues. EPHA is one of the Brussels-based partners.
Background information about the project
Although not comprehensive, the Health Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) continue to offer the best catalyst to push for increased action to improve health in developing countries.
As commitments signed by donor countries, they are an effective advocacy tool. With half of the (...)

EFA Allergy Patient Manifesto published

The European Federation of Allergy and Airways Diseases Patients’ Associations (EFA) has released an "European Allergy Patient Manifesto".
The European Allergy Patient Manifesto is a political declaration comprising six point strategy to counteract the growing prevalence of allergy in Europe and globally, and by doing so, improve the health conditions and quality of life of allergic patients and their families.
It calls for the European institutions, national governments, the (...)

9 Million Euros to fight against TB for the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development

The Global Alliance for TB Drug Development announced that they have received a grant of 9 million euros from the Irish government to help combat tuberculosis which continues to kill 2 million people every year.
The grant, which is the second this year for the TB alliance from the Government of Ireland, comes at a time of great concern from World Health authorities over a substantial rise in the number of multiple and drug resistant strains of TB.
The money will be used over a period of (...)

Engaging the health community in environmental health issues - workshop in Paris

The Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) and the United States collaborative of Health and Environment (CHE) are to hold a workshop in Paris entitled networking & engaging health communities in environmental health issues on November 10th 2006.
The aim of the workshop is to bring together key people from the health and environment sectors to exchange views, ideas and look at ways that HEAL, CHE and key constituencies can collaborate and complement each other’s work in 2007. The workshop (...)

Hypertension guidelines published by the Royal College of Physicians

The National Collaborating Centre for Chronic Conditions at the Royal College of Physicians develop an up-date of the 2004 recommendation guideline on Hypertension.
Hypertension or persistently high blood pressure is a contributing factor to cardiovascular diseases such as stroke and heart disease, however it can be modified by changes in life-style and pharmaceutical interventions.
Entitled “Hypertension - Management of adults in primary care”, it ought to develop (...)

Stress and Cardiovascular Disease - New Paper by the European Heart Network

The European Heart Network (EHN) has recently published a 40-page paper entitled "Stress and cardiovascular disease". This paper surveys the major studies covering several aspects of stress and cardiovascular disease (CVD).
The paper seeks to examine the importance of stress as an independent factor in the incidence and the course of CVD.
It argues that because stress is more difficult for health care practitioners to define and assess than widely accepted coronary risk factors (such as (...)

Patients want and need results of clinical trials

The European Breast cancer Coalition, Europa Donna advocates for the right of patients to have access to full information on clinical trials.
The issue of information to patients is currently being discussed at European level notably within the framework of the EU Pharmaceutical Forum and there is much debate over what information should be provided and who should provide that information.
One of Europa Donna’s 10 goals is to ensure that all women fully understand the treatment (...)

NGOs call a strong European Strategy on alcohol related harm

The European Commission is to publish the much-awaited EU strategy on reducing alcohol-related harm on the 25 october 2006. Leading national and European non-governmental organisations urge the European Commission to resist alcohol industry pressure to abandon its alcohol harm reduction strategy.
Notably, the calls come from a variety of organisations working on public health, alcohol prevention, social issues, child protection, gender-focused organisations (women and men), road and traffic (...)

EU Alcohol Strategy: People or profits - Who’s being served? - Eurocare press release

The European Commission is due to publish the much-awaited EU strategy on reducing alcohol-related harm. Eurocare urges the European Commission to resist the alcohol industry pressure to water down the future Strategy.
People or profits - Who’s being served?
On the 25 October what will the Commission decide?
Leading public health agencies and non-governmental organizations in Europe are calling on the European Commission to resist alcohol industry pressure to abandon its alcohol harm (...)

**Updated** The NGO mobilisation for a strong REACH

*UPDATED with the vote of the European Parliament* On 13 December 2006, a plenary vote by Members of the European Parliament led to the adoption of the new EU chemicals legislation REACH. However, according to health, environment, consumer and women’s advocacy groups, there are major loopholes in REACH which will still allow many chemicals that can cause serious health problems, to continue being used in manufacturing and consumer goods.
The new system is called REACH (Registration, (...)

**Updated** EPHA, EEN and EFA call on MEPs to improve air quality legislation

Updated with latest actions in October 2006.
EPHA, EPHA Environment Network, and EFA - the European Federation of Allergies and Airway Diseases Patients’ Associations sent a letter in June 2006 to the European Parliament Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety ahead of the vote on the EU Thematic Strategy on Air Quality and Ambient Air Quality Legislation.
The three organisations called on MEPs to ensure the highest possible level of health protection for EU (...)

Road Safety Award to a small town in England

The Voice project, of which EPHA is a partner, presented its annual award to promote good practice to protect vulnerable road users to Rob Tinlin, the mayor of Southen-on-Sea, on the Southern coast of England.
This award grants the efforts to promote road safety in the city. Mr Tinlin has particularly procured public-private partnership for investment in various infrastructure measures, including several designed for vulnerable road users.
Related awards
Road Safety award to car (...)

European Commission adopts EU Health Strategy on 23 October 2007.

On 23 October 2007, the European Commission, adopted a new Health Strategy: ’Together for Health: A Strategic Approach for the EU 2008-2013’.
The new EU Health Strategy sets out a framework spanning core issues in health as well as health in all policies and global health issues. The Strategy aims to set clear objectives to guide future work on health at the European level, and to put in place an implementation mechanism to achieve those objectives, working in partnership with (...)

**Updated** Romania and Bulgaria join the EU in January 2007

Following a series of monitoring reports Bulgaria and Romania will be welcomed by the European Commission into the European Union on 1st January 2007, however both countries are required to meet strict EU conditions if they are to escape "remedial measures."
A series of progress reports have been carried out by the European Commission, to assess whether Romania and Bulgaria were ready for EU membership. Although the reports go through the different aspects of the acquis communautaire, this (...)

Transparency Drive Extends to EU Structural Funds

The EU’s current transparency drive challenges national governments with the new requirement to fully disclose information on recipients of EU structural funds.
Member States are now required to publish detailed data on the recipients, projects and amounts of structural aid cash they receive from the EU.
As of October 2006, a website listing the beneficiaries of the EU Structural Funds is publicly available.
Unless applicants of EU aid agree to provide full openness, they risk losing their (...)

*UPDATED* EU worst lobby Award 2006

*UPDATED with the results* Corporate Europe Observatory, LobbyControl, Spinwatch and Friends of the Earth Europe launch the Worst EU Lobbying Award 2006 which aims to identify the most dubious influence lobbying.
The 2006 edition of the Worst Lobby Award plans to grant a double Prize:
the worst EU lobbying, awarded for the lobbyist or lobby group using the most deceptive, misleading, hypocritical and irresponsible tactics. The winner is ExxonMobil for continuing to manipulate the EU (...)

Re-organisation within DG Research

The European Commission recently re-organised its Directorate General dealing with Research.
This re-organisation is partly due to the recent trend within the Commission to outsource areas of specific responsibility to EU agencies. It also comes as an adaptation to the future Framework Programme 7 (2007-2013) to be adopted at the end 2006- beginning 2007.
New organigram

What agenda for the EU in 2007?

The European Commission’s agenda for 2007 will be built around four overall priorities: prosperity, solidarity, security and a stronger voice in the world. There is a clear focus on prosperity - alike the 2006 agenda - with emphasis on energy, economic migration, defence industries and markets.
For the first time, the European Commission has prioritised its agenda around 21 strategic initiatives on which officials will focus in 2007. On top of the 21 strategies, the European (...)

Participating in Debate on the Future of Europe - A Call for Action

The biggest ever pan-European debate of all 25 EU Member States has been launched to find out what Europe’s citizens want from Europe and which issues matter to them most.
From January to April 2007, 25 national consultations take place at Member State level to discuss the overarching question “What is needed to achieve the Europe we want?”
The Final Consultation in May 2007 is held in Brussels as an intense debate with a small number of citizen volunteers from the national (...)

British Retail Consortium Debate - Retailer Action or just Distraction?

EPHA participated in a debate with the food industry on healthy eating issues, organised by the British Retail Consortium.
EPHA took the opportunity to raise the issue of independent development of nutritional profiling by food manufacturers and retailers.
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) held a lunchtime debate in the European Parliament on 4 October 2006, chaired by MEP Linda McAvan. Representatives from retailers such as Asda, Tesco, Marks & Spencers, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s were (...)

Transparency over CAP expenditures

EU governments have agreed to publish the names of all recipients of the Union’s farm subsidies and how much they receive from 2009 at the latest, subject to final agreement with the European Parliament.
Such disclosure should lead to better transparency over the end beneficiaries of all EU funds, including the Union’s annual €60 billion spending on farm subsidies. This is in line with the recent debates over the European Transparency Initiative and transparency of the European Council. (...)

Industry’s New Marketing Rules - The Latest Stunt?

Worrying initiatives are being launched in the current debate on advertising and marketing to children.
The latest action of the food and drink industry, as led by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), is a new Framework for Responsible Food and Beverage Marketing Communications.
The framework represents a further effort by industry to self-regulate.
However, the ability of industry to self-regulate has been repeatedly been called into question by scientists, academics, NGOs and (...)

Exchange programme to strengthen civil society in CEEs

The International Fellowship Programme (IFP) for Central and Eastern European (CEE) Foundations and NGOs invites applications and searches for host institutions for its third round, beginning in spring 2007.
The Programme offers foundation and NGO staff (young leaders as well as executives) from eight CEE countries the opportunity to work for up to 12 weeks in non-profit host institutions abroad.
The deadline for applications is Friday, 3rd November 2006.
Fellowships will take place (...)

*UPDATED* Green Paper on a European Transparency Initiative

**UPDATED with EPHA response** The long awaited Green Paper on a European Transparency Initiative has been adopted in May 2006.
The Green Paper aims to strengthen etchics rules for EU policy-makers and the estimated 15,000 lobbyists, NGOs and other pressure groups who seek to influence them in Brussels.
In a Nutshell... The European Commission adopted the Green Paper on a European Transparency Initiative on 3 May 2006. The European Transparency Initiative aims to strengthen etchics rules (...)

Eurobarometer indicates high misconceptions about HIV/AIDS

Findings from the Commission’s latest Eurobarometer on HIV/AIDS has identified an alarming lack of understanding about HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), especially in new member states.
The survey, which looks at attitudes towards HIV across the 25 member states of the European Union (EU), asked 25,000 people for their views. Attitudes towards how HIV can be transmitted have declined since a similar survey in 2002. The Eurobarometer on HIV/AIDS found that most (...)

Organisations join forces in the fight against TB in Europe

The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Cresent Societies unite with the World Health Organisation (WHO) , The European Centre for disease prevention and control (ECDC) and several other organisations to launch Stop TB Europe
The organisations have taken the decision to come together in the Stop TB Europe partnership due to an alarming rise in the cases of multi drug-resistant TB and the more recent emergence of extreme drug-resistant TB which does not respond to any mode of (...)

Towards stronger alcohol policies in Europe? The pressure is on in the UK and Finland

While European initiatives on Alcohol related harm and advertising on TV have been watered down, two calls for stronger alcohol control policies come from Member States: the Finnish government plans to implement a watershed to prevent alcohol advertising before 9pm and the UK Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs asserts the need for better alcohol control measures as education proves unsuccessful.
UK: the Advisory Council of the Misuse of Drugs calls for a prohibition of Alcohol (...)

*UPDATED* The ’Alcohol Strategy’: a missed opportunity to protect health?

*UPDATED with the adoption of the resolution on EU Alcohol Strategy* voted in the European Parliament plenary on 4 September 2007.The adoption of the EU strategy is to support member states in reducing alcohol related harm.
The main themes
While the paper makes clear that the European Commission do not intend to develop EU legislation in the field of the prevention of alcohol related harm, the European Commission has identified the following five priorities:
to protect young people and (...)

European Medicines Agency Update - New Budget and Transparency Measures

EMEA Budget News for 2007
The European Community contribution to the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) budget has been cut in 2007 EU budget discussions but not to the degree first feared.
Although the Agency had originally requested 46.32 million EUR, initial indications suggested that the Agency would receive only a small increase over the 2006 level of 34 million EUR.
However, the EMEA management board petitioned the European Parliament, expressing the concerns expressed by a great (...)