Health Rights and Consumer Protection

Members of national forums and the European Group in Ethics (EGE) met last February during the 11th Forum of National Ethics Council (NEC) at Brdo, Slovenia. The Forum was organized by the European Commission and the Slovenian National Medical Ethics committee, and provided for an international informal debate in the field of ethics and science.
The leading theme of the NEC Forum-> was the Freedoms and Rights of the individuals in competition with the interests of the society. The meeting (...)

A European study carried out by the University of Kent (Tizard Centre) and the London School of Economics shows that community-based services meet in a more effective way the needs of people with disabilities.
Background
Since the 19th Century, residential institutions have represented the response to the needs of disabled people needing accommodation and assistance. From the 1960s onwards, the movement towards deinstitutionalisation has become popular so as to include people with severe (...)

The 2008 celebration of the second edition of the European Patients’ Rights Day will take place on 18 April 2008 in each member state. The Active Citizenship Network calls upon organisations active in the health field to organise events to emphasise the initiative. Organisations that wish to take part in the European Day will have had to confirm their participation by 17 January 2008.
Following the promising results achieved at the first European Patients’ Rights Days held on 29 March 2007 (...)

This article has been updated with the Press release about Toy Safety(12 September 2007), the Third Mattel recall (September 2007) and the European Commission press release to carry out two month review of toy safety controls (September 2007)
The toys enterprise Mattel Inc. has launched a third large-scale recall of dangerous toys made in China on September 2007, after the two previous ones of August, that highlights the risks of lead pigments and magnets for children.
The third Mattel (...)

Nurses and doctors in Poland have taken the streets during a month, between mid-June and mid-July 2007, to force the government to increase wages and inject more funds into the public health sector.
The main protest, on 21 June, gathered around 7.000-10.000 nurses and doctors, who stayed overnight in front of the government’s headquarters, in Warsaw. The next day, the police removed the protesters from the city road with a result of three wounded nurses, one reported to have had a heart (...)

The European Commission, DG SANCO, has launched a new sunscreen labelling regime, composed of four pictograms and a UVA logo, to inform consumers of the dangers linked to sun exposure. The presentation took place on 9 July 2007 in Brussels, Belgium.
The information initiative responds to an EU Commission recommendation on sunscreen products adopted in September 2006 and provides consumers with new clearer labelling that will be visible on the market in summer 2007.
Furthermore, the EU (...)

A proposal to update the EU’s 1989 "TV without Frontiers" Directive, to keep pace with rapid market developments in Europe’s audiovisual sector, was tabled by the European Commission in December 2005. Among other things, it will regulate advertising on television.
On 13 December 2005, after several public consultations, the European Commission adopted the legislative proposal for the revision of the “Television Without Frontiers” Directive (Directive 97/36/EC). The Commission (...)

The rights of people with disabilities have gained the attention of both the European Parliament and the United Nations. The EP has issued a report on the situation of disabled people in the EU. and welcomes the new UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, including their right to a high standard of health.
UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
This new human rights treaty is due to be signed by the EU Member countries. The UN Convention on the Rights of (...)

The Open Society Institute (OSI) EU Monitoring and Advocacy Program (EUMAP) has just issued a report on “Television across Europe: regulation, policy and independence” meant to monitor the role of television in the media spectrum across Europe.
Acknowledging that television channels are the main source of information for most people, the report aimed to map 20 European countries and present national and European recommendations.
The authors’ main conclusions point out the need (...)

Who is privy to medical research data? How effective is the EU’s Data Protection Directive at safeguarding the fundamental rights and freedoms of medical research subjects? European researchers set out to answer this question in an EU-funded investigation which recently presented its findings in Brussels.
The Data Protection Directive generally aims to remove obstacles to the flow of personal data by securing EU citizen’s fundamental rights (in particular, privacy). To some extent, each (...)