PatientView have conducted a global survey of 655 patient groups from 46 different countries on the topic of patient information. The findings where partly presented at the Patient Information by the Health Consumer Powerhouse seminar hosted in the European Parliament by Christofer Fjellner last week. One of the questions asked where: How well do you believe the following companies performed in 2009 in their ability to provide information to patient groups? It turns out that Pfizer takes the lead for the second year in a row. On second place comes AstraZeneca (+6) and on third place Novartis (-1). The ranking do seem to partly correlate with how well known the companies are and its therefor maybe not surprising that out of 15 companies on shared 13th place comes the rather unknown Amgen and Boehringer-Ingelheim. The full list can be found in Alex Wykes presentation here.
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But they should all score zero, 'cos they're not supposed to provide information to patients...
ReplyDeleteOf course they should, being the producers of the medicines, with a significant legal, economic and moral responsibility for their products. You need to distinguish what is marketing/ads on one side and information on the other. To inform patient groups is key and will become more and more essential, if you believe that patients and consumers would have a chance to engage in their own healthcare. Then informed choice and action, for example on side effects, is critical. That is why the rapid growth of user-friendly portals on medicines such as www.fass.se around the EU can contribute to better and safer use of medicines, providing unbiased, up-dated and complete data on all registred products in each country. Finally patients can learn what the doctor has known for long. What´s wrong about that?
ReplyDeleteMust agree with Johan.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to notice that in all other industries the governments seems to be pushing hard for the companies to inform more about their products but in this field they are dead against. At the same time same principle as for food should be valid: we have the right and need to know what it is we are putting into our bodies. For me its a given that it should rather be an obligation for the industry (both innovative and generics) to inform the patients.