Euro Brief
16-30 June 2005 No. 12/2005
Health Campaigners Step up Pressure on Junk Food Ads
Health Insurance Card Success
Poor Rating for UK Health Services
Health and Consumer Intergroup Launched at European Parliament
Advice for Health Professionals on Rare Diseases
EU Action Plan to Reduce Illegal Drug Use
Health Campaigners Step up Pressure on Junk Food Ads
Public Health campaigners in the fight against obesity are requesting a tightening up of advertising of junk foods on TV as the Commission prepares to review the Television Without Frontiers Directive.
The International Obesity Task Force estimates that 24% of school-age children (10-20 per cent in Northern, 20-35 per cent in southern Europe) are either overweight or obese.
All EU member states are subject to the Television Without Frontiers Directive (1989) which states that advertising must not take advantage of children’s inexperience or directly encourage children to persuade their parents to buy the products being advertised.
Sweden and Norway have already banned advertising aimed at children. Since 1991 advertisements during children’s programs and advertisements at other times have not been allowed to target children under 12 years of age.
The Commission is carefully considering the findings of the BMA's Board of Science Report on preventing childhood obesity (published 22 June). The report highlights the main aspects of childhood nutrition and exercise. On advertising, the report recommends a total ban of the advertising of unhealthy foodstuffs, including inappropriate sponsorship programmes, targeted at school children.
Further on advertising, the report recommends that:
· celebrities and children’s television characters should only be associated with healthy products;
· supermarkets should promote healthy food instead of chocolates, sweets and crisps;
· new standards in nutritional content, food labelling, marketing and promotion should be developed and adopted by the food industry;
The Director of the Food Advertising Unit, Jeremy Preston, told Euractiv that the advertising industry recognises the need to change advertising codes to answer public policy concerns, but that a total ban, as proposed by the BMA, would be disproportionate.
In April 2005, the European Heart Network published a report on marketing of unhealthy food to children in Europe. It concludes that children need special protection against commercial communications and recommends that TV advertising of unhealthy food to children should be prohibited and the Television Without Frontiers Directive amended accordingly to assure the efficient protection of children at European level.
Health Insurance Card Success
The new European Health Insurance Card has proved far more popular than the previous EU health insurance document, the E111 (for tourists) as well as the E128 for people studying or working in another Member State and the E119 for citizens seeking work in another Member State -. It was launched in June 2004 to simplify access to medical care when travelling in the EU.
EU Social Affairs Commissioner. Spidla said, "The high acceptance of the European health insurance card clearly shows that this EU project gives added value to the citizen,".
Figures show that the highest number of cards was issued in Italy (13 million) and in the Czech Republic (around 7 million). By the end of 2005, all EU countries (as well as Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein) will have offered their citizens the card.
Poor Rating for UK Health Services
The EuroHealth consumer index for 2005 rated the British NHS ninth out of the EU's twelve largest member countries.
No one country came out top in all five of the index categories but the three national health care systems ranked as providing excellent services were the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany.
The index is divided into five categories including patient rights and waiting times and within each category are sub-divisions into indicators such as access to a person's own medical record, family doctor same-day services and prescription renewal without a doctor's appointment.
Although the UK came out ninth out of twelve, Britain did receive plaudits for providing health care information.
Health and Consumer Intergroup Launched at European Parliament
Over 110 Members of the European Parliament have signed up to a new Parliamentary Intergroup on health and consumer issues.
Members met for the first time on 23 June when the Intergroup was launched for the first time.
The European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) is providing the Secretariat for the Inter-group along with BEUC, the European Consmer's Intergroup whose members include Which! in the UK. The partnership came about when it became clear that cross-party support would be possible only if MEPs could discuss health and consumer issues at the same Intergroup.
MEPs come from all political groups in the European Parliament. The BMA attended the launch meeting along with other NGOs.
Advice for Health Professionals on Rare Diseases
The European Organisation for Rare Diseases (EURORDIS) has published a draft report on understanding rare diseases at its recent conference.
The EURORDIS draft report has identified some of the problems and solutions facing health care professionals when treating people with rare diseases.
EURORDIS recognises that rare diseases are a priority in the EU's public health programme for 2003-2008. EURORDIS is an NGO, partially funded by the European Commission, patient associations, charities and private partners.
The report suggests health care professionals should receive training on appropriate methods of disclosure. The report says that people with a rare disease may do a large amount of research on the web and even attain a knowledge of the disease equal to or greater than that of the health practitioner.
Six member states of the EU have developed national public policies on rare diseases (including the UK). National public health systems can provide more help through areas such as pain management, information exchange practices and medical devices to improve the patient's quality of life and life expectancy, says the report.
For more information, visit the website; www.eurordis.org
EU Action Plan to Reduce Illegal Drug Use
Up to two million citizens are estimated illegal drug users in the EU and over 8000 people die each year from drug abuse.
The European Commission has developed a model to tackle illicit drug use through prevention, education and treatment. It forms part of the EU's Drugs Action Plan for 2005-8, now endorsed by the Council of the European Union