E-drug: Meeting on consumer reports on adverse drug effects
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Dear Friends,
HAI member, KILEN, will host a meeting in September aimed at increasing
consumers' role in reporting drug side effects. Please read the attached
announcement for
more information. You can contact KILEN at the address given at the end to
receive more
details.
Best wishes,
Lisa Hayes
Publications & Information Officer
HAI Europe
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The First International Conference on Consumer REPORTS on Medicines
September 29 - October 1, 2000 at Sigtuna Foundation, Sigtuna, Sweden
Organizer:
KILEN - Consumer Institute for Medicines and Health and Consumers'
Association for Medicines and Health
In co-operation with Dag Hammarsk�ld Foundation * HAI-Health Action
International * HAI-Sweden * People's Health Assembly 2000 * Uppsala
Monitoring Centre * The Sigtuna
Foundation * The Swedish Consumers' Association
A working conference
The CRM-conference is a working conference. We ask the conference
participants to prepare themselves by responding to five questions". The
answers will be published as part of the conference material and will form
the basis and support for the conference discussions.
The aims of the Conference are to:
* Make invisible knowledge visible
* Establish a pharmacovigilance system based on consumers' experiences of
medicines
* Increase drug users' knowledge about the effects and side effects of
drugs
* Develop a countervailing force to the marketing efforts of the
pharmaceutical industry
* Emphasise pharmacovigilance as an indispensable instrument in working for
improved public health
From the Conference Programme:
* Knowledge about drugs. What knowledge is available? Who owns it? What
knowledge do we need? * What is a drug side effect? * Experiences of
different systems/initiatives for Direct-From-Consumer reporting. Why? How?
Problems? Resistance? * The consumer database ELIN presentation *
Information about People's Health Assembly * Consumers Collaborating for
Pharmacovigilance * Social program and post conference activities.
We need drugs
but we also need knowledge about drugs, drug effects and side effects.
Currently, as patients or consumers of the products of the pharmaceutical
industry, we are almost completely dependent on the information about drug
effects and side effects provided by the manufacturers. The same is true
for our physicians, pharmacists and authorities.
An almost limitless and vital source of knowledge about drugs, their
effects and side effects remains virtually untapped. We refer to the
experiences and reactions of the drug users themselves.
Knowledge is a prerequisite for participation and shared responsibility.
For this reason, it is vitally important that the knowledge that has been
collected about a drug can also be communicated to those who use them.
We must build knowledge
The objective of the Conference "Consumer REPORTS on Medicines" is to give
participants the tools and the inspiration needed to establish systems that
capitalise on user experiences.
These systems must be national, maybe even local ones, but they should also
be co-ordinated in an international network for development and exchange of
methods as well as knowledge. The Conference also seeks to lay the
foundation of such a network.
The Peoples Health Assembly -PHA
The Conference is in contact with PHA and will constitute a pre-conference
in preparation for PHA. PHA will be held in Savar, Bang-ladesh, December
2-8, 2000.
For more information, contact: KILEN, Kammakargatan 7, SE-111 40 Sweden.
Tel: +46 8 696 0100 Fax: +46 8 696 0110 e-mail:
kilen@kilen-institutet.se
www.kilen.org (here you can find the programme and the application form).
Lena Westin
female managing director
KILEN-Consumer Institute for Medicines and Health
Kammakargatan 7
S-111 40 Stockholm
Sweden
Phone: +46 (0)8 6960100
Fax: +46 (0)8 6960110
e-mail: lena.westin@kilen-institutet.se
www.kilen.org
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