Press Release Contact: Dr Tim Evans (President, CNE) + 32 (0) 2 506 4000 or +44 07956 969523, tim.evans@cne.org Embargoed until 00.01am Thursday 2nd December 2004

BRUSSELS, 02 DECEMBER 2004 — Today, Europe's leading Brussels based free market think tank, the Centre for the New Europe (CNE) launched its latest report: Why Greater Freedom of Patient Information in European Healthcare Could Save Lives and Money. The report proposes that freedom of patient information should be allowed throughout the European Union and that European citizens should have the right to receive full information about health care products from all available sources. If adopted, it is estimated that global healthcare costs in the United Kingdom could fall by as much as £109 million per year, and throughout the European Union as a whole by as much as 437 million Euros. The report's authors - Dr. Tim Evans, Alberto Mingardi and Stephen Pollard - propose that the authorities throughout the European Union should accept that a regulatory system that was not incompatible with 20th century medical practice is not compatible with the medical practice of the 21st century:

"It should be accepted by all that the status of medical professionals has changed. It has not collapsed by any means. But while they are still seen - and rightly seen - as indispensable sources of advice, physicians are no longer seen as oracles. They are expected to converse with their patients almost as equals - and perhaps sometimes even to learn from them. Given this changed technological and cultural basis of healthcare, the regulatory superstructure must also change."

The report does not propose that products should be advertised for direct sale to the public. Instead, it asserts:

"Very few people would consider it sensible to return to the right of self-medication taken away after the Great War. But we do propose that European Union regulations should be changed so that pharmaceutical companies are able to offer on their web sites and in any other medium full information to all about the availability of their products and about the effects and side effects of their products. We propose that greater freedom of information should be permitted for all medical conditions, and not just the limited number proposed by the European Commission. We propose that citizens of the European Union should have the same right to full information about products as American citizens now have."

In launching the report CNE's President and Director General, Dr. Tim Evans, said:

"This report gives lie to the idea that restricting health information in Europe helps to contain costs. In reality, keeping people ill-informed when it comes to their health options increasingly costs European health systems vast sums of unnecessarily wasted money. Greater freedom of information is not just a good thing of itself - if introduced it will greatly help to cut costs."

Why Greater Freedom of Patient Information in European Healthcare Could Save Lives and Money by Dr. Tim Evans, Dr Sean Gabb and Stephen Pollard is published on-line and can be downloaded from www.CNE.org and www.CNEhealth.org.