In 2011 EFA established a goal to specifically expand its membership to Spain after a prolonged absence of Spanish patient associations in the organisation. As a result, on 25 January 2012 EFA hosted an EFA-Spanish Patient Associations Alignment Meeting in Barcelona, which was arranged to provide an opportunity for EFA to learn about the prospects for future coordination between patients’ associations in Spain at a national level, while identifying

The countries where smoking is entirely banned in public and workplaces and transport – including also pubs and bars are Ireland and UK and Bulgaria is to follow in June 2010. Italy, Sweden, Malta, Latvia, Finland, Slovenia, France and the Netherlands have opted legislation allowing special enclosed smoking rooms. This makes 10 countries with comprehensive protection. 1 in five Europeans are still exposed to second hand smoke on daily basis, and

The European Medicines Agency has adopted a revised policy on the handling of conflicts of interests of Scientific Committee members and experts. Depending on the level of conflict of interest, restricted involvement in the Agency’s activities may be applied. The new policy will be further discussed at the meeting of the EMA Patient and Consumer Working Party (PCWP). We would like to draw you attention to the fact that public consultation on the

U-BIOPRED, a research project in which EFA is taking part that aims to understand more about severe asthma, is launching an art competition to help bridge the gap between patients’ and doctors’ perceptions of asthma and raise awareness of the disease. The competition is open to anyone who wishes to enter, and who would like to express their experience of living with asthma through art. Entries are welcome until the 1st of May 2011, and will be

The Italian COPD Patients' Association has recently approved its event and activity programme for 2011. One of the association's main objectives will be to have the Italian Health Ministry's "Essential Levels of Care" officially revised to include COPD as a chronic disabling disease, and various activities and joint actions are planned to help bring this about. Another annual objective is to foster and improve knowledge and research on COPD by participating

Executive Officer Susanna Palkonen took part in Philips Active Ageing THINK TANK on behalf of the European Patients’ Forum (EPF) onMay 9 in Washington. She took part in the first dialogue meeting between Eucomed, representing medical technology companies and patient organisations on May 26 in Brussels. She also took part in a working meeting of the HealthVent project, looking at the best scientific evidence linking ventilation and health in Ispra,

EFA is pleased to announce that this year's AGM and annual Network Meeting will be held in Dublin on the 11th and 12th of May, and hosted by the Asthma Society of Ireland. On the first day EFA members will have the opportunity to give input about EFA policies and activities to better serve the interests of people with allergy, asthma and COPD and improve services for members. They will also be able to vote on key issues. At this year's AGM members

On the 28th of February, EFA attended one of the periodical joint meetings of the PCWP and the Healthcare Professionals’ Working Group (HCP WG) at the EMA in London. EFA, which has been taking part in these meetings since March 2010, together with 14 other patient and consumer representative organisations, was represented by Lina Buzermaniene, EFA’s regular representative, and Roberta Savli. During the meeting, several questions arose for which

Background The EFA Oxygen Harmonization Project is brand new for launch in 2012 and focuses on the inequalities which exist in relation to the availability of oxygen during travel on commercial airlines. The project exists as a parallel action working with MEP Keith Taylor, who has requested an own-initiative report (OIR) in the Transportation and Tourism (TRAN) Committee of the European Parliament on “The functioning and application of established

The AirPROM Project seeks to coordinate existing consortia with expertise in various fields like bioengineering and computational modeling to develop an integrated multi-scale airways model. The project aims to address research gaps in clinical management of airways disease through the provision of modeling techniques to predict respiratory disease progression and response to treatment. The significance would be an ability to customise a lung model

The European Commission has released a memo (MEMO/06/208) outlining in the form of Frequently Asked Questions the proposals for modernisation of the Television without Frontiers Directive 1989/52/EEC, which was published in 1989, and which bans tobacco advertising from televisions across the European Union. This comes as the results of a resolution adopted on 4 September 2003, in which the European Parliament called for a complete overhaul of this

Starting in 2011, EFA began to integrate an optional event, called the Networking Day, following the AGM for EFA members presenting the opportunity for members to collaborate and get to know each other better. In 2012 the Networking Day took place on 12 May, which included the vast majority of EFA members who participated in the AGM the day prior. The day included the presentation of feedback regarding the EFA Members “Meet and Greet” EU Institutions