The EFA COPD project is continuing with the aim of making an 'own initiative report' on COPD in the European Parliament a reality. A final round of meetings with MEPs in Brussels is currently being prepared, and it is hoped that a majority of MEPs in the ENVI (Environment, Public Health and Food Safety) committee will support the cause. EFA would warmly welcome our members' and other patient groups' support in this, and invites you to contact your

EFA's respiratory allergy project is still underway and if you have not already done so we invite you to sign EFA's CALL TO ACTION on respiratory allergies in Europe, to help raise awareness & relieve the burden. Details of the Call to Action can be found here. If you participated in this project and have not managed to find a sponsor to produce a translation of the EFA Book on Respiratory Allergies in your language and would like to, or if your

All around the world, airlines have separate rules for the use of oxygen in air travel, creating inequalities for passengers who need oxygen support. EFA's newest project is the "EFA oxygen harmonization project," a 2 year project whose aim is to harmonize the situation for airline passengers in Europe. In late 2011, a draft report was drawn up in the European Parliament calling for persons with reduced mobility and disabilities to have the right

EFA President Breda Flood was welcomed as a new Council member of the European Lung Foundation (ELF) in Geneva on 2 February this month, and participated in the Council meeting held on the same day. Several important topics were discussed at the meeting, including how the European Respiratory Society Roadmap - which outlines recommendations for the future of respiratory medicine - will guide ELF's work plan over the next 2-3 years. Also discussed

MovingLife is a project that has been set up with the aim of accelerating the establishment, acceptance and wide use of mobile electronic health solutions, known as 'mHealth'. mHealth uses mobile communications and portable devices - such as smart phones, mobile phones or PDA - to provide health services and health information, and has emerged as an important sub-segment of the field of electronic health (eHealth) in the past few years. The MovingLife

On 17 January in London, EFA President Breda Flood participated in a meeting organised by the International Primary Care Respiratory Group (IPCRG) on the topic of difficult to manage asthma. Breda is part of a multi-disciplinary task force that guides IPCRG to produce resources for primary care on this topic. The aim of the meeting was to produce and provide practical guidance for healthcare professionals about how to improve their care of people

On 25 January 2012, EFA hosted a meeting with eight Spanish patient associations in order to familiarise itself with the current state of play regarding cooperation between patient associations at national level in Spain. The meeting provided an opportunity for EFA to present itself to these associations, and for the Spanish associations representing people with allergy, asthma and COPD themselves to become familiar with each others' activities.

On 23 and 24 of January this year, EFA attended the annual meeting of the U-BIOPRED project in Barcelona. EFA is a partner in this five-year project, which aims to improve our understanding of severe asthma, its phenotypes (different forms of the disease), its history and how it progresses. It also aims to explain why existing medicines are unable to meet patients' needs, and address issues such as patients' lack of responsiveness to treatment. Its

In October in Brussels, Foundation Euractiv held a stakeholder workshop entitled 'The air we breathe - from regulatory patchwork to coordinated EU action?' in Brussels. The aim of the workshop was to discuss the possibility of legislating to improve the quality of indoor air in the EU. Although outdoor air quality has long been a focus of EU policy makers, Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is only inconsistently legislated for at EU level. Nevertheless, recent

The European Commission has recently issued revised proposals clarifying the information that industry should make available to the public on prescription-only medicines. This follows a revision of its earlier proposals on the subject, rejected by the European Parliament in 2010. The new version attempts to incorporate Parliament's requests, and, according to the Commission, has the overall objective of empowering patients and promoting the rational

On 30th November EFA board member Lina Buzermaniene and EFA COPD advisor Michael Wilken took part in the Patients and Consumers Working Party (PCWP) meeting at the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which gathered those eligible to work with EMA. Guido Rasi, new EMA executive director, introduced himself and expressed his positive view on patient involvement in health policy. A general update on the implementation of the new pharmacovigilence legislation,

The management board of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has adopted a new document entitled "Implementing the European Medicines Agency's Road map to 2015: The Agency's contribution to Science, Medicines, Health; From Vision to Reality". The implementation plan follows the adoption in December 2010 of the EMA Road map to 2015, and sets out how this is expected to be developed. Both the Road map and its newly adopted implementation plan focus