What consequences for rare diseases?
Last November, Eurordis mobilised its network to try to preserve the 2006 EU Public Health and Consumer Protection budget. A letter was drafted and sent to the Government heads in each country, with a copy to the Ministries for Health. The issue was that in the last negotiation phase, the EU Public Health strategy budget was threatened by a reduction of 35% to be applied indiscriminately to the whole Community budget. Experience shows that for rare diseases, action undertaken at European level is even more effective than action carried out at national level by each Member State. A decreased EU budget would therefore have had a disastrous impact on diagnosis, treatment and care of people living with rare diseases. Health concerns persistently arrive in 3rd position of European citizens’ concerns. However, expenditures for public health represent the smallest amount among other Community expenditures (112 per EU inhabitant for agriculture, 11 for Research, and 1 for Public Health). Euror
