Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 17-02-08

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] A 'crucial year' ahead for Europe, Pavlopoulos says at IOM anniversary event

[02] EOPYY denies using 'expected survival' criterion to approve prescribed medication

[01] A 'crucial year' ahead for Europe, Pavlopoulos says at IOM anniversary event

Addressing the event, Pavlopoulos said that 2017 will be a "crucial year" for Europe's future, in which many Europeans would be asked to demonstrate through national elections "what exactly it is that they want from Europe."

"[We must show]...what we mean by Europe and we must be prepared to defend its identity," he added.

The president noted that the IOM had known two phases of Greece's post-war history during its 65 years in the country, the '50s and '60s when Greeks were migrating abroad to find work and the period following the '90s, when it became a country receiving migrants.

"Now the United Nations and IOM, Greece, Europe and the entire world are facing two major challenges that will determine humanity's course, its civilisation and that of our own European edifice: those two challenges are the refugee crisis and the migration crisis," he added.

The first, he noted, was the result of wars for which the West bore great responsibility and the second the result of massive inequalities between rich and poor peoples.

He stressed that Europe and the west must treat refugees in ways "befitting our culture and our democracy," while noting that the second problem was the result of mistaken policies on a global level, leading to widening inequality that had to be fought.

Other speakers at the event included Alternate Citizen Protection Minister Nikos Toskas, Deputy Migration Policy Minister Yiannis Balafas and the head of the IOM in Greece Daniel Esdras.

[02] EOPYY denies using 'expected survival' criterion to approve prescribed medication

"EOPYY, while preserving the safeguards on the correct administration of pharmaceuticals (as set out by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the medical community), is proceeding with a revision of prescription forms," it said, stressing that the organisation was daily striving to ensure full coverage of the needs of every citizen, both within and outside of Greece.

The announcement also pointed out that the specific information was not requested on prescriptions for any other medication, including cancer medication, but only for one specific drug whose administration required the preliminary approval of a special committee.

"In order to speed up this process, prescription forms have been designed that the attending doctors have to fill in. Out of all the drugs approved in advance by Special Committees, only for the specific and sole radioactive drug is survival expectancy included. This is due to the fact that the approval study for the drug - as described in its public assessment report by the EMA - also includes as criteria the physical condition of the patient and survival expectancy."

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