European Patients Forum

The Guardian reports:

The EPF was set up after the European commission said it would prefer to deal with one pan-European organisation representing patients. The EPF's first president, from launch in January 2003 until 2005, was Rodney Elgie, from the mental health organisation GAMIAN-Europe, who is a central figure in the evolution of patient groups linked to the pharmaceutical industry in Europe. The EPF was strongly criticised for a lack of transparency by the campaigning group Health Action International in July 2005. "European patients are ill-served by a group whose close links to the pharmaceutical industry amount to an enormous risk of conflict of interest," said Jeremy Smith, author of the HAI report. The EPF at the time did not publish details of its funding. Now it does, and virtually its entire income comes from drug companies.