KONSUMENTINSTITUTET LÄKEMEDEL OCH HÄLSA
CONSUMER INSTITUTE FOR MEDICINES AND HEALTH
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ELIN
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Redaktionen |
In English
KILEN News
Dear friends,
The "Appeal" below is one of the ways we are trying in order to be able to continue the work at KILEN. We want you to know that we have a lot of support from many organizations -consumer organizations as well as governmental organizations - and from many, many individuals - both in Sweden and outside the country. It is our believe that many people together can change the world! Consumer power is very important!
If you agree with the appeal, we ask you to sign it below and return it to us.
You may as well mail it for the Ministry of Health and Social Affaires in
Sweden.
Address: [email protected]
For those of you who are interested in the work on Consumer Reports on Medicines, CRM, and the network RE:ACT! we would like to tell you that for the moment we are doing some important fund-raising for the coordination of the RE:ACT!-network and also collecting project descriptions from many of you for the CRM project catalogue. We will hopefully meet some of you at the People´s Health Assebly in Bangladesh next week, where we will have a CRM-workshop.
All the best from KILEN
Jan Albinson
Kersti Andersson
Lena Westin
tisdag den 28 november 2000
APPEAL
SUPPORT KILEN!
KILEN - Consumer Institute for Medicines and Health, is the oldest organisation of its kind, involved in helping people harmed by and/or dependent on medicinal drugs. The existence of this organisation is now in serious jeopardy. KILEN faces being forced to discontinue its activities within a period of only a few weeks, despite a record of successful counseling, support, treatment, knowledge and method development as well as advocacy activities spanning a quarter of a century.
Over the years, several slander campaigns have been launched against our program by fractions within the medical community, clearly concerned about trying to conceal the fact that many people have their lives destroyed by drug treatment. Needless to say, such treatment may be beneficial and necessary in the appropriate situations for certain individuals.
A case in point: recently, a group of physicians in Sweden stated that: "To our knowledge, KILEN does not contribute any new knowledge to the health care system...". This statement has been used as basis of decisions to deny KILEN further support.
The people; currently over 30 000 individuals; who have approached KILEN with their own drug-related problems, testify to the contrary, to the significant contribution KILEN has made. In fact, they have been unable to find knowledge or understanding of their problems within the health care system.
KILEN exists as a resource outside the health care system, offering complete confidentiality and absolving patients from having to face the prospect of stigmatizing information being entered into medical records, typically describing people who have been harmed by medicines as psychiatrically ill or as drug abusers. Hence, KILEN is also open to those, who have lost all confidence in the health care system, who fail to access health care and who thus cannot be reached and helped by any other societal support system.
An influential group of physicians have now convinced the politicians to embark on the same path as themselves, in terms of disregarding and disavowing the experiences of patients/consumers. Who stands to benefit from this? The pharmaceutical industry with its pressing need to cover its vast marketing costs? Groups of physicians, reacting against the growing knowledge and empowerment among their patients? Or those politicians who are responsible for health care and are trying to quiten down the complaints of their "customers"?
PROTEST AGAINST THE DISCONTINUATION OF KILEN, THE SOLE ORGANISATION IN SWEDEN WHICH DARES TO OPENLY SPEAK OUT ON BEHALF OF THE MANY PEOPLE FACING MEDICINAL DRUG PROBLEMS.
Please sign your name on this list. Contact other parties, organisations or individuals, who might be intrested in and/or sympathetic to our cause.
DO NOT LET MONEY AND PRESTIGE TAKE THE PRECEDENT OVER HUMAN LIVES!
Postal adress: Kammakargatan 7, S-111 40 Stockholm Telephone: +46 (0)8-696 01 00. Fax: +46 (0)8-696 01 10 e-mail: