Tiago Villanueva

European nations launch tax attack on unhealthy foods

Goodbye pizza, burgers, chips, butter, soda pop, milk, cheese, pizza, bacon, Danish pastries and luxurious Hungarian dobostorta cake. Hello dry toast and soy pudding. The cynical might suggest that European governments are falling over one another to introduce fat taxes to help offset their

Europe contemplates stricter language proficiency testing of doctors

European nations may be creeping toward the imposition of tougher language proficiency requirements for doctors who’d like to hang up a shingle anywhere but their homeland. Patient and employer complaints about foreign doctors who lack proficiency in a country’s official language are prompting

Europe clamps down on antibiotic misuse

In a bold plan to contain the deleterious effects of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the European Commission is calling on all European Union countries to prohibit antibiotic use in animals and humans without veterinary or medical prescription. The requirement is among a number of measures urged in

Europe unveils risk assessment guidance for engineered nanomaterials used in food chain

With food additives, flavourings, enzymes and other so-called “engineered nanomaterials” becoming altogether more common in products on market shelves, the Parma, Italy-based European Food Safety Authority has issued the world’s first guidance on determining the potential health risks they

European reforms urged to reduce differential drug costs between nations.

Policies to promote more extensive use of generic pharmaceuticals, better prescribing by physicians and more widespread use of cost-effectiveness analyses in the selection of drugs for national formularies are among measures that would reduce current variations in the price of drugs across Europe,

French boost European telemedicine

French doctors will be entitled to bill the government for some medical services provided over the phone at the same rate that they invoice for services provided in their offices or hospitals, under new French legislation aimed at promoting the use of telemedicine and redressing regional inequities

Mediterranean diets: financial crisis prompts trimming of health care’s waistline

They’ve been pejoratively dubbed the “PIGS” of Europe: Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain. Their financial indebtedness has necessitated bailouts from the European Union and other international institutions, and as they scramble to sort out their wrecked economies, health care is starting to

Revalidation wave hits European doctors

It may be a function of a growing lack of trust in physicians or merely a product of the ever-increasing demand for more professional accountability. Whatever the reason, a revalidation wave appears to be sweeping Europe that may soon force most doctors on the continent to demonstrate their

European impasse over patients' rights directive may be at an end.

European patients are inching closer to having the right to receive health care in other European Union countries under a draft directive adopted by the health ministers of 27 member states. But even if formally adopted this fall, the directive will not give patients carte blanche to receive

Europe develops action plan to address health workforce shortfall

European officials have developed an action plan to resolve an anticipated shortfall of one million health workers among the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) by 2020. The shortfall will include a need for 230 000 physicians and as a consequence, about 13.5% of necessary health care will