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Wednesday 16 March 2022

Judging underway for the 2022 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine

Entries have been received for the 2022 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine from 32 countries for its FPM-Hippocrates Open and Health Professional Awards and from 22 countries for the Hippocrates Young Poets’ Prize.  These well-established international awards are supported by medical society the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine and the Cardiovascular Research Trust the Healthy Heart Charity.

Short-listed and commended poets will be notified in early April. Winners of the FPM-Hippocrates Awards will be announced by the judges at the online Hippocrates Awards Ceremony on 30th May 2022 for which registration is free.


Awards in the Hippocrates Prize are for an unpublished poem in English of up to 50 lines on a medical theme by entrants from anywhere in the world. Previous winners have come from Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK and the USA.

With a prize fund of £5500 for winning poems in the Open International category and international health professional category, and £500 for the international Young Poets Award, the Hippocrates Prize is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world for a single poem.

Judges for the 2022 FPM-Hippocrates Prize Open and Health Professional awards are American poet Jeffrey Harrison, British medical researcher Professor Peter Barnes FRS and BBC newsreader, writer and actor Zeb Soanes. European/American author and poet Ellen Hinsey is judge for the Hippocrates Young Poets’ Prize. See more on the judges below.

The International Hippocrates Prize is awarded in three categories:

- a £1000 first prize, £500 second prize and £250 third prize in the FPM-Hippocrates Open category, which anyone in the world may enter. There are a further ~20 commendations in the Open category

- a £1000 first prize, £500 second prize and £250 third prize in the FPM-Hippocrates Health Professional category, which is open to Health Service employees, health students and those working in professional organisations anywhere in the world involved in education and training of health professional students and staff. There are a further ~20 commendations in the Health Professional category

- a £500 award for the Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for an unpublished poem in English on a medical theme. Entries are open to young poets from anywhere in the world aged 14 to 18 years. There are further commendations in the Young Poets category. There is no entry fee for the Young Poets prize.

The Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine – winner of the 2011 Times Higher Education Award for Innovation and Excellence in the Arts – is an interdisciplinary venture that investigates the synergy between medicine, the arts and health.

Notes for editors
For more on the 2022 Hippocrates Prize email hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com 

Support for the 2022 Hippocrates Prize

The 2022 FPM-Hippocrates Open Awards and FPM-Hippocrates Health Professional Awards are supported by the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. The FPM, founded in 1918,  is a UK medical society which publishes the international journals the Postgraduate Medical Journal and Health Policy and Technology. 

The 2022 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize is supported by the Cardiovascular Research Trust, a healthy heart charity founded in 1996, which promotes research and education for the prevention and treatment of disorders of the heart and circulation. The charity has a particular interest in avoiding preventable heart disease through educating school students.

2022 Hippocrates Prize Judges

Peter Barnes FRS has been Margaret Turner-Warwick Professor of Medicine at the National Heart and Lung Institute and Honorary Consultant Physician at Royal Brompton Hospital, London since 1987. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2007, the first respiratory researcher elected as FRS for over 150 years. He is a Past-President of the European Respiratory Society (2013/14). His research is focused on cellular and molecular mechanisms of asthma and chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD), understanding and developing therapies and research into biomarkers for these diseases. He is involved in multidisciplinary translational research which integrates basic science with clinical studies, thereby providing novel insights into common airway diseases. He qualified at Cambridge and Oxford Universities and he has published over 1000 peer-review papers on asthma, COPD and related topics and has edited over 40 books. 

He is amongst the top 50 most highly cited researchers in the world and has been the most highly cited clinical scientist in the UK and the most highly cited respiratory researcher in the world over the last 20 years. He is an Emeritus National Institute for Health Research Senior Investigator, a Master Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians and a member of the Academia Europaea. He is also a member of the Council of medical society the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. 

Jeffrey Harrison is the author of six full-length books of poetry, including, most recently, Between Lakes (Four Way Books, 2020), selected as a 2021 Must-Read Poetry Book by the Massachusetts Center for the Book, Into Daylight (Tupelo Press, 2014), winner of the Dorset Prize, Incomplete Knowledge (2006), and Feeding the Fire (2001), which won the Sheila Motton Award from the New England Poetry Club. His first book, The Singing Underneath, was selected by James Merrill for National Poetry Series in 1987. 

A volume of his selected early poems, The Names of Things, was published in the U.K. by the Waywiser Press in 2006. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Bogliasco Foundation, among other honors, and his poems have appeared widely in magazines and anthologies, including Best American Poetry, The Pushcart Prize volumes, Poets of the New Century, The Twentieth Century in Poetry, and been featured regularly in Ted Kooser’s column American Life in Poetry, The Writer’s Almanac, Poetry Daily, and other online and media venues. 

Reviewing Incomplete Knowledge for the Virginia Quarterly Review, critic George David Clark praises Harrison’s “seemingly effortless access to both desperate sorrow and a certain joyous and musical gusto—somewhat paradoxical attitudes Harrison often convincingly achieves within the space of a few lines.”

Jeffrey Harrison has taught at George Washington University, Phillips Academy, the University of Southern Maine, and Framingham State University. He lives in Massachusetts and can also be found at jeffreyharrisonpoet.com.

American poet Ellen Hinsey is judge for the 2022 Hippocrates Young Poets’ Prize for Poetry and Medicine. She is the author of nine books of essays, dialogue, poetry and translation. Her essays on Central and Eastern Europe are collected in Mastering the Past: Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe and the Rise of Illiberalism (2017). Her book-length dialogue with Lithuanian poet and dissident Tomas Venclova, Magnetic North explores post-war Lithuanian and Eastern European culture and ethics under totalitarianism. Hinsey's other books include: The Illegal AgeUpdate on the Descent, which draws on her experience at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague, The White Fire of Time and Cities of Memory (Yale University Series Award). Her work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Poetry Review, The Irish Times and Poetry, among others. She is a former fellow of the American Academy in Berlin and the DAAD Kunstlerprogam in Berlin. She is the international correspondent for the New England Review and is currently a senior editor at the New American Studies Journal (Göttingen).

Zeb Soanes is a newsreader and reassuring voice of the Shipping Forecast to millions of listeners on BBC Radio 4. He is a regular on The News Quiz, has reported for From Our Own Correspondent, read for Poetry Please and presented Saturday Classics on BBC Radio 3. He has announced some of the biggest events in recent years from the final result of the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump to the unfolding of the Coronavirus pandemic. Sunday Times readers voted him their favourite male voice on UK radio. At literary festivals including Hay and Edinburgh he regularly chairs discussions with best-selling authors including Francesca Simon, Patrick Gale and David Walliams. His long association with The Shipping Forecast has led him to read it from the top of a lighthouse, at the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics and to open London Fashion Week.

He studied Creative Writing and Drama at UEA and has written for The Observer, Country Life and The Literary Review.  In 2019, St Martin in the Fields commissioned him to rewrite the libretto for Vaughan Williams’ 1958 nativity pageant, The First Nowell, presented as a charity gala.He trained as an actor and has performed in BBC radio dramas with Simon Russell-Beale and Toby Jones.  He played Derek Nimmo in the story of the classic BBC comedy series All Gas and Gaiters and was the sinister librarian to David Warner’s Doctor Who for Big Finish Productions. In the short film, Mayday, starring Juliet Stevenson, he relayed the unfolding chaos of an earthquake in London. During the 2020 coronavirus lockdown he created celebriTEAS, a comedy podcast, impersonating his theatrical heroes to raise money for the Equity Benevolent Fund and Acting for Others which received praise from Russell Davies and Stephen Fry.

His best-selling first book for children, Gaspard the Fox, inspired by his remarkable encounters with an urban fox, was published in May 2018, illustrated by James Mayhew.  It was followed by Gaspard Best in Show (2019). The latest adventure, Gaspard’s Foxtrot (2021), was conceived as both a book and narrated concert work, composed by Jonathan Dove, which received its world premiere at the 2021 Three Choirs Festival.

Zeb is an active patron of Awards for Young Musicians and the British Association of Performing Arts Medicine. In recognition of his efforts to culturally rehabilitate the urban fox through his books, he was appointed the first patron of The Mammal Society. He regularly supports the work of St Martin in the Fields with homelessness and, in 2017, hosted a gala auction of theatrical portraits of the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company, raising over a hundred thousand pounds. In his hometown of Lowestoft he is a committed supporter of the Samaritans.

Organisers of the Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine
Professor Donald Singer is a clinical pharmacologist and President of the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. His interests include public understanding of drugs, health and disease and prevention and treatment of disorders of the heart, brain and circulation. Professor Michael Hulse is a poet and translator of German literature. 
Until 2020, he taught poetry and comparative literature at the University of Warwick. He has won the National Poetry Competition and is the only poet to have won the Bridport Poetry Prize twice. He  has also translated more than sixty books from the German, including titles by Goethe, Rilke, Jakob Wassermann, Alfred Andersch, W. G. Sebald, and Nobel Laureates Elfriede Jelinek and Herta Müller. His translations have been shortlisted for every major translation award, including the PEN Translation Prize (US), the Aristeion Translation Prize and the Schlegel-Tieck Prize.

Tuesday 9 March 2021

Judging underway for the 12th Annual International Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine - entries from 34 countries


Entries are now closed for the Open and Health Professional awards and for the Young Poets Prize in the 2021 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. Poems have been submitted from 34 countries from Australia to the USA and from Iceland to India. 

The Open and Health Professional awards in the Hippocrates Prize are supported by medical society the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. The Young Poets Award for poets aged 14-18 years is supported by healthy heart charity The Cardiovascular Research Trust.

The Hippocrates Prize is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world for a single poem.

There is a prize fund of £500 for winning poems in the FPM-Hippocrates Open category and the FPM-Hippocrates health professional category.

Entries remain open for the Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine.

Anne Barnard, Keki Daruwalla, Anna Jackson, Neena Modi  
 


Senior New York Times correspondent Anne Barnard, distinguished poets 
Keki Daruwalla and Anna Jackson and paediatrician Professor Neena Modi, President-Elect of the British Medical Association, are the judges for the 2021 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. Ann Barnard, Keki Daruwalla and Professor Neena Modi will judge the Open and Health Professional awards and Anna Jackson judge the Young Poets’ Prize for Poetry and Medicine.

Co-organiser Donald Singer said: “We are delighted to have such strong international interest already and such a distinguished panel of judges for the 2021 Hippocrates Prize.

Read more about the judges ... 

2021 International FPM-Hippocrates Open and Health Professional categories
In each category: 1st Prize £1000, 2nd Prize £500, 3rd Prize £250 and up to 20 commendations. Entries were received from 28 countries for these awards in the 2020 Hippocrates Prize.

There are a limited number of free entries for low-income writers for these awards.
Click here for how to apply for a free entry.

2021 Hippocrates Young Poets’ Prize for Poetry and Medicine
Entries for this prize are free.The Young Poets’ Prize is for poets aged 14-18 years from anywhere in the world.  The Young Poets’ Prize is £500. Entries were received from 19 countries for these 2020 Hippocrates Prize awards.

Awards in the Hippocrates Prize are for an unpublished poem in English of up to 50 lines on a medical theme by entrants from anywhere in the world. Previous winners have come from Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, the UK and the USA.

The International Hippocrates Prize is awarded in three categories:

- a £1000 first prize, £500 second prize and £250 third prize in the FPM-Hippocrates Open category, which anyone in the world may enter. There are a further ~20 commendations in the Open category

- a £1000 first prize, £500 second prize and £250 third prize in the FPM-Hippocrates Health Professional category, which is open to Health Service employees, health students and those working in professional organisations anywhere in the world involved in education and training of health professional students and staff. There are a further ~20 commendations in the Health Professional category

- closing date 1st March for the £500 award for the Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for an unpublished poem in English on a medical theme. Entries are open to young poets from anywhere in the world aged 14 to 18 years. There are further commendations in the Young Poets category. There is no entry fee for the Young Poets prize.

The Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine – winner of the 2011 Times Higher Education Award for Innovation and Excellence in the Arts – is an interdisciplinary venture that investigates the synergy between medicine, the arts and health.

Notes for editors
For more on the Hippocrates Prize email hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com 

Support for the 2021 Hippocrates Prize

The 2021 FPM-Hippocrates Open Awards and FPM-Hippocrates Health Professional Awards are supported by the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. The FPM, founded in 1918, is a UK medical society which publishes the international journals the Postgraduate Medical Journal and Health Policy and Technology. 

The 2021 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize is supported by healthy heart charity The Cardiovascular Research Trust founded in 1996, which promotes research and education for the prevention and treatment of disorders of the heart and circulation. The charity has a particular interest in avoiding preventable heart disease through educating school students.

Wednesday 13 January 2021

Health of world leaders: Winston Churchill’s illnesses

Churchill's illnesses ranged from concussion and fractures, to pneumonia, atrial fibrillation and strokes, many occurring at times when his decisions would play a key role in national and world events. 

Clinical Pharmacologist and Toxicologist Allister Vale and Neurologist John Scadding have written the definitive account of Churchill’s major illnesses, from an episode of childhood pneumonia in 1886 until his death in 1965.

The authors will discuss their new book on Winston Churchill’s illnesses (Frontline Books: 15 Oct. 2020) at a free online webinar hosted by Medical Society the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine on 25 January 2021 at 4pm UK time
 

Chair: Professor Donald Singer, President, Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, London, UK

Panel: Authors Professor Allister Vale, Clinical Pharmacologist and Toxicologist, University of Birmingham, UK and Dr John Scadding, Hon. Consultant Neurologist Emeritus, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London; Dr Anthony Daniels, writer and former psychiatrist, Bridgnorth; Dr Adrian Crisp, Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge and Chair of the Churchill Archives Committee at Churchill College; Dr John Launer, General Practitioner and Editorial Board member, Postgraduate Medical Journal.

Amongst questions for discussion are those relating to the impact of his acute and recurrent illnesses – and his tobacco smoking, alcohol and other habits – on his ‘mental capacity’, ability to focus and thus on key decisions during his political life, not least those influencing outcomes in the key theatres of the Second World War, planning for the peace at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, and his final years as Prime Minister. It is tempting for example to speculate that the very treatment aimed at protecting him from illness in Yalta may have instead impaired Churchill's decision-making during that critical conference with fellow leaders and political rivals.

Interesting as a pharmacologist to see notes of adverse drug reactions [from mepacrine to sulfonamides] as a likely cause of some of Churchill's illnesses; and comments on public awareness, and Churchill’s and his wife’s perception of treatments (e.g. with mepacrine or “M & B”) as causes of not feeling very well. The documented idea of “treatment worse than the cure’” must go back at least to inspirations for the Hammurabi Code.

Discussion of Churchill's North African visit touches on a facet of the “VIP syndrome”, from his remarkable efforts to find reasons to avoid medical advice to his eventually conceding to his physician Moran.

Click here for more about the book, the authors and the panel


Monday 30 March 2020

Poems to live for: live webinars from the Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine

To raise spirits in these very troubled times, the Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine is launching a series of live webinars on Poems to live for.

See the Poems to Live for website for details about how to join the sessions by computer/laptop/smartphone or by dialling in by phone.

There will be discussions on poetry. Invited poets around the world will read a poem that seems full of the spirit that's worth living for, and will say why this poem means so much to him/her.  Sessions will also provide updates from the 2020 Hippocrates Prize  and other activities of the Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine.

The organisers also welcome suggestions for poems in English (out of copyright) from contributors from anywhere in the world would like read. Contributors should email suggestions or a link to a reading of a favourite poem (must not your own AND must be out of copyright).
Please email your suggestions or links to a reading to hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com

Programme for the first live session:

Poems to Live for

Session 1Wednesday 8th April 9pm UK time

Introduction
Michael Hulse

Contributors

Michael Hulse, UK, Luz Mar Gonzales, Spain, Geoffrey Lehmann, Australia, Professor John Stein, UK, Lawrence Sail, UK, Donald Singer, UK.


Short-lists announced for the 2020 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine
Open shortlist: announced by judge Geoffrey Lehmann, Australia
Health Professional shortlist announced by judge Professor John Stein, UK
Young poets short list: announced by judge Lawrence Sail, UK


Readers include 

Michael Hulse, UK
Luz Mar Gonzales, Spain

Friday 27 March 2020

European Medicines Agency advises continued use of medicines to treat hypertension, heart failure and kidney disease

27.3.20: Briefing from the European Medicines Agency
EMA reports that it is aware of recent media reports and publications which question whether some medicines, for instance angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs, or sartan medicines), could worsen coronavirus disease (COVID-19). ACE inhibitors and ARBs are most commonly used for treating patients with high blood pressure, heart failure or kidney disease. 
The EMA has providing the following advice from its Public and Stakeholders Engagement Department.
"It is important that patients do not interrupt their treatment with ACE inhibitors or ARBs and there is no need to switch to other medicines. There is currently no evidence from clinical or epidemiological studies that establishes a link between ACE inhibitors or ARBs and the worsening of COVID-19. Experts in the treatment of heart and blood pressure disorders, including the European Society of Cardiology, have already issued statements along those lines. To gather more evidence, EMA is proactively reaching out to researchers working to generate further evidence in epidemiological studies.
As the public health crisis rapidly extends across the globe, scientific research is ongoing to understand how the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) reproduces in the body, interacts with the immune system and causes disease, and whether ongoing treatment with medicines such as ACE-inhibitors and ARBs could impact the prognosis of COVID-19.
The speculation that ACE-inhibitors or ARBs treatment can make infections worse in the context of COVID-19 is not supported by clinical evidence. These medicines work by affecting the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS). Because the virus uses a target called angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), which is part of this system, to enter human cells, and the medicines can increase ACE2, one of the suggestions among others is that they could also increase virus activity. However, the interactions of the virus with the RAAS in the body are complex and not completely understood.
EMA is monitoring the situation closely and is collaborating with stakeholders to coordinate epidemiological studies on the effects of ACE inhibitors and ARBs in people with COVID-19.
EMA is helping to coordinate urgent ongoing research and is fully committed to keep the public up to date with any development in this field. EMA is also aware of reports questioning whether other medicines such as corticosteroids and non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs) could worsen COVID-19, and has recently issued a communication on NSAIDs medicines. It is important that patients who have any questions or are uncertain about their medicines speak to their doctor or pharmacist and do not stop their regular treatment without speaking to their healthcare professional first.
Medicines should be prescribed and used in line with clinical judgement, taking due note of any warnings and other information provided in the summary of product characteristics (SmPC) and thepackage leaflet, as well as guidance issued by the WHO and relevant national and international bodies.
Within the EU medicines regulatory network, evidence on the safe use of medicines is reviewed as it emerges. Any new advice that arises is disseminated appropriately through EMA and national competent authorities.
EMA will provide further information as appropriate.
This information and related content are published here. Please check EMA’s dedicated webpage on COVID-19 for the latest updates."

Wednesday 25 March 2020

New International Awards from the FPM for trusted Medical Writing in Social Media


Medical society the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine is partnering with its journals – Health Policy and Technology and the Postgraduate Medical Journal – to launch international awards for well-informed, clear writing on health matters in social media. 
Patients, members of the public, health professionals and policymakers increasingly use social media as a source for health information and to guide important decisions on choices and actions about prevention and treatment of disease. Where the information is accurate and easy to follow, this can be very helpful. However, we are increasingly at the mercy of a spectrum of unreliability, from incomplete or inaccurate reports, to claims that inconvenient truths are ‘fake news’.

These are not new problems. Sinclair Lewis in his geopolitical satire of 1935 It Can’t Happen Here refers to fake news in the political domain [1]. George Orwell features unreliable reporting by government-controlled media in his dystopian 1984 [2]. However, the geographical reach and speed of spread of reports in current social media and present numerous ways to disseminate ‘alternative facts’ have new global implications for the consequences ofunreliable ‘news’ [3].

Concerns in the health sector include social media posts making spurious health claims for ‘alternative medicines’ and containing misinformation about causes, severity and treatments of disease – from coronaviruses [4] and HIV infection [5] to cancers [6]. A striking example of the serious impact on the public of misinformation is a sustained large increase in vaccine hesitancy for measles and other immunisations since the late 1990s [7]. This arose from a later withdrawn report in the Lancet of a link between autism and measles immunisation [8]. Although findings in the report were judged to be fraudulent, anti-vaccine activists persist in providing misleading information on social media based on this report. Particularly worrying is how difficult it continues to be for international public health authorities to counter this vaccine hesitancy. Immunisation rates against measles remain sub-optimal 22 years after the original flawed report [8]. Social media undoubtedly plays a role here, and its potency is reflected in the fact that just one source is enough to disseminate and propagate untruths [9]. However, this very potency also represents a means to inform and educate patients, members of the public, health professionals and policymakers.

The FPM International Awards for Medical Writing in Social Media are new annual awards for medical graduates from anywhere in the world. To be eligible, an article or blog must be in English and should have been published online between 1st July 2019 and the closing date for the awards: 30th June 2020. There will be up to 5 prizes per year. Each award winner will receive a £100 prize. Award winners will also have winning content published in one of the FPM’s journals, either Health Policy and Technology or the Postgraduate Medical Journal.

For more details and information about how to enter online, see the website for the FPM International Awards for Medical Writing in Social Media.

References
1. Sinclair Lewis. It Can’t Happen Here. 1935, Doubleday, Doran and Company. ISBN 045121658X.
2. George Orwell. Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel.  1949, Secker and Warberg. OCLC 470015866.
3. Launer J. The production of ignorance.  Postgrad Med J 2020 xxxxxx.
4. Frédéric Lemaître. China denounces being placed under quarantine. Le Monde. 4th February 2020.
5. National AIDS Trust. HIV fake news: NAT sets out to tackle misinformation. December 1st, 2017
 www.nat.org.uk/press-release/hiv-fake-news-nat-sets-out-tackle-misinformation Accessed 4th February, 2020.
6. Bessi A, Coletto M, Davidescu GA, et al. Science vs conspiracy: collective narratives in the age of misinformation. PLoS One. 2015;10:118093.
7. Vaccine Hesitancy. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/immunisation-vaccines/vaccine-hesitancy Accessed 29th January 2020.
8. Retracted Lancet 2010;375:445: Wakefield AJ, Murch, SH, Linnell J et al. Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Lancet 1998;351:637-641.
9. Waszakab PM, Kasprzycka-Waszak W, AlicjaKubanek, A. The spread of medical fake news in social media – The pilot quantitative study. Health Policy Technol 2018;7(2):115-118.

COVID-19: Beware of falsified medicines from unregistered websites

25.3.20: News from the European Medicines Agency
The EMA is urging the general public not to buy medicines from unauthorised websites and other vendors aiming to exploit fears and concerns during the ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
Vendors may claim that their products can treat or prevent COVID-19 or may appear to provide easy access to legitimate medicines that are otherwise not readily available. Such products are likely to be falsified medicines.
Falsified medicines are fake medicines that vendors pass off as real or authorised. They may contain the wrong or no active ingredient or the right ingredient in the wrong amount. They may also contain very harmful substances that should not be in medicines. Taking such products can lead to severe health problems or a worsening of your condition.
To protect yourself from fraudulent vendors, only buy medicines from a local pharmacy or retailer or from an online pharmacy that is registered with the national competent authorities. You can find the lists of registered online pharmacies in EU countries via EMA’s website or directly from websites of the national competent authorities.
All registered online pharmacies have a common logo which you can use to confirm that the site is registered. The logo consists of a rectangle with horizontal stripes and a white cross placed in the left half of the rectangle adjacent to the midline. Below this is the flag of the EU country where the online pharmacy is registered.
 
Before buying a medicine from a site, check that the site has the logo and then click on it. You will then be taken to the website of your national authority and shown a list of all legally operating online pharmacies. Check that the online pharmacy you have visited is listed there before continuing with your purchase. If it is not listed, do not buy any medicine from that site.
 
 
Keeping safe when buying medicines
  • Falsified medicines can cause serious harm
  • When buying over the internet, only use registered online pharmacies
  • Check that the online pharmacy you are using has the common logo
  • Click on the logo and confirm that the online pharmacy is listed on the national authority website
  • Do not buy medicines advertised as cures or preventive treatments for COVID-19. To treat COVID-related symptoms such as fever, discuss with your doctor or follow advice from authorities
The public is reminded that there are currently no treatments authorised for COVID-19. Medicines are available for treating symptoms such as fever in line with advice from your doctor or pharmacist.
In the event of a shortage of any medicines, you should follow the advice of your doctor, pharmacist or national competent authority. You can find some information about ongoing shortages on the websites of EMA and the national competent authorities.
This information has been published on our website with related content. Please check EMA’s dedicated webpage on COVID-19 for the latest updates.
You have received this mail because you have registered in the EMA stakeholders database and subscribed to receive this kind of information. However, if you no longer wish to receive such communications from us, please send an email to StakeholdersDB@ema.europa.eu to unsubscribe.
We would be grateful if you could disseminate this email to anyone else who might be interested in this information.

The above release was disseminated by the EMA's Public and Stakeholders Engagement Department
Amsterdam | The Netherlands