International

Almost 14 million people suffer from fybromyalgia within the EU. Fybromalgia brings with it chronic pain which can ruin your entire life. Yet neither the European Commission nor the Council of Ministers recognises the condition. A group of Euro-MPs is collecting signatures for a petition demanding that something be done about this.

Written Declaration

Patients suffering from fybromyalgia are barraging the European Parliament's Members with emails asking them to sign the Written Declaration calling on the European Commission and the Council of ministers to recognise the illness. More information on the disorder must be made available and its diagnosis and treatment must be better regulated, the Written Declaration states. The SP is in complete agreement with this position.

Chronic

Fibromyalgia occurs in women under sixty. They experience chronic pain, muscular stiffness, extreme tiredness, nervous tension and migraine-like headaches. Over the last few months, the SP has received a number of communications from sufferers.

SP Euro-MP Kartika Liotard, a member of the European Parliament Committee on Public Health, has made sure that everyone who has written has received a reply. "I wish to inform you that I have now signed the Written Declaration," she has told them. Such written declarations arrive by the dozen, and the SP is sparing in its signing of them. "I only sign if it will really contribute," wrote Liotard in reply to one petitioner. "In my opinion this is the case here. I want therefore to thank you sincerely for having thought of me."

Erik Meijer, the other half of the SP's team of Euro-MPs, has also signed.