The proposed bill "is a strong sign of the times," says De Volksrant in a leader article. It notes that this is "a pressing social issue," even if the project has "no chance" of success. Members of government and the Christian-Democrats are "at the heart of power and impede all debate" on the issue, and "to keep the peace, the conservative VVD does not want this hot potato". The end result is that "while the issue is discussed in the society at large, the political discussion is frozen," the paper says.

The paper explains that Swiss billionaire Stephan Schmidheiny, 64, and Belgian Baron Louis De Cartier De Marchienne, 90, were accused of not respecting safety measures, although aware of the dangers caused by asbestos, in their Casale Monferrato plant, located in northwest Italy. The plant produced construction panels made with asbestos fibres in the 1960-70s. Asbestos was banned in Europe in 1986 but production continued elsewhere.

Nearly 3,000 cases of asbestosis and of mesothelioma (a form of lung cancer) were recorded among the workers and the population and 1,830 people have died to date. This was the most significant trial ever organised concerning asbestos contamination and the first heard by a criminal court, stresses La Stampa. Editor-in chief, Mario Calabresi says the convictions -

... are the recognition of one of the most courageous and tenacious battles for truth and justice ever attempted in Italy. A battle thanks to which it was shown that, for years, [asbestos] production continued in spite of evidence of risk to an entire community. Now no one will be able to claim ignorance or manipulation. [But the decision] does not put an end to the story nor does it file this massacre away for good. Today there are at least 50 new cases of mesothelioma in the region, twice as many as ten years ago.

The Bratislava daily describes “the chaos of services without doctors, cancelled operations, and anxious patients” in most Slovak hospitals. The situation remains critical despite the state of emergency declared in 16 hospitals by the government on November 29, which forces the doctors who resigned to work on at 70 percent of their salary.

Slovakia is not the only one facing this problem. In early 2011, the Czech government had to find a compromise with the 4,000 doctors who had joined in the movement “Thank you, we’re leaving.” In Hungary, the doctors’ union has threatened to strike if their wage demands aren’t settled by 8 December.

On 30 November, Iveta Radičová, the outgoing prime minister, however, officially requested assistance from the neighbouring countries of the Visegrad Group (Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland). But help is hard to find. At present, notes Lidové noviny, “the Czech army can send no more than thirty doctors to Slovakia.”

“So where to find the money to increase the wages in the public hospitals?” asks SME. “In hospitals, the money that could be used to increase salaries is vanishing. It’s the doctors who know the most about pharmaceutical abuse, unnecessary services or purchases of equipment that’s too expensive, and they should be talking about that.”

The doctors are also demanding pay increases to raise their salaries to between 2,000 and 4,000 euros per month, and more public money for the health sector. “They are not content with promises, they want guarantees”, notes Pravda. The reform project will be the subject of an extraordinary debate in parliament, which has been scheduled for 11 November, on the initiative of Robert Fico’s SMER opposition party which, according to the Slovak Spectator, wants the reform to be definitively dropped.

"With the aggravation of the economic crisis, we are faced with the symptoms of a more serious problem," says Veizis in the interview. "Today, retirees, the unemployed, the homeless, those infected with HIV or tuberculosis are also deprived of coverage," he adds. "We've noted that the budgets of certain types of care, including public aid and the treatment of certain types of diseases are slashed by cuts of up to 80%," Veizis says, denouncing the acute shortages of medical supplies, of medicine and of blood supplies. In addition, adds EUobserver, major pharmaceutical firms are refusing to deliver to certain hospitals for fear of not being paid.

The Daily Telegraph singles out the fact that women are more than two-and-a-half times more likely than men to suffer from depression, “with most cases occurring during the "reproductive years" between the ages of 16 and 42.” According to the report, “The burden of trying to look after children, take responsibility for the family and hold down a job has seen rates of depression in women double since the 1970s.” While depression (30.3m overall) and anxiety (69.1m overall) seem to be disproportionately female ailments, men are more likely to become alcoholics (14.6m overall), particularly in eastern Europe.

For writer and novelist Lisa Appignanesi in the Guardian, such “worrying” reports “may draw attention to a rising toll of human suffering, but they pinpoint the imperialising tendency of the mental health sector.” Striking a sceptical note, she writes that the psychiatric professions have “spawned more and more diagnostic categories "inventing" disorders along the way and radically reducing the range of what can be construed as normal or sane. Meanwhile Big Pharma, feeding its appetite for profits and ours for drugs, has gained an ever greater hold over our mental and emotional lives, medicalising normality.”

Another "bizarre" fact highlighted by the statistics is that 84% of euthanasia cases are reported in Flemish, "which indicates that Francophone doctors are 'declaring' fewer cases or are less likely to 'practice' euthanasia." The state monitoring agency is reluctant to draw conclusions, but wonders about the impact of "information made available to the public and doctors, as well as socio-cultural differences, and differences in medical care for the terminally ill."

As Vanity Fair explains, delocalization has enabled drug companies to take advantage of conditions that are less strict and less expensive when conducting clinical trials which will “help persuade the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to declare the drugs safe and effective for Americans.” In 2008, 80 percent of products submitted for approval to the FDA were tested outside the United States: in all 58,788 trials, of which 876 were conducted in Romania, 589 in Ukraine and 716 in Turkey. Estonia, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Croatia are also considered to be good locations for off-shore trials.

The lack of proper regulatory framework has meant that many of these trials have proved to be deadly. The magazine sites the example of a flu-vaccine trial  conducted in a hostel for the homeless in Grudziadz, Poland. The subjects, who were paid two dollars for participating in the programme, “thought they were getting a regular flu shot. They were not. At least 20 of them died.”