NKF hits back at The Independent Newspaper

On Wednesday 1st October The Independent Newspaper carried a front page story written by Jeremy Laurence (Health Editor) alleging that “The Rising tide of protest over the refusal by the NHS to provide expensive drugs for cancer and other conditions is being funded by the pharmaceutical industry”. The National Kidney Federation was listed with other charities as taking money from Pharmaceutical companies in order to mount campaigns on their behalf.

The National Kidney Federation refutes these accusations in their entirety and issued this statement immediately :-

“Charities that represent patients have only the interest of their patients at heart. It is not for them to determine the cost of drugs – that is a matter between drug companies and the Government. It is however of critical concern to patient charities where drugs are denied, and when that happens they will fight such decisions with every ounce of strength they can muster.

The fact that drug companies sometimes support patient charities out of their profits is a good thing. Tying these two matters together in the way that the Independent article has done is to totally misrepresent and misunderstand the situation. We say again, loudly and clearly, the fact that Pharmaceuticals choose to support the work of patient charities is a positive benefit, and the receiving charity would never allow such sponsorship to influence the way in which it chooses to represent its patients interests. We are unaware of any attempt by any Pharmaceutical company to ever try and influence charity policy.”

The Federation then undertook a number of interviews re-iterating these points.

Listen to an interview with Timothy Statham (NKF Chief Executive) conducted by Adrian Goldberg on Talksport transmitted at 1.30am on Thursday 2nd October 2008.

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Page created: 2 October 2008

Last updated: 2 October 2008

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