is theAICE (Italian Association against Epilepsy) to address the Minister of Health, the Presidents of all the Regions and other authoritative institutional figures - as well as the industrial and professional representatives of the sector - to denounce what is considered as a «severe attack to the right to health and continuity of care for people with epilepsy», with reference to that article 15, paragraph 11 bis of the so-called Decree on Spending Review (Decree Law 95/12, Urgent provisions for the revision of public expenditure with unchanged services to citizens (as well as measures to strengthen the capital of banking sector companies), converted into the Law 135/12), where new rules are defined for drug prescriptions.
«With this note of ours – reads the AICE press release – we report the innumerable protests of people with epilepsy and their families, relating to theexpensive purchase of medicines containing Levetiracetam And Topiramate. In fact, after the recent provisions on healthcare spending, when many people go to buy drugs containing these substances, which stop their crises and the cost of which was previously exempt, if they don't agree to buy the equivalent - and also the risk of the crises returning - they have to pay between 50 and 100 euros. And for those who have to take these drugs daily and for life, this is it devastating".
«For those who have achieved seizure control – the press release continues – changing the drug is one thing unjustified violencewhether it's branded or generic. Equivalence between drugs, moreover, is not found even between generics themselves and the cost review cannot correspond to a cancellation of constitutional rights ».
The AICE, therefore, while supporting the principle that the start of the therapy should take place with lower cost drugs for the
