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6 April 2023

Hi, and welcome to the latest news and tools produced by EDJNet!

This week we present two stories from a new investigation coordinated by MIIR into the causes of the recent surge in drug shortages in Europe. Although this phenomenon has grabbed most of the headlines during the pandemic, the energy crisis and the start of the war in Ukraine, it is by no means new, nor is it dependent on these events alone.

Also, we have follow-up stories to our investigations on femicides in Europe and the plastics promises European food & drink companies do not keep.

Enjoy the reading!

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New investigation

Why Europe is running out of medicines, again

In the past 20 years, there has been a 20-fold increase in recorded drug shortages in Europe. Governments have recently used the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis to cover up the real – far more structural – reasons behind them.

As there isn't yet a single database recording drug shortages at the European level, MIIR and seven other EDJNet partners have created one, recording 22,107 entries from 9 countries over a 5 year period.

  • Between 2018 and 2023, Italy registered the most shortages for human medicines (10,843), quite far from the 2nd, Czechia (2,699), and the 3rd, Germany (2,355). Greece (389) was the country with the fewest shortages.
  • The indicator that best describes the situation in each country, however, is the duration of a shortage: Greece has the longest median duration of shortages (130 days), followed by Germany (120 days) and Belgium (103 days).

Read the full article >

Related story

Parallel exports and the problem with Greek drug shortage statistics

Kostas Zafeiropoulos, Nikos Morfonios, Janine Louloudi, Corina Petridi | MIIR

In Greece, medicine shortages are severely under-reported by the responsible government body. Meanwhile, the illegal export of medicines is a key part of the problem.

Stories

Femicides in Europe

The undeclared war on women in Europe: Trapped in the maze of domestic violence

Janine Louloudi, Nikos Morfonios, Kostas Zafeiropoulos, Thanasis Troboukis, Corina Petridi | MIIR

The story of Eleni, who went through a nightmare at the hands of her self-appointed "partner", highlights the institutional gap in support for victims in Greece. What happens to women in Greece when they seek a way out of the abusive environment in which they are trapped?

The undeclared war on women in Europe: A systemic failure to prevent femicides

Janine Louloudi, Nikos Morfonios, Kostas Zafeiropoulos, Thanasis Troboukis, Corina Petridi | MIIR

Is there anything more that authorities can do to protect women?

Broken plastics promises

Slovenia and the EU have a problem with plastic waste

Neja Berger, Taja Topolovec, Metod Blejec, Nina Hlebec, Hana Radilovič | Pod črto

As plastic waste increases in Slovenia, the European Union, and the world, so do the difficulties in disposing of and recycling it.

Slovenia spends millions of taxpayers' money to dispose of uncollected waste

Neja Berger, Taja Topolovec, Metod Blejec, Nina Hlebec, Hana Radilovič | Pod črto

The disorderly system of handling packaging waste in Slovenia is creating high additional costs and causing significant environmental damage.

Plastic bottles: the stalled dream of recycling and reuse

Bénédicte Weiss | Alternatives Economiques

Half as many bottles are set to be used in Europe by 2030, and all single-use packaging and plastics should be gone by 2040. But the targets that the food giants have set themselves are constantly being pushed back.

All our content can be freely republished or reused. Some of it is available in Croatian, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, and Romanian. Interested? Write to us!

Tools and tips

3 tips for the production of engaging podcasts

Pod črto suggests low-budget ideas for taking your podcast listeners with you into the heart of data stories that analyze complex issues.

Read the article >

From the data journalism community

 Fellowship  The Europe-Ukraine Desk
N-ost launched “The Europe-Ukraine Desk”, a new project which aims to foster exchange and cross-border collaboration between journalists from Ukraine and Bulgaria, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Spain. The project consists of fellowship programmes, a grant programme for the development of joint publications, and a weekly newsletter summarising current discussions about Ukraine.
👉 Deadline: 9 April 2023. More information here.

You are free to reuse and republish all the content available on EDJNet. If you’d like to know more, check our terms of use or contact us (info@europeandatajournalism.eu).

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