My Life on this planet.

As Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever has stated, it is essential to support Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression, both to defend Ukraine and to prevent the war from spreading to the rest of Europe. However, at times it seems that Germany has learned little from its own history, as its political arrogance once again risks creating problems for other countries—now including Belgium. As I understand it, the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, publicly announced—without prior consultation with Belgium—that Russia’s frozen assets should be used directly to finance Ukraine’s war effort, rather than limiting support to the interest generated by those assets, as is currently the case. The problem is that these Russian assets are held at Euroclear in Belgium. If Russia were to reclaim its funds in the future, Belgium—not Germany—could be forced to pay and bear the political and financial consequences, including Russia’s anger. Therefore, President Putin should note that...

This article is a follow-up of my previous article to illustrate how the product information of medication is never final but pharmaceutical companies continue to update the information to be sure healthcare professionals and patients can trust that the information is up-to-date and medications are safe to use.  When companies want to make changes or government medicine agencies tell them to do so, companies must submit dossiers to these agencies and pay for the assessment of the suggested changes and after their approval, the updated product information will be published on the website of medicine agencies but also printed in the leaflet that is enclosed in the packaging of the medication. And yes, civil servants working at those agencies declare each year that they have no conflicts of interest and thus are independent from the companies to work in the interest of society.   Codeine can be taken as example of what happens after medications receive their authorisation...

The anti-science and anti-companies or, more general anti-establishment movements continue to grow and not only in the USA when you see on social media the growing numbers of conspiracy theories that question e.g. pharmaceutical companies but even doctors and nurses . Yes, it is correct that some (people working in) pharmaceutical companies think more about profits than about helping people, or at least that impression we have. But the majority in those companies are people who want to help people to reach an old age in good health.  Pharmaceutical companies as friends People claim that pharmaceutical companies should be more open and even question whether patents should exist while patents earn companies money that they invested in past research but also will invest in future research while they have to pay their legal obligations and their employees and investors ( this article  projects what pharmaceutical companies may earn from the Covid-19 vaccines while I am not naive...

How I think the world community can help each other to create a better world that is affordable and benefits everyone. For instance, when climate change hits a region or country, other regions and countries that are not hit can help with contribution of food and drinks, showing that respect for farmers and their work is important. In summary, solidarity is important in times of crises. But first why I defend Greta Thunberg's speech at the UN and afterwards. Indeed, over the past weeks (see here and here ) and even years ago I wrote, after reading climate scientists' warnings, we should take climate change serious and act to prevent the worse possible scenarios. It may not only concern loss of ice at the arctics and glaciers and thus rising sea levels (as Venice, Italy  and Jakarta, Indonesia experiences) or fires due to extreme hot and dry weather (as Australia  and Russia experiences) but may even result in a different distribution of weights in the world and as a res...