#vwn — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #vwn, aggregated by home.social.
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Context:
Recently, the Dutch health inspectorate fined several media (such as newspapers and magazines) for their reporting on diabetes drugs that can also be used for weight loss (such as semaglutides and liraglutides). Dutch law (based on an EU directive) explicitly forbids any advertisements for pharmaceutical drugs – including media stories.
(For a translated public news item about this, see: https://nos-nl.translate.goog/artikel/2627340-kranten-en-tijdschrift-krijgen-boetes-voor-berichtgeving-over-afslankmedicijnen?_x_tr_sl=nl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=nl&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=true.)The agency (known as the IGJ), reasons that journalists are not exempt from that any collection of overly positive statements about a certain pharmaceutical can also be seen as encouragement for buying certain products. According to their interpretation of the law, it does not matter whether a journalist is using principles from journalism and independent sources: any broad encouragement can be fined.
In Switzerland (not a member of the EU, but closely aligned legally) a similar case played: the Neue Zürchner Zeitung was fined by the national authority for a similar reason.
This sparked confusion among journalists: what are they allowed to write about, and what are they not? Some of these cases have been taken to court – so far without success. Judges will have to weigh in on the right to inform the public and fuel the debate about certain products, versus promoting pharmaceutical products. And what impact does press freedom have on how journalists are bound by the law?
Is this a precedent? How will journalists in the Netherlands and Switzerland go forward? How does this case compare to other EU countries? In this webinar, organized by the European Federation for Science Journalism (EFSJ), we will explore these questions in a panel.
Setup: webinar and panel.
Connexion :
Tuesday 22 September 2026, 12:00-13:00 CEST
The webinar is free and no registration is required.
Moderator: Jop de Vrieze, science journalist
Experts:
- Ellen de Visser, Science Journalist, de Volkskrant
- Lucas Brouwers, Associate Editor-in-chief, NRC
- Gertie Lintjens, Lawyer in Life Sciences, CMS Law
- Simon Jakob, Senior Legal Counsel Neue Zürchner Zeitung