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RESEARCH PROJECT
IRENE unveils secret reports about side effects

October 2008 -- Since june 2007 IRENE-reporters worked on investigating pharmaceuticals. Initially at a slow pace because of Wobbing-requests, but since the spring of 2008 with more frequent meetings and further research. The subjects were the secret reports about side-effects, lobbyism in the EU, how patient-organizations can be bought as well on the safety of medicins for ADHD, which use has grown at fast pace in recent years. The research resulted in a series of articles in three European countries. The series is an example of European cooperation, between Brigitte Alfter (Copenhagen), Joop Bouma (Amsterdam) en Marleen Teugels (Brussels) all three reporters of the Investigative Reporters Network Europe. The first Danish, Dutch and Flemish articles of the journalistic experiment were published on 1st and 2nd of October in Denmark (Samvirke), in The Netherlands (Trouw) and in Belgium (Knack). The series received support from the Flemish Pascal Decroos Fund and the Dutch Journalistic Fund for Special Projects.

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EU-law about pills hard to swallow

October 2008 -- The European Commission is preparing plans allowing pharmaceutical companies to inform patients directly about prescription medicines. Until now such practice was prohibited. Health Groups in the Member States are heavily opposing to this business plan of the Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry. Can we expect pill manufacturers to provide objective information? This question opens up a series of articles about the influence of the pharmaceutical industry in Europe .

RESEARCH PROJECT
How safe is your tap water?

Fish with two sexes, lesbian birds, alligators with abnormally small penisses: the effects of so called 'hormone disrupting chemicals' on animals is establihed beyond doubt. But there are also signs that the hormone disruptors can harm the health of humans. And that is an alarming thought, since that the potentially harmfull chemicals appear to be present in... drinking water! They leak from plastic waterpipes. This is discovered in recent research by different European laboratories, gathered by the Investigative Reporters Network Europe (IRENE). Even a normal, daily dose of hormone disrupting chemicals can cause a serious threat to the devopment of sexorgans of male babys. Read articles

RESEARCH PROJECT
The porn connection

Summer 2006 -- The Danish journalists Thomas Sael and Ulrich Dahlin, at that time working for the Danish trade union magazine 3F, were looking for help from Belgium. They were investigating the fate of sex slaves in Denmark - at that moment often coming from Nigeria and Ghana. In Kopenhagen the girls were involved in forced prostitution for wich they often made use of a porn club -Cinerotic - near Kopenhagen station. Strangely the owners of the porn club at that time were also active as top managers in a Belgian financial holding. Thomas Sael and Ulrich Dahlin wanted confirmation of the identity of the owners involved. Brigitte Alfer brought them into contact with Marleen Teugels who could confirm - using financial databanks - the owners of the Danish porn club indeed were the top mananagers of the holding. Read articles

RESEARCH PROJECT
Farm subsidies - where do they go?

In alle westerse landen wordt de landbouw- en voedingssector al decennialang gevoed door een miljardenstroom aan subsidies. Het gaat daarbij om belastinggeld, maar slechts in enkele landen geeft de overheid de cijfers vrij: wie krijgt hoeveel en waarom?

Woensdagavond, 21 september 2005, 22.30 uur. Een koerier van het Nederlandse ministerie van Landbouw in Den Haag levert een pakje af aan het kantoor van de niet-gouvernementele organisatie De Evert Vermeer Stichting in Amsterdam. Het bevat 2 cd-schijfjes met 8 miljoen gegevens. Waaronder: lange lijsten met cijfers en namen van

grote multinationals en van landbouwbedrijven. Een voor een ontvangers uit de grote pot van 1,26 miljard euro Europese landbouwsubsidies die in Nederland worden verdeeld. De informatie kwam niet zomaar vrij. Er gingen verschillende procedures en rechtszaken aan vooraf. Read articles